Choosing and ISP - Options regarding Bandwidth

[Samantha_21]

Hi,

I'm going with a new ISP and I'm confused now that I have a little more choice. I've always gone with the big dealers (Here in Ontario, Canada - Bell, Cogeco). But now I've discovered these "distributors" of DSL.

FYI - I use the internet for the following things:
1. Email
2. Surfing
3. Small home business, I run a free website and I have to put orders in online (It's Avon, nothing fancy)
4. Downloading - Music, Games, Software etc.

No networking, no sharing

These companies have lots of options, could someone please help me out with the following terms:

1. Download/Upload CAPs ? Does it really matter? I'm not even sure what the means....how that translates to my daily internet use? ie: Personal DSL with 20Gig of Bandwidth, Other ones are for 100Gig of bandwidth. Is that for the month?

Thanks a lot, I hope it's not too confusing.

[liam858]

Caps are there to show how much usage you are getting for the monthly charge, it is usually something i avoid, but if you are not a heavy user then it may be okay for you, as they will either charge you for the overflow (If you go above the cap on amount of data down/uploaded in the month) or they may deny you access, the latter isn't that common though as far as i know.

What is the speed of the connection offered, as that would be easier to translate into data sent and received over the month??

Liam

[Samantha_21]

This is the descripton of one I am considering:

Up to 3.0 Mbps Download Speed
Up to 800 kbps Upload Speed
100GB of high speed traffic
5 Email Accounts
Email Virus and SPAM protection
Dynamic IP Address
Free Web Hosting 50 MB Personal Web Space

[liam858]

So 3mb/sec down, and a 100gb monthly cap?

Not too bad, my ISP offers 10mb with a 75gb cap, so it could be a lot worse.


Liam

[Samantha_21]

10mb/sec?

[liam858]

Yep, for £35 a month.


Liam

[Samantha_21]

*Keels over in dis-belief*
The fastest that is offered here is 5mb/sec...but were always behind the times I guess.

Thanks again for the help :)

[Train]

I would definately find out what the penalty is for going over the monthly limit.
Both for your access and the website.

I have seen posts of the damage that can do to the pocketbook.

[Samantha_21]

Good to keep in mind, I think I'm going to find one that either 100gig or unlimited. The price difference seems to be about $3 CND, and they charge $3CND for an extra 20gig a month....
Now I have to choose I provider, and figure out a modem. Most don't rent, just buy, but perhaps I could buy my own...

I heard somewhere that there are 2 "types" of dsl (sorry if that's incorrect) like 8(something) and there are 2 types of modems?
anyone have more information on that? thanks :)

[Tuttle]

ADSL has three common variants called ADSL, ADSL2 and ADSL2+ with maximum download speeds (if you're right next to the exchange) of 8 Mbps, 12 Mbps and 24 Mbps respectively. Maximum upload is about 1 Mbps in each case. Modems are generally ADSL or ADSL2+ (ADSL2 wasn't current long enough for there to be much which supports it but not 2+). Equipment is backwards-compatible, so an ADSL2+ modem will work fine on an ADSL service, and an ADSL modem will work fine on an ADSL2+ service (but at a maximum of 8 Mbps). Of course, many ISPs impose their own artificial speed limitations as well as the distance-related issues.

There are other DSL variants including ADSL2+ Annex M, SHDSL, VDSL etc, but you're unlikely to come across any of those residentially.

[SpywareDr]

FWIW, here are few more DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) technologies (sometimes called xDSL): HDSL - High-bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line
The earliest variation of DSL. HDSL is symmetrical (equal bandwidth in both directions).


SDSL - Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line
A standardised version of HDSL


ADSL - Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
A version of DSL with a slower upload speed


RADSL - Rate-Adaptive Digital Subscriber Line
Adjusts upstream speed in an attempt to maintain a certain downstream speed


VDSL - Very-high-bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line
Up to a theoretical limit of 52 Mbit/s downstream and 12 Mbit/s upstream


VDSL2 - Very-high-bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line 2
An improved version of VDSL


G.SHDSL - G. Symmetric High-speed Digital Subscriber Line
A standardised replacement for early proprietary SDSL by the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector


PDSL - Powerline Digital Subscriber Line
A high speed powerline communications solution which modulates high speed data onto existing electricity distribution infrastructure

[Samantha_21]

Thanks Tuttle,
The company I was looking at is ADSL.

[Welshjim]

Gasp. Monthly caps on downloads? We do not seem to have that in the US. Just limits on the actual download and upload speed depending on what you pay.
Do the download caps apply to surfing or only actual file downloads to harddrive?

[fink]

We have caps here in Canada unfortunately. They're in place to save the ISPs money. Almost all now have them. If they have a customer who abuses what commonly used to be a "no caps" policy by doing a lot of P2P downloading (Bitorrent, Kazaa etc) then they can charge them or kick them off. Happens more often than you'd think. Caps started 2 or 3 years ago just after P2P started getting very popular.

Most ISPs don't worry about anything less than 30Gigs/month but many set that as a limit and some use 100Gigs as a limit but charge a bit more for it.

I spend a lot of time online but don't use any P2P programs (I do some usenet/newsgroup downloading, maybe 1-2Gigs/month tops) and I've never gone over 20Gigs/month in 6 years of hispeed access. A typical person just occasionally surfing, using email and reading news, listening to some streaming radio etc would probably not go over 10Gigs/month.

The only question mark is how many people will visit your site and download files from it. If it's just a dozen or two per month and you don't offer a lot of really large files to download then 20 or 30Gigs would probably never get reached but if you have hundreds of people visiting and revisiting on a regular basis then it's concievable that 100Gigs might. That's assuming the website is part of the new ISP package. If it's not and it's hosted elsewhere then obviously the visits don't count. I'd be shocked if you went over 10-12 Gigs/month from what you describe.

www.dslreports.com (http://www.dslreports.com/) has reviews of almost every highspeed ISP in Canada.. worth looking at. Here's the review page...

http://www.dslreports.com/isplist?c=CAN

[Tuttle]

Gasp. Monthly caps on downloads? We do not seem to have that in the US. Just limits on the actual download and upload speed depending on what you pay.
Do the download caps apply to surfing or only actual file downloads to harddrive?All traffic. The decent ISPs will only meter your download traffic (uploads are free), and the dodgy ones will charge in both directions.

[Welshjim]

Just updating Norton, Windows Update, AdAware, etc, would involve over 500MB per month.

[SuperSparks]

Just updating Norton, Windows Update, AdAware, etc, would involve over 500MB per month.

Quite so, and there are some ISPs over here with 2GB caps :eek:

But as long as you stay away fropm P2P, 30GB is really quite adequate, as Fink says. Apparently my heaviest month in the last year was under 12GB, and that includes downloads of Vista betas.

[Byan]

wow, well, I'm glad the US doesn't have any of this...
although, I think I'd settle for broadband with any limit if I could actually get broadband instead of being stuck with dial-up...

[Samantha_21]

After shopping around (and coming across some very unhelpful ppl) I've decided to go with a provider called Velcom. They do have a CAP of 100gigs, but they'll warn you when you get close. They offer all sorts of bells and whistles, email accounts, websites, etc. The biggest selling points for this one were
1. No contract
2. 29.95 a month
3. Rent to own modem 40 up front, 10 for 6 months (actually it's 50 upfront, 40+ 1st month)
4. No connection fees
5. 24/7 live person tech help (and they'll support my wireless router and setup on the laptop - those of you familer with Bell or Cogeco know the help stops at the router)
They didn't include any free dial-up with the service, but they said if the DSL goes down, they will give me free "emergency" dial up, I just have to call and they can set it up in a matter of minutes.
This was a big selling factor since I do Avon at home and I submit my orders online, if I miss the deadline I miss the truck and the shipment comes a week later! They also have a local access number for me to call.

I just hope the service is good! :cool:

Thanks to everyone for all the help, it was great!

[SuperSparks]

You should be very happy with that, as long as they are reliable. Believe me you've got to do some very serious downloading to get anywhere close to 100GB per month.

[Samantha_21]

Thanks Nick, Yes, I hope the service is good.

I figured that I would have to do some serious downloading to max out. I used to do a lot of P2P, but not so much anymore. I can't really be bothered to do all the searching.

I'm going to try these guys for a month and see what happens.