subject: Is Your Broadband Too Fast? [print this page] Of all the problems that people have with their home internet connections 'too fast' certainly isn't in the top 10.
Actually, scratch that, it wouldn't be in the top 100. However, according to some researchers having broadband that is too fast for your needs could be a problem because it could mean that you're considerably overpaying for your broadband deal.
According to the researchers, although most people now have broadband that's advertised as 'up to 20Mb' most would be better of with 'up to 8Mb' and, if they all switched down a notch when it came to their broadband speeds, they'd save around 700 million a year.
The researcher say that the average prices of an up to 20Mb broadband connection is 76.33 more expensive than slightly slower broadband deals.
So how do you know if your broadband is too fast?
Well, it all depends on how you usually use the internet - low bandwidth activities don't really need high speeds but activities that require a lot of bandwidth require greater speeds.
When the researchers asked people for how they most frequently used the internet 77% answered with checking their emails, 74% said general browsing of webpages and 51% said they used it to do their banking online. These are all low bandwidth ways to use the internet and a computer too as many a samsung r530 review has pointed out.
Many fewer of the people asked by the survey said they primarily used the internet for high bandwidth activities.
This might indicate that not only do people not need as high speeds as they have currently they might be as well served by smaller download allowances - such as that offered 3 Mobile Broadband 15GB - than was previously thought.
Either way, the broadband deals are likely to be much faster than is required.
However, there are some problems with this.
First, it assumes that consumers are actually getting the broadband speeds that are advertised to them which hardly seems to be the case.
Second, you might only watch tv online once a week but that doesn't mean that you want it to be in poor quality: that's like saying you only need a car that does up to 20 Miles an hour because that's the speed you travel at most often.
Whatever the problems with the research, anecdotally it seems to be the case that many, many people in the UK misunderstand their broadband deals and end up overpaying as a result.
Much of broadband advertising is based on speeds despite the fact that the infrastructure is not set up to deliver the top speeds that advertisers are touting and often way under delivers even when it comes to average speeds.
