Can you imagine life today without access to the global network? Connecting to the internet has become as commonplace as water or electricity. Interestingly, despite the developed infrastructure, there are still places where it is difficult to get a good connection. In addition, the long term of the contracts makes it impossible to quickly and frequently change suppliers. This is why finding a good supplier is important.
What are the possibilities?
First you need to look at the local ISP market. Better to ask the neighbors. What services do they use, do they know about the offers of competitors. In apartment buildings, you can find junction boxes of a specific provider Kiev... In the case of private homes, it may be tempting to look around for the same switches, although they will be more difficult to find. Many suppliers run cables through poles and the switchgear is buried underground.
Another way is to search for offers on the Internet. On the websites of providers, we often find a form in which we can check if a connection is possible at our address.
Which supplier is the best?
Leading service providers have a very extensive infrastructure, but due to the large number of recipients, administration and maintenance of such a network is not easy. Such an operator is not always able to provide a high level of service. Telecommunications jobs are truly thankless.
The situation with regional suppliers is slightly better. They operate in smaller areas, have "closer contact" with customers, and are able to deliver more reliable services. The network infrastructure can also be well developed.
Internet connection parameters
The parameters determine which supplier to choose. To begin with, let's take only those that are strictly related to the Internet connection, and in the next section, we will consider contracts and technical issues.
Connection speed
Everyone has heard about the conditions of the inbound and outbound speed. These are the two main parameters that determine internet speed. The first determines how quickly we can upload information, and the second determines how quickly we can send it. For standard users, downloading is of utmost importance as we, as recipients of content, primarily download data, not send it. When we want to open a site, we send only a tiny text to ask about the Internet resource of interest to us, and the server sends us ready-made files.
Who is loading important for? For people who upload large amounts of data to the web. Most often they are streamers and youtubers - people who work with video materials.
Optimum speed
So how fast should the internet be today? You will need at least 10 Mbps to view regular web pages. Worse with multimedia. Netflix currently recommends that you need at least 5 Mbps to watch HD content, and 25 Mbps for FullHD (the most popular resolution). The easiest way to check your internet speed is by using popular "tests".
Games require fast connectivity due to digital distribution and the amount of updates that developers feed players. Current titles and their updates can weigh several tens, if not hundreds, of GB.
Megabits vs megabytes
If your tariff has a speed of 25 Mbps, and the video you want to download weighs 800 Mb, this does not mean that it will be downloaded in 32 seconds. Pay particular attention to the size of the letter B. The connection speed is in megabits per second and the file size is in megabytes. According to the rules of the binary system, 1 byte consists of 8 bits. So if you have a 25 Mbps plan, you actually have 3 Mbps.
Public IP address
A public IP address is required to set up a server that provides some services (website, multiplayer game server). Having a simple (personal) IP address, we are invisible on the Internet, and therefore other Internet users cannot connect to us directly. For home use, this option is completely unnecessary.
Monthly data limit
This setting only applies to mobile internet offerings from mobile operators. You can find more detailed information on the selection of mobile Internet offers on the net.
Subscription agreement and connection
Connection cost - simply put, the owners of private houses are not in the best position here. No ISP connects your home to the network for free. The cost of such a procedure is high, which is disadvantageous for the supplier.
In the case of apartment buildings, the situation is the opposite. Suppliers will be happy to bring their communications there, because later, with a slight expansion of the infrastructure inside the building, they can easily connect several dozen apartments, which will quickly recoup the investment.