06/13/2022
DON'T BE SOLD A SPEED YOU DON'T NEED!
With the rollout of ‘Fiber to the Home’ internet from major carriers becoming more and more prevalent these days, their marketing and sales machines has gone into high gear to sign up as many people as possible with the promises of ‘Lightning fast’ and ‘Gigabit plus’ speeds.
What does that mean for 99% of Canadians? Not much.
Make no mistake, Gigabit speeds are an incredible feat, given that when this company started in 2008 the fastest available DSL speed was 5Mbps and cable wasn’t even on the radar for us yet. But as usual, technology has outpaced what the average consumer actually needs for day to day use almost 10 fold. No matter what your gamer kids may tell you, the average online game requires only 3 to 4Mbps of bandwidth to function properly; with the biggest needing no more than 10Mbps and that's being generous.
Is more better? Well yes, some overhead is better so that others can use the connection at the same time without causing any issues with the connection for anyone. We have a large number of customers on 40Mbps connections with 3 gamers in the house and have no problems whatsoever.
You may have switched to Netfox or another smaller ISP because you were tired of the constant price increases and poor support from the big telco companies. Remember why you made that change now.
One of these big companies is currently pushing their fiber to the home product offering Gigabit speeds or better for what they call an 'incredible introductory rate'. How great is that! 10 or 20 times the speed you have now and only for an extra $30 or $40 a month and the savings are guaranteed forever! But let’s break that down…..
- The discount you’re receiving is a dollar amount per month off the regular price. So if they’re saying you’re saving $50 a month and that discount is guaranteed forever, remember they reserve the right to increase the underlying price of the product you have at any time; and they will, frequently. So before you know it, you’re paying more and more for the same thing
- If you were visited by a door to door sales team, remember these representatives are from a third party company and get a commission for a simple YES and they will promise you anything to get you to do so. There are no repercussions for them lying to you to, and you’re still stuck in a contract. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grU3esNMntU&ab_channel=CBCNews
Yeah but GIGABIT SPEEDS! THAT’S SUPER FAST!!
Liken this to buying a supercar that can go 300 miles per hour. Sure it can go amazingly fast but you can’t actually go that speed without losing your licence and likely your car as well. So 99% of the time you go the speed limit and maybe 1% of the time you can let loose and impress your friends. But otherwise the value of it is wasted aside from bragging rights. Look at a Gigabit internet connection in the same light. Sure it’s fast, but you will NEVER be able to come close to maxing it out at any point, even with 50 users at once. Your internet gaming will not improve, Candy Crush will not run any differently, and the amount of money in your bank account certainly won’t improve.
One of our employees here at Netfox recently signed up for the new Fiber product rolling out in town here so he could test it out. His determination on the difference between his 60Mbps cable connection and a 1.5 Gigabit fiber connection? For online gaming, no difference. For day to day web surfing, no difference. Latency, slight improvement but nothing spectacular. The only place he saw a difference was downloading large files which did go quicker. But large downloads are not a big part of his day to day routine nor is it for most households.
Do some people need a Gigabit connection? Sure I suppose an argument can be made. But for the typical family of 4 with one or two gamers and a few people watching Netflix streams you can get by with a LOT less than that.
The team at Netfox makes sure you're getting and paying for only the speeds you need, with Canadian based support. Contact us today and see what kind of difference we can make!
The need for good internet, steady streaming, and a reliable phone connection are essentials of every household. At NetFox, we understand the need for affordable yet reliable internet, TV, and phone services. That is exactly what we offer to our clients. High-speed internet has slowly but surely tra...
