 The resultant situation is one where speeds have seen a significant increase at the same time as users are finding more things to do online; meanwhile the cost of additional bandwidth (capacity) has remained largely stagnant. For ISP’s this leaves a choice:
Industry prices have to remain low in order for any provider to stay competitive, thus while some new capacity will be purchased, many others balance a mix of options 2 and 3. The result is an increasingly slow broadband service, but there are additional factors too. Mitigating Factors ISP’s would love to blame everything on the cost of bandwidth and they’d be at least partly right to do so, but there are other reasons as to why broadband can suddenly start travelling in the slow lane. These are: Misleading adverts & vague usage policies Far too many providers continue to promote their broadband packages as “unlimited” products, which often couple to a vague Fair Usage Policy (FUP). Provided you can actually find the FUP in the first place then chances are that reading it will bring up more questions than answers.  This often misleading approach can leave consumers with an impression of being able to use the Internet as much as they want, yet in reality the service is more likely to degrade either naturally or by intention of the provider. Technical issues & line interference Let’s not forget that the further you live from your exchange the worse interference will be, a factor that is especially important with “Rate Adaptive” DSL (ADSL) technology. This is why only those living right next door to their exchange and ISP will ever be able to achieve the top ‘headline’ speed (e.g. 8Mbps) of a service, provided the ISP has capacity of course. [Next Page (4)]>>
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