Do you talk internet?

January 29, 2020

We all know what the internet is, but we don’t all know how it works. For most of us, it doesn’t matter, as long as we can get online. When looking for connectivity that best suits your home or business, it’s important to understand all the lingo. 

There’s a lot more than your line speed that determines how fast your connectivity is. Internet traffic is a lot like regular traffic, so with this image in mind let’s make sense of the jargon. After reading through this you’ll be able to order your fibre with confidence. 

Throttling

This is when all your traffic is equally slowed down. An ISP will usually do this when the network is under strain and there is an unusually high amount of traffic on your line or if you’ve exceeded your fair usage policy (FUP) limits.  

You can think of it as having a stricter speed limit imposed on a highway. 

Shaping

This refers to different speed limits on different types of traffic (video, email, downloads, torrents etc.). An ISP would usually do this to ensure that everyone on the network has a great experience by ensuring that more pertinent things like video chats and VoIP calls are prioritised when bandwidth is limited.  

This would be the equivalent to having different lanes for different types of vehicles, each with their own speed limit.

Contention Ratio

This is the number of users sharing the same network capacity. The lower the contention ratio the higher the quality of service. A 10:1 contention ratio means that up to 10 broadband customers are sharing the same bandwidth at any one time. If a line is uncontended, it means that there is nobody else on that line. 

Think of it as the number of lanes available to the traffic on the road – the more cars there are in each lane, the slower traffic moves. 

 

At RSAWEB, we strive to always get the best possible speed with our fibre packages. With over 100 fibre packages to choose from, we have none with a FUP. We don’t throttle or shape our packages unless there is a huge strain on the network. 

If you’re feeling confident and looking to get your home the best connection available, you can order online now. If you still have some questions or aren’t sure about what you need, our team is always more than happy to help, give us a call on 0874700000 or email [email protected]