Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category
Shirley Stevens asked:
Are you finding the comparison of broadband packages and range of speeds bewildering to say the least? Does confusion reign? Don’t reach for the tablets just yet.
I have defined the most important points you should bear in mind when comparing the wide range of broadband speeds on offer through a broadband comparison site like ChooseISP.co.uk, which allows you to compare broadband speeds of all the main UK broadband providers.
The five points below will help you to ultimately make the most suitable choice of broadband package in the easiest and fastest way possible. To coin a phrase, it will be easier than falling off a log.
Here is a 5-point check list for you to run through before making any firm decisions.
Once you have gone through it, you should have no trouble at all in making your decision about which high-speed broadband package you should choose, especially with the help of a broadband comparison table.
1. Amount of Usage
The first thing to look at, before you start comparing broadband speeds, is to decide how much you will use your broadband and for what purpose you intend using it.
For instance, if your use of the internet is considerable you should preferably choose a faster broadband connection with no download limits.
However, if you are not often online a cheaper but slower broadband connection might be preferable, even if it is possibly a bit more limited.
2. Cable or ADSL?
Where you live can have a marked influence on the speed of your broadband connection. Yes, it is definitely a case of location, location, location as the property Phil & Kirsty would have it.
Do you live in a cable area? If you do, then you will be able to receive Virgin Media Broadband packages by way of a fibre optic network which is really a bonus as cable networks almost always stick religiously to their advertised broadband speeds.
ADSL providers, on the other hand, make use of BT telephone lines which, for various reasons, are unable to provide accurate download speeds, offering only speeds “up to” a certain level.
The words “up to” should set the red lights flashing as they shrewdly disguise any speed shortcomings.
However, most places are enabled with ADSL Max, which means anything up to 8Mb.
3. Where you live is important (we did warn you about ”location”!)
Where you live is significant because, even though broadband technology has improved in leaps and bounds in the last few years, there are still some areas that are more equal than others. You have heard that hoary old chestnut before, haven’t you?
The ADSL broadband speed in one part of the UK is vastly different from that in another part due to a number of factors, for one, the condition of your phone line.
To overcome this problem, a number of broadband providers, such as Be Broadband, O2 Broadband, Sky or UK Online make use of ADSL2+ technology, replacing BT equipment in the exchanges with their own, with the result that they can offer broadband speeds of up to 24Mb.
4. Is your phone line affecting your broadband speed?
If you one of those using a BT phone line to receive your broadband, the material condition of your line and how far you are from the exchange may affect your broadband speed, as the signal strength deteriorates over distance on copper telephone wires.
If you do live some way from your telephone exchange you should seriously consider using one of the ADSL2+ providers, such as Be Broadband and 02 Broadband to trap as much extra valuable broadband speed as possible.
Take the trouble to check your actual distance from your nearest telephone exchange, as the crow flies of course, before making your decision.
5. Avoid being ”throttled” (does your car have a throttle AND a choke? Lucky you!)
Something to remember when you are analysing different broadband speeds is that in the evenings and at other busy times, broadband providers have to organise their internet flow so as to avoid ”traffic” jams.
This means that people who have used up their bandwidth allocation or breached the ISP’s “fair use policy” in any way will have their speeds cut, or “throttled”, in fairness to fellow users on the broadband service. Beware the speed police. It may be enough to make you choke.
With this in mind, always look carefully at the broadband provider’s Fair Use Policy or speed management system to see how this might influence your usage.
If you think you might be affected by this, have a look at the ISP policies of providers such as Be Broadband, 02 Broadband and PlusNet, whose users speak highly of their fair policies and transparency.
Are you finding the comparison of broadband packages and range of speeds bewildering to say the least? Does confusion reign? Don’t reach for the tablets just yet.
I have defined the most important points you should bear in mind when comparing the wide range of broadband speeds on offer through a broadband comparison site like ChooseISP.co.uk, which allows you to compare broadband speeds of all the main UK broadband providers.
The five points below will help you to ultimately make the most suitable choice of broadband package in the easiest and fastest way possible. To coin a phrase, it will be easier than falling off a log.
Here is a 5-point check list for you to run through before making any firm decisions.
Once you have gone through it, you should have no trouble at all in making your decision about which high-speed broadband package you should choose, especially with the help of a broadband comparison table.
1. Amount of Usage
The first thing to look at, before you start comparing broadband speeds, is to decide how much you will use your broadband and for what purpose you intend using it.
For instance, if your use of the internet is considerable you should preferably choose a faster broadband connection with no download limits.
However, if you are not often online a cheaper but slower broadband connection might be preferable, even if it is possibly a bit more limited.
2. Cable or ADSL?
Where you live can have a marked influence on the speed of your broadband connection. Yes, it is definitely a case of location, location, location as the property Phil & Kirsty would have it.
Do you live in a cable area? If you do, then you will be able to receive Virgin Media Broadband packages by way of a fibre optic network which is really a bonus as cable networks almost always stick religiously to their advertised broadband speeds.
ADSL providers, on the other hand, make use of BT telephone lines which, for various reasons, are unable to provide accurate download speeds, offering only speeds “up to” a certain level.
The words “up to” should set the red lights flashing as they shrewdly disguise any speed shortcomings.
However, most places are enabled with ADSL Max, which means anything up to 8Mb.
3. Where you live is important (we did warn you about ”location”!)
Where you live is significant because, even though broadband technology has improved in leaps and bounds in the last few years, there are still some areas that are more equal than others. You have heard that hoary old chestnut before, haven’t you?
The ADSL broadband speed in one part of the UK is vastly different from that in another part due to a number of factors, for one, the condition of your phone line.
To overcome this problem, a number of broadband providers, such as Be Broadband, O2 Broadband, Sky or UK Online make use of ADSL2+ technology, replacing BT equipment in the exchanges with their own, with the result that they can offer broadband speeds of up to 24Mb.
4. Is your phone line affecting your broadband speed?
If you one of those using a BT phone line to receive your broadband, the material condition of your line and how far you are from the exchange may affect your broadband speed, as the signal strength deteriorates over distance on copper telephone wires.
If you do live some way from your telephone exchange you should seriously consider using one of the ADSL2+ providers, such as Be Broadband and 02 Broadband to trap as much extra valuable broadband speed as possible.
Take the trouble to check your actual distance from your nearest telephone exchange, as the crow flies of course, before making your decision.
5. Avoid being ”throttled” (does your car have a throttle AND a choke? Lucky you!)
Something to remember when you are analysing different broadband speeds is that in the evenings and at other busy times, broadband providers have to organise their internet flow so as to avoid ”traffic” jams.
This means that people who have used up their bandwidth allocation or breached the ISP’s “fair use policy” in any way will have their speeds cut, or “throttled”, in fairness to fellow users on the broadband service. Beware the speed police. It may be enough to make you choke.
With this in mind, always look carefully at the broadband provider’s Fair Use Policy or speed management system to see how this might influence your usage.
If you think you might be affected by this, have a look at the ISP policies of providers such as Be Broadband, 02 Broadband and PlusNet, whose users speak highly of their fair policies and transparency.
David Stevens asked:
ARE you dazzled witless by the wide array of choice in broadband? If you are, you are not alone as broadband providers are conjuring up every inviting incentive to attract you, the potential customer, to their own special exciting deals.
In view of the bewildering number of options available and to assist you make that important choice more easily and avoid further confusion, we can give you 8 excellent reasons for comparing broadband packages ( we couldn’t think of 9 and 7 seemed too few).
1. Limited or Unlimited Download
An important point to remember is that some broadband packages have a download limit which can be very restrictive if you need to do a great deal of downloading.
It is wise to make a few comparisons first to find out the monthly limit on downloads before you buy, though a limit isn’t inevitably a bad thing – except when you have to pay for exceeding the limit!
However, if you only use the internet for surfing the net occasionally or keeping up-to-date socially, for instance, why pay more than you need for unlimited use?
For anyone who is a limited user, by comparing broadband offers you will find an excellent and exceptionally reasonable choice is TalkTalk Free Broadband (together with Talk Evenings & Weekends) package, which offers an astounding 40GB limit for a little less than £6 a month.
This should please even the most avid YouTube user.
2. Possible Hidden Charges
Some broadband providers do not advertise all their charges at the outset and you might find you are required to fork out unexpected additional charges before you even get to first base with your new package.
How irritating is that?
Some frequently disguised broadband charges might include items such as their line rental, the installation fee or the cost of your modem/router. So fore warned is fore armed!
On the other hand, some providers like Tiscali’s Broadband and Talk include the line rental in their packages, which means no nasty surprises to pay at the end of the month. What bliss in these expensive times.
A good idea is to first check with a broadband comparison site like www.ChooseISP.co.uk before deciding on your new broadband package.
They provide a breakdown of additional charges you are likely to encounter, in an easy-to-follow format.
The ChooseISP broadband experts have surveyed the market in some detail and why not make use of what they have found out for you – it will certainly save you the frustration and effort of searching for hidden detail or the dreaded small print conditions.
3. Make the most of any Free Offers
Don’t we all love a freebie!
It pays you hands down to compare broadband, as you are then unlikely to miss out on which providers are currently offering their customers all those attractive little free extras and whether or not they are available for the entire duration of the contract.
A provider such as BT Total Option 2, for instance, offers trendy Norton Security, which will efficiently fight off all unwelcome invaders.
Others may offer a free firewall, a welcome bit of hardware or even free webspace.
The most exciting freebie on offer at the moment is from AOL, who is currently providing a FREE HP Compaq laptop or free Sony PlayStation 3 as part of their package.
Our contact at AOL tells us that the free laptop offer is for a limited time only, ending in a couple of months.
So don’t delay, get busy with those broadband comparisons and avoid losing out.
These freebies are not to be sneezed at!
4. Speed
Does your current slow or inconsistent download speed have you reaching for a tranquiliser in frustration?
Sometimes one feels as if paint would dry quicker than watching that irritating little hour glass hanging and hanging and…
Why pay for a broadband that is meant to move with the speed of a hare but you later discover has the speed of a tortoise (and a slow one at that).
By first comparing broadband offers, you can thoroughly examine each package and select one with the speed that is most suitable for your requirements.
To help you decide more easily, broadband comparison sites like www.ChooseISP.co.uk offers you a variety of individual broadband reviews, such as O2 Broadband, which gives you a clear and accurate idea of the download speeds of the different packages and how consistent they are.
Their level of research is pretty impressive.
5. Choice of Contract
You might be pleasantly surprised on comparing broadband to discover the wide choice of packages available offering a variety of contract types, and indeed in some cases, no contract at all.
No longer are you tied to an automatic 12-month contract.
For instance, the UK’s fastest broadband provider Be* offers a package with absolutely no contract necessary at all, though they do request a 3-month notification period should you wish to change providers.
Another fast broadband provider offering packages on a no-contract basis is Plusnet.
However, they stipulate that the wireless router has to be paid for, and also, should you pull out before 12 months is up, you will have to pay a £40 fee.
All the more reason for you to do your homework thoroughly before committing yourself and just imagine what you could do with that money!
6. Will you get what you are promised?
Which broadband providers can you trust to stick to their advertised deals?
With so many tempting bargains being bandied about, all offering first class reliability and astonishing speeds, it can be really difficult to make a sound decision.
By using a broadband comparison site like www.ChooseISP.co.uk to compare the different broadband packages, you will be given an impartial overall view of the various deals on offer as well as finding out what other satisfied customers have to say.
One broadband deal being highly recommended by their customers right now, as well as us, is O2 Broadband’s stunning deal not only for their mobile customers but now also for non-O2 mobile customers.
7. Best bundle deals
If you are prepared to bundle your broadband, TV and mobile within one provider, there are some astounding bargains on offer at the moment which can save you a lot of money.
One service you may well have heard about is the Sky See, Speak & Surf Base 1 broadband bundle for just £17 a month, which is excellent value.
To discover the best broadband bundle deals, it is a good idea to also compare broadband, TV and mobile packages individually.
8. Thinking ahead
If you have only recently joined your present broadband provider, it might be worth looking ahead a bit.
For instance, you may have been caught out by a broadband provider who offered you a tempting rebate during your first 6 months, only to find it then fell away leaving you very much the poorer.
To avoid further similar misfortunes and to save you more money, have a look at a broadband comparison site like www.ChooseISP.co.uk. It is the only website where you can compare broadband alone, compare broadband & phone, or compare broadband, phone & TV packages and see what it will cost you, not only in the short term but also in the future.
The trick is to avoid unwelcome surprises and ChooseISP gives you the ideal opportunity to check it all out before committing yourself and handing out those precious £’s.
Good luck in your search for the best broadband deal to meet your special needs. No need to gaze into your crystal ball or clasp a horseshoe in your hand with tightly closed eyes – broadband comparison sites like ChooseISP.co.uk have done it all for you. No sweat, no hassles.
ARE you dazzled witless by the wide array of choice in broadband? If you are, you are not alone as broadband providers are conjuring up every inviting incentive to attract you, the potential customer, to their own special exciting deals.
In view of the bewildering number of options available and to assist you make that important choice more easily and avoid further confusion, we can give you 8 excellent reasons for comparing broadband packages ( we couldn’t think of 9 and 7 seemed too few).
1. Limited or Unlimited Download
An important point to remember is that some broadband packages have a download limit which can be very restrictive if you need to do a great deal of downloading.
It is wise to make a few comparisons first to find out the monthly limit on downloads before you buy, though a limit isn’t inevitably a bad thing – except when you have to pay for exceeding the limit!
However, if you only use the internet for surfing the net occasionally or keeping up-to-date socially, for instance, why pay more than you need for unlimited use?
For anyone who is a limited user, by comparing broadband offers you will find an excellent and exceptionally reasonable choice is TalkTalk Free Broadband (together with Talk Evenings & Weekends) package, which offers an astounding 40GB limit for a little less than £6 a month.
This should please even the most avid YouTube user.
2. Possible Hidden Charges
Some broadband providers do not advertise all their charges at the outset and you might find you are required to fork out unexpected additional charges before you even get to first base with your new package.
How irritating is that?
Some frequently disguised broadband charges might include items such as their line rental, the installation fee or the cost of your modem/router. So fore warned is fore armed!
On the other hand, some providers like Tiscali’s Broadband and Talk include the line rental in their packages, which means no nasty surprises to pay at the end of the month. What bliss in these expensive times.
A good idea is to first check with a broadband comparison site like www.ChooseISP.co.uk before deciding on your new broadband package.
They provide a breakdown of additional charges you are likely to encounter, in an easy-to-follow format.
The ChooseISP broadband experts have surveyed the market in some detail and why not make use of what they have found out for you – it will certainly save you the frustration and effort of searching for hidden detail or the dreaded small print conditions.
3. Make the most of any Free Offers
Don’t we all love a freebie!
It pays you hands down to compare broadband, as you are then unlikely to miss out on which providers are currently offering their customers all those attractive little free extras and whether or not they are available for the entire duration of the contract.
A provider such as BT Total Option 2, for instance, offers trendy Norton Security, which will efficiently fight off all unwelcome invaders.
Others may offer a free firewall, a welcome bit of hardware or even free webspace.
The most exciting freebie on offer at the moment is from AOL, who is currently providing a FREE HP Compaq laptop or free Sony PlayStation 3 as part of their package.
Our contact at AOL tells us that the free laptop offer is for a limited time only, ending in a couple of months.
So don’t delay, get busy with those broadband comparisons and avoid losing out.
These freebies are not to be sneezed at!
4. Speed
Does your current slow or inconsistent download speed have you reaching for a tranquiliser in frustration?
Sometimes one feels as if paint would dry quicker than watching that irritating little hour glass hanging and hanging and…
Why pay for a broadband that is meant to move with the speed of a hare but you later discover has the speed of a tortoise (and a slow one at that).
By first comparing broadband offers, you can thoroughly examine each package and select one with the speed that is most suitable for your requirements.
To help you decide more easily, broadband comparison sites like www.ChooseISP.co.uk offers you a variety of individual broadband reviews, such as O2 Broadband, which gives you a clear and accurate idea of the download speeds of the different packages and how consistent they are.
Their level of research is pretty impressive.
5. Choice of Contract
You might be pleasantly surprised on comparing broadband to discover the wide choice of packages available offering a variety of contract types, and indeed in some cases, no contract at all.
No longer are you tied to an automatic 12-month contract.
For instance, the UK’s fastest broadband provider Be* offers a package with absolutely no contract necessary at all, though they do request a 3-month notification period should you wish to change providers.
Another fast broadband provider offering packages on a no-contract basis is Plusnet.
However, they stipulate that the wireless router has to be paid for, and also, should you pull out before 12 months is up, you will have to pay a £40 fee.
All the more reason for you to do your homework thoroughly before committing yourself and just imagine what you could do with that money!
6. Will you get what you are promised?
Which broadband providers can you trust to stick to their advertised deals?
With so many tempting bargains being bandied about, all offering first class reliability and astonishing speeds, it can be really difficult to make a sound decision.
By using a broadband comparison site like www.ChooseISP.co.uk to compare the different broadband packages, you will be given an impartial overall view of the various deals on offer as well as finding out what other satisfied customers have to say.
One broadband deal being highly recommended by their customers right now, as well as us, is O2 Broadband’s stunning deal not only for their mobile customers but now also for non-O2 mobile customers.
7. Best bundle deals
If you are prepared to bundle your broadband, TV and mobile within one provider, there are some astounding bargains on offer at the moment which can save you a lot of money.
One service you may well have heard about is the Sky See, Speak & Surf Base 1 broadband bundle for just £17 a month, which is excellent value.
To discover the best broadband bundle deals, it is a good idea to also compare broadband, TV and mobile packages individually.
8. Thinking ahead
If you have only recently joined your present broadband provider, it might be worth looking ahead a bit.
For instance, you may have been caught out by a broadband provider who offered you a tempting rebate during your first 6 months, only to find it then fell away leaving you very much the poorer.
To avoid further similar misfortunes and to save you more money, have a look at a broadband comparison site like www.ChooseISP.co.uk. It is the only website where you can compare broadband alone, compare broadband & phone, or compare broadband, phone & TV packages and see what it will cost you, not only in the short term but also in the future.
The trick is to avoid unwelcome surprises and ChooseISP gives you the ideal opportunity to check it all out before committing yourself and handing out those precious £’s.
Good luck in your search for the best broadband deal to meet your special needs. No need to gaze into your crystal ball or clasp a horseshoe in your hand with tightly closed eyes – broadband comparison sites like ChooseISP.co.uk have done it all for you. No sweat, no hassles.
Russ Blanc asked:
I want to be the one to tell you that the web hosting industry is experiencing an explosion with regards to web hosting bandwidth. I begin with the very commonly used term in the web hosting industry ‘Bandwidth’. For the benefit of those how do not understand this term, below you will find a definition:
- The amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. For digital devices, the bandwidth is usually expressed in bits per second (bps) or bytes per second. For analog devices, the bandwidth is expressed in cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz).
From the web hosting point of view, bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is allowed to occur between a web site and the rest of the internet for a particular server (or host). The amount of bandwidth a web hosting company can provide is determined by their network connections, both internal to their information center and external to the public internet.
Every time someone visits you web site or downloads something from your web site, a certain amount of bandwidth is consumed. Normally every website owner is allotted a specific quantity of bandwidth per month (or monthly limit) which is usually measured in GB.
If there are a lot of people trying to download from a single website or from different websites hosted on the same host, there may be occasions when somebody will be required to wait because the bandwidth limitation of the particular host is being used at full capacity.
Nowadays, we are seeing bigger and bigger websites with several thousand pages, plenty of audio, video and downloadable files which have led to a bandwidth explosion. Online gaming sites are very popular and require huge amounts of bandwidth. Multimedia sites in general require bigger bandwidth and will continue to do so. Plenty of research is going on all over the world to find methods of reducing bandwidth consumption, and at the same time, increase the available bandwidth.
To make a simple calculation of the bandwidth consumption, let’s assume the following example. If you have put up a single page website which is 75KB in size and suppose ten people come to your site on an average every day, then your monthly bandwidth consumption will be =75*10*31 = 23,250KB or 23MB. But chances are you have a multi-page website, and so the average page size and average page views per day are to be used for calculation purposes. Not to mention your site probably includes images and offers downloads and so the bandwidth consumption increases.
Web Hosting providers such as Lunarpages Web Hosting offer as much as 3,500GB of Bandwidth. A basic web hosting package seems to get around 3,500GB of bandwidth among many of the web hosting providers out there right now.
Is bandwidth something that is available in abundance? The answer is NO. There are a lot of technical and practical limitations to this.One prominent factor being the limitations in the availability of telecommunication channels and infrastructure to carry this heavy traffic to various parts of the globe. Without a significant improvement on the infrastructure front, we can’t expect to resolve the bandwidth problem soon enough.
I want to be the one to tell you that the web hosting industry is experiencing an explosion with regards to web hosting bandwidth. I begin with the very commonly used term in the web hosting industry ‘Bandwidth’. For the benefit of those how do not understand this term, below you will find a definition:
- The amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. For digital devices, the bandwidth is usually expressed in bits per second (bps) or bytes per second. For analog devices, the bandwidth is expressed in cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz).
From the web hosting point of view, bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is allowed to occur between a web site and the rest of the internet for a particular server (or host). The amount of bandwidth a web hosting company can provide is determined by their network connections, both internal to their information center and external to the public internet.
Every time someone visits you web site or downloads something from your web site, a certain amount of bandwidth is consumed. Normally every website owner is allotted a specific quantity of bandwidth per month (or monthly limit) which is usually measured in GB.
If there are a lot of people trying to download from a single website or from different websites hosted on the same host, there may be occasions when somebody will be required to wait because the bandwidth limitation of the particular host is being used at full capacity.
Nowadays, we are seeing bigger and bigger websites with several thousand pages, plenty of audio, video and downloadable files which have led to a bandwidth explosion. Online gaming sites are very popular and require huge amounts of bandwidth. Multimedia sites in general require bigger bandwidth and will continue to do so. Plenty of research is going on all over the world to find methods of reducing bandwidth consumption, and at the same time, increase the available bandwidth.
To make a simple calculation of the bandwidth consumption, let’s assume the following example. If you have put up a single page website which is 75KB in size and suppose ten people come to your site on an average every day, then your monthly bandwidth consumption will be =75*10*31 = 23,250KB or 23MB. But chances are you have a multi-page website, and so the average page size and average page views per day are to be used for calculation purposes. Not to mention your site probably includes images and offers downloads and so the bandwidth consumption increases.
Web Hosting providers such as Lunarpages Web Hosting offer as much as 3,500GB of Bandwidth. A basic web hosting package seems to get around 3,500GB of bandwidth among many of the web hosting providers out there right now.
Is bandwidth something that is available in abundance? The answer is NO. There are a lot of technical and practical limitations to this.One prominent factor being the limitations in the availability of telecommunication channels and infrastructure to carry this heavy traffic to various parts of the globe. Without a significant improvement on the infrastructure front, we can’t expect to resolve the bandwidth problem soon enough.
Ricardo D Argence asked:
If you have a website, one of the most important things you need to know about is bandwidth. You don’t know what that is, you say? Okay, here we go.
Basically, bandwidth is the amount of data you can transfer at one time. When you have less bandwidth, your site takes longer to load regardless of what connection your visitors have.
With more visitors, each visitor is going to have to wait his or her turn if you don’t have enough bandwidth to accommodate everyone.
If you can lower the amount of data transfer you have on your end, you’ll have a site that more people can visit, because you won’t have to worry about exceeding the amount of bandwidth your hosting provider allows you.
The more data you transfer, the more bandwidth you consume. The less data you transfer, the less bandwidth you consume. Therefore, keep it simple for best results.
How much bandwidth do you need?
How much bandwidth you need for your site depend on a number of factors. Basically, you want to keep your site as simple as possible, to reduce the amount of bandwidth.
This, in turn, makes it possible for more visitors to visit your site. Not just that, they’ll be able to visit your pages more easily and will be less likely to leave because they’re waiting for your pages to load.
To determine how much bandwidth you currently use, take a look at your traffic history.
If you don’t have a site yet and you want to get one, you can estimate how much bandwidth you use by estimating the following factors:
- Daily number of visitors, or the number you expect
- Daily average of page views per visitor, or the number you expect
- Size of your site, including graphics, or the size you expect it to be
Then, take each of those numbers and multiply them by 30, then add them together. This gives you a rough average size of your monthly transfer needs. If you’re also going to offer downloads, then take the number of expected downloads per day, multiply times 30, and add that to the above transfer total.
You should also give yourself a small percentage extra in transfer needs to account for e-mail traffic and any uploads you make.
Are “unlimited” hosting plans a good idea?
You might have noticed that some hosting plans offer “unlimited” bandwidth. In theory, this is a good idea, because it means that you don’t have to watch how much bandwidth you’re using.
However, that’s only in theory. What really happens is that you’re given a fixed amount of bandwidth no matter how many visitors you have. Therefore, if you have a small amount of visitors, their transfer times and therefore their wait times are small.
However, if you have a large amount of visitors, they simply have to “get in line” with everyone else and their allotted amount of bandwidth is going to be proportionately smaller depending on how many more visitors there are.
This means that they are going to have much longer wait times than if you don’t use much bandwidth, even if you’re using an “unlimited” hosting plan.
Therefore, your true best bet in most cases it’s going to be to limit the bandwidth you yourself use (including for website graphics and things of that nature), so that you have more left over for your visitors to use.
Optimize graphics, and build cascading style sheets, call JavaScript externally if you use it instead of embedding it yourself, and don’t use streaming audio or video. You can also clean up the HTML in your page by reducing the amount of META tags, white space, and comments.
You can also cache your website for easier and faster loading, but then set a date of expiration in the HTTP headers so the browser will refresh content after a certain amount of time.
Spiders too can reduce your bandwidth, but if you use robots.txt, this can help keep them in control.
If you have a website, one of the most important things you need to know about is bandwidth. You don’t know what that is, you say? Okay, here we go.
Basically, bandwidth is the amount of data you can transfer at one time. When you have less bandwidth, your site takes longer to load regardless of what connection your visitors have.
With more visitors, each visitor is going to have to wait his or her turn if you don’t have enough bandwidth to accommodate everyone.
If you can lower the amount of data transfer you have on your end, you’ll have a site that more people can visit, because you won’t have to worry about exceeding the amount of bandwidth your hosting provider allows you.
The more data you transfer, the more bandwidth you consume. The less data you transfer, the less bandwidth you consume. Therefore, keep it simple for best results.
How much bandwidth do you need?
How much bandwidth you need for your site depend on a number of factors. Basically, you want to keep your site as simple as possible, to reduce the amount of bandwidth.
This, in turn, makes it possible for more visitors to visit your site. Not just that, they’ll be able to visit your pages more easily and will be less likely to leave because they’re waiting for your pages to load.
To determine how much bandwidth you currently use, take a look at your traffic history.
If you don’t have a site yet and you want to get one, you can estimate how much bandwidth you use by estimating the following factors:
- Daily number of visitors, or the number you expect
- Daily average of page views per visitor, or the number you expect
- Size of your site, including graphics, or the size you expect it to be
Then, take each of those numbers and multiply them by 30, then add them together. This gives you a rough average size of your monthly transfer needs. If you’re also going to offer downloads, then take the number of expected downloads per day, multiply times 30, and add that to the above transfer total.
You should also give yourself a small percentage extra in transfer needs to account for e-mail traffic and any uploads you make.
Are “unlimited” hosting plans a good idea?
You might have noticed that some hosting plans offer “unlimited” bandwidth. In theory, this is a good idea, because it means that you don’t have to watch how much bandwidth you’re using.
However, that’s only in theory. What really happens is that you’re given a fixed amount of bandwidth no matter how many visitors you have. Therefore, if you have a small amount of visitors, their transfer times and therefore their wait times are small.
However, if you have a large amount of visitors, they simply have to “get in line” with everyone else and their allotted amount of bandwidth is going to be proportionately smaller depending on how many more visitors there are.
This means that they are going to have much longer wait times than if you don’t use much bandwidth, even if you’re using an “unlimited” hosting plan.
Therefore, your true best bet in most cases it’s going to be to limit the bandwidth you yourself use (including for website graphics and things of that nature), so that you have more left over for your visitors to use.
Optimize graphics, and build cascading style sheets, call JavaScript externally if you use it instead of embedding it yourself, and don’t use streaming audio or video. You can also clean up the HTML in your page by reducing the amount of META tags, white space, and comments.
You can also cache your website for easier and faster loading, but then set a date of expiration in the HTTP headers so the browser will refresh content after a certain amount of time.
Spiders too can reduce your bandwidth, but if you use robots.txt, this can help keep them in control.