So you’re sitting in front of the computer trying to read the news, do your banking, download music or chat with a friend overseas – but you can’t, because your internet connection is soooo slow. In terms of frustration, it’s up there with being stuck in a traffic jam or waiting in a long queue at the supermarket.
Speed is one of the key factors that people consistently rate as important to them in their online experience. No one enjoys long download times.
How Internet speed is measured
The speed of your internet connection is measured in a similar way that the speedometer in your car measures your driving speed. Instead of measuring in kilometres per hour, internet speed is measured in kilobits per second (kb per second) and megabits per second (mbs per second).
Kilobits and megabits
Obviously a ‘mega’ bit is larger than a ‘kilo’ bit, so if your connection can transfer at a rate of ‘megabits’ per second, then it is going to be faster than a connection that can only transfer at a rate of ‘kilobits’ per second.
What is the fastest connection?
We’d love to be able to tell you which type of connection is always going to be the fastest, but unfortunately the speed of an internet connection does fluctuate – that’s just the nature of the current technology available.
Depending on the type of connection, a whole bunch of different factors can impact the speed of your connection – including your distance from the telephone exchange, mobile signal strength, and in some cases, the number of internet subscribers in your street.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, then chances are you’ve heard about this. The NBN is an ‘optical fibre’ network, currently under construction, which promises to deliver incredibly high-speed broadband to every Australian home. It is estimated that the NBN will deliver download times that are on average 33 times faster than Cable internet (currently the fastest connection type available).
The National Broadband Network (NBN)
The national rollout of the NBN will take several years, however it is currently available in a small number of Tasmanian suburbs which have been connected since July 2010.
Find and compare broadband plans at iSelect.