The Only Thing Most People Consider When Talking Internet Speed Is “How Fast Does The Page Load?” But There’s Actually Much More To It, And These Internet Providers In Ontario Are Here To Explain
When you purchase an internet service plan, your Ontario internet provider will provide a measurement of your connection speed – for example, 20 Mbps. While it is used to generally explain how quick a connection you have, this number is specifically used to describe something called bandwidth.
Bandwidth is how much data your computer can receive per second. 20 Mbps indicates your computer is receiving 20 megabits per second. That’s actually a pretty good internet speed, as most internet providers in Ontario consider anything 24 Mbps and above to be “superfast.” With that in mind, it’s important to remember that an internet connection at 10 Mbps technically isn’t any faster than a 1 Mbps connection – the data is simply transferred at a faster rate.
Picture a racetrack, where the horses represent bits of data and the finish line is your computer: if there were only one gate (1 Mbps) and the horses had to go through single file, it would take much longer for all the horses to reach the finish line. However, with ten gates (10 Mbps), all the horses can move at once and they all reach the end at the same time. The track length doesn’t change and the horses aren’t running any faster; the data just transfers more quickly because more bandwidth allows it to come through all at once.
But what if you want the horses to run faster? The factor that comes into play when you want your internet to go more quickly is broadband speed. Broadband speeds are typically given in ranges, since Ontario internet providers cannot precisely estimate how fast the connection will be at all times. To keep with the racetrack analogy, a provider knows approximately how fast the horse can run, but some days it may run a little slower, or a little faster. As a result, internet providers in Ontario give a range to prevent making promises they can’t keep regarding broadband speed.
There are many things that can affect your internet speed as well. Things like connection type (dialup, DSL, fiber optic, etc.), congestion (peak hours), old or poorly installed wiring and more can all have an impact. If you suspect a speed issue, contacting your Ontario internet provider is usually the first step to resolving the problem.
As you can see, there is a lot that goes into determining how fast your internet will be. We’ve only scratched the surface; for more information, contact your internet service provider and they’ll be able to answer the questions you have regarding internet speed.
