Broadband: Full Throttle

There are many things which can affect the speed of your broadband service; the type of wires your signal comes through, the distance you live from the exchange, the speed of the package you initially signed up for. But there's one factor which isn't widely known but can adversely affect your speed a great deal; bandwidth hogs.

Each broadband service has a contention rate. This is normally either 20:1 or 50:1 and indicates the amount of people you share your service with. For example, a contention rate of 50:1 means that you and 49 other people are sharing the same bandwidth, resulting in a slower download speed than someone with a contention rate of 20:1. This isn't a problem if everyone goes on at different times and isn't greedy, but bandwidth hogs tend to leave their broadband connected constantly, downloading big files such as music, films or even watching TV over the net. The result? The hogs get more than their fair share of the bandwidth and everyone else has to suffer with abnormally low speeds.

Fortunately, providers recognise that this is a major problem and are setting usage caps to combat it. Usage caps aren't a new idea; most broadband providers will offer cheaper deals with a 2GB, 20GB or 40GB download limit per month, with suspension of service once this limit has been reached. Some providers will allow you to carry on surfing but will charge you for each GB over the limit you go.

When choosing a broadband deal, it's worth remembering that the download limit doesn't just refer to actual downloads of files such as movies and music from the internet. Anything you do which means receiving data from a webpage – from looking at text to saving pictures – also constitutes a download. While these are relatively low on the amount of bandwidth they use, regular or constant surfing along with obtaining large files can soon eat into your download limit. This could result in your service being throttled.

You may think that buying a package with an unlimited download amount will solve this problem; it won't. While your transfer threshold may be higher than 40GB, you may still be subject to a 'fair use' policy. This means that if your provider tracks how much bandwidth you use and considers it excessive, you may still have your service suspended.

If your broadband is slow, carry out a broadband speed test. Ask your neighbours with the same provider to do the same. Compare broadband speeds of your neighbours and this may tell you if someone is hogging the bandwidth. Report them to your provider and you may see an improvement.