Coventry is no stranger to the landscape of ultra-fast and cutting-edge internet connectivity.
According to up-to-date comparison services, fibre broadband coverage in Coventry reaches 96.9%, so finding access to the fastest of what the UK has to offer is a simple task. Of course, actually understanding what the different speeds mean and whether you need them is a very different thing.
For anyone not in the tech space, we might just assume that faster is always better, or that the plan we’re already with doesn’t need to change. The reality is not quite that simple, but this can be a very good thing. If it’s been a while since you’ve changed your plans, you might find serious upgrades and cost savings by taking another look at your connection, so let’s explore how this works.
Plans and Prices Change Over Time
The most important part of internet plans that everyone in Coventry needs to know is that as new technology spreads and faster speeds become normalised, the prices of slower speeds drop. Internet service providers will rarely tell their customers of these changes or automatically switch them to lower-priced plans. They’re happy to have you pay more for less, which isn’t great for us.
Fortunately, the solution to this is simple; just look for a new plan. You can do this by using comparison sites to weigh up new plans, or go to your ISP’s website if you want to stick with your same provider. If you’re on an older plan, it’s likely you can get a faster one for the same price, or the same speed for a lower price. As a bonus, you might even get a new router, which could offer better features and improved Wi-Fi range.
Choosing Your Perfect Speed
If you’re unsure of what speeds you need, you can calculate this yourself by looking at your use cases. Internet speed today is generally measured in megabits per second (Mbps). The highest modern speed that most people in Coventry will reliably find is around 1,000 Mbps, or what is known as gigabit speed. It’s very unlikely you’ll need this, however.
Instead, you can track what you need by looking up the speed requirements for every person in your home and adding them together. On the less-demanding end, consider if there are only a couple of you in a house, and if you use your internet for mostly more efficient and low-bandwidth activities like betting in sports on online casino websites. Navigating these websites and betting on games like rugby and cricket is available at the highest quality with less than 10 Mbps. Multiply this by two users, add a little extra space for headroom, and you’ll find a 50 Mbps connection should be perfectly suitable.
On the other hand, consider if you have five people in a household and you’re all fans of watching ultra-high-definition movie streams. These start at 25 Mbps per connection, though again, going higher for additional headroom is always a good idea. Assuming an upper use limit of 50 Mbps per user, and assuming five users are watching on individual devices at once (unlikely but possible), that would add up to 250 Mbps of required bandwidth.
While it can take a little work to figure out your exact bandwidth uses, some quick Googling can give you a general sense of what you need. Just avoid relying too much on AI for predictions here, and remember that even if you don’t need more, a change to a newer plan still might cost you less. It takes less than an hour to figure out what changes you might benefit from, and the savings could quickly add up.
This is a submitted article written by Ben Spencer.
