News: Choosing a broadband connection

Most South African internet users are making far more modest use of the internet than they think and many are buying packages that are excessive according to their needs.

That's the word from Tim Walter, general manager for product and marketing at Nashua Mobile. He says that when choosing a broadband solution, users should opt for one that matches their lifestyle and that can be scaled up as they make use of more online services.

"We all welcomed the arrival of uncapped ADSL in South Africa, yet the reality is that only a handful of users crunch their way through multiple gigabytes of data a month. Many users on uncapped or large cap packages are overspending on bandwidth that they don't use."

Walter says that according to internal research conducted by Nashua Mobile 53% of 3G/HSDPA subscribers use less than 250 MB of data a month and that 71% of 1 GB Capped ADSL users never hit their cap.

"The truth is that the average user is primarily using the internet for email, social networking and basic internet access, rather than for video streaming, big media downloads and online gaming," says Walter. "If you're making use of only basic internet services, you might not need to buy a more expensive uncapped package."

Walter cautions, however, that data consumption is starting to rise in South Africa as access speeds improve, more content and applications become available, and cheaper access devices reach the market. When more rich content services - in the vein of Hulu or iTunes - arrive, growth in bandwidth consumption will skyrocket.

"If your needs today are modest, they might not be so in the future. That means you should not get locked into an inflexible contract that doesn't allow you to easily ramp up your bandwidth when you want to," continues Walter.

"We believe that broadband providers could be doing a better good of communicating the strengths of their products to the market. However on the upside, users have a choice of wide range of quality products to select from today," concludes Walter.

Choosing a broadband connection

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