Do you like quality products? Do you expect to get quality service for your hard-earned money? Then here are some considerations when choosing an Internet Service Provider. And this advice comes with the hope you have multiple options. At my home I’m lucky to have four providers available and when I consider who to pay for the service, I prioritized speed overall. Other things to consider are quality of the service in your area, price, customer service and reliability.
Fast internet is great but if the quality is poor then you’re going to have a bad experience. For instance, you come home after work and want to stream a reality home improvement show but because everyone gets home at a similar time in your neighborhood, the video is constantly buffering. Or you’re trying to unwind with an online video game and the lag is so bad it’s unplayable. Speed of the internet can play a factor in this but when I’ve seen this, it’s always due to the quality of the connection.
Reliability is another of those factors that can cause frustration. Like many, I have several always online devices at my home and expect them to respond when needed, but if your internet decides to stop working and forces you to restart the equipment or get on the phone with support all the time then you feel stressed, and the internet should be improving our lives not stressing us out.
Price and customer service are really superficial in my opinion but for others it may be most important. Good customer service is amazing but with the large companies that control these ISPs, it’s not very often you have a chance to form any type of relationship with a single customer service rep and one person’s experience will be wildly different then another. Price is really whatever you can do individually if you’ve got the income go for it.
One final thought, review your internet plan as often as you can, ISPs are always making changes. Make sure you aren’t getting shortchanged.
On the next episode, identifying email or online scams?