What would we do without the Internet? It is no surprise that it has become the heartbeat of any household nowadays and providing the life blood that strives any individual to reach their potential.
But now begs the question, how big of a heart do you need?
In my experience through all these years in the IT Industry, in one form or another, that seems to be a conundrum when it comes to deciding what Internet to get. Is it enough? Too much? Is it too slow? Too fast? Gotcha on the last one, eh? No one has ever complained that their Internet is too fast and should be dialed down a bit. That’s like saying my Ferrari is too fast, can I have a Pinto instead.
Okay so now where do you go from here? How do you decide what you need? Well let me try to break it down easier for you. Let’s compare our Internet usage to ice cream because its summer and I like ice cream. The cone being your home and each scoop represents the Internet that you need.
What Internet Flavour are you?
First thing I ask people who ask me what package to get is “How many children do you have?”. Now sometimes that question throws people for a loop. But I know that the more children you have the larger Internet package you will need. Mind you, the question has evolved over the last few years from “How many people are living with you” to “How many teenagers you have” to what it is now. Children as small as 6 months are being mesmerized by videos on YouTube and Vevo while their parents are taking videos of this achievement and posting it on social media. So there you go, first scoop of Vanilla to start us off!
Most people have done away with their TV Cable and are “streaming” content using Netflix, Shomi or CraveTV among others. This was a non-factor regarding your Internet usage a few years ago, when it was only one stream at a time on your TV. That is not the case anymore, as most of these services are available on TV, Smartphones, tablets, and Gaming Consoles like Xbox and PS3. You also have the ability to watch up to 4 streams at one time with Netflix. So when the Olympics were on, you could stream Swimming on your Smart TV, Volleyball on your Xbox, Basketball on your laptop and Boxing on your iPhone.
Two more scoops: one Chocolate and one Tiger Stripe please!
And we haven’t even included the teenager who likes to download music, the workaholic who needs to upload their report for work tomorrow, or the grade schooler who needs to finish their online book report. And please, do not get me started with Pokemon GO!
Add three more scoops and you know what you got now? Nothing, because it all fell over and you have ice cream on your shoes.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not being negative in any way (except for Pokemon GO). I am just stressing that the regular household today uses more Internet bandwidth than the same household 5 years ago. It’s just the way it is nowadays. Heck, I’ve been down this road myself many times, I can still hear them “Dad, my Minecraft is lagging” “Dad, my Katy Perry video keeps cutting out”. What do you do? You do what everyone else does, upgrade your ice cream cone to a full double banana split sundae.
Each household is unique and use the Internet in different ways, I understand that. You need to determine if you are a 2 scoop cone or a banana split sundae to avoid overages, duplicate setup fees and extra headaches.
So what Internet flavour are you? If you are still unsure what to order, give us a call and we can help.