Internet connection speed is one of the major factors you will need to consider before choosing a broadband or dial up package for your home, and what connection speed you require will depend on what you want to use your Internet service for.  If you only want to use your service for reading emails and viewing standard webpages then you will not need a very fast Internet connection, so you can save some money by signing up for one of the slower, less expensive packages.

However if you want to play online games, watch movies and download music over the Internet then you will need a much faster connection to prevent any delays to real time activities, and so you will need to make sure you have a higher Internet transfer speed with your service.

Internet transfer speeds
Internet transfer speeds are measured in kilobits or megabits per second, and this basically describes how much information can be streamed every second through your connection.  Here is a basic comparison of the four Internet transfer speeds available with current Internet dial up and broadband packages:

56K dial-up modem (the slowest speed available on dial up)
Time to load a typical web page – 14 sec
Time to download a typical 5-minute song – 12 min 30 sec
Streaming Video Quality – cannot stream videos

512K broadband
Time to load a typical web page – 1.6 sec
Time to download a typical 5-minute song – 1 min 30 sec
Streaming Video Quality – low quality

4Mb broadband
Time to load a typical web page – 1 sec
Time to download a typical 5-minute song – 5 sec
Streaming Video Quality – medium quality

8Mb broadband (best current broadband download speed for residential use)
Time to load a typical web page – instantaneous
Time to download a typical 5-minute song – instantaneous
Streaming Video Quality – high quality

As you can see the lowest speed of 56K is not very suitable for anything but very simple online tasks, and even loading webpages can take a long time.  The very minimum you need for everyday tasks such as sending emails and shopping online is 512K, which is 10 times faster than the lowest package, and this is a cheap entry level broadband option that can allow you to surf online without too many delays.  The highest level broadband of 8Mb is an expensive option, but will allow you to play online games and watch films and television over your connection in high definition and without any delays at all.

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