Over-priced network connectivity has been a burning issue in SA for a long time, but over the past year, many Internet service providers (ISPs) started offering cheaper connectivity rates.
Even though this was a good thing for SA, as it meant cheaper broadband, in some cases this led to compromised broadband quality offered by these service providers, says MD at Network Platforms, Bradley Love.
Love says before choosing an ISP [especially ASDL], businesses should ask about the contention ratio that particular service provider is offering. “Many are misinformed about issues relating to network congestion and contention ratios,” he says.
Contention ratio is the number of users sharing one unit of data capacity and the lower the contention ratio the higher the quality of service, he points out. Contention ratios of 20:1 to 50:1 are standard in international offerings.
According to Love, the contention ratio is an important factor involved in the quality and speed of your chosen broadband package.
“The quality and speed of broadband connection is dependent on the number of users online at any given time. Business broadband services will often have much lower contention ratios to enable the ISP's to give business users a more consistent quality of service,” he says.
Love adds; the higher the contention ratio the cheaper the broadband package will be.
He warns businesses not to always opt for the cheaper network connectivity as it might end up being costly.
“It is important to choose an ISP with a low contention ratio as the fewer people sharing the line, the more bandwidth a business will potentially have.”
He says if a network is slow or unavailable for even a relatively short period of time, it can represent a substantial loss to a business. Network downtime can affect a company in a variety of ways, the most obvious being financial.
“When the network is down, employees are unable to check their e-mail, quickly communicate with clients, access vital data, and most assignments cannot be completed because they require a network connection.”
In line with this issue, ITWeb in partnership with Network Platforms is running a Network Connectivity Survey to try and get what network customers feel about the service in the country.
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