DSL Services

There are several different price/speed options for DSL, and you'll want to think carefully before you sign up. Think about what you'll be using your connection for, and how much you want to spend. You'll want to consider three things: download speed, latency, and price.

There are three rough categories that most DSL customers fit into: home surfers, business users, and gamers. Here are definitions of each, followed by what each should be interested in when choosing their connection.

• Home Surfers
  If you're looking for a fast way to browse the web and download files, you can leave your options rather open. Your best choice is Bronze Plus - great download speed for an excellent price. Choose the service you like for the price you like, and don't worry much about latency. Also consider how many computers you'll have connected to the DSL.
   
• Business Users
  Business users use their connection to make money, either by connecting their office network to the DSL connection for employees, or by running Internet related services like web hosting over their connection. Our excellent network and equipment will provide you the reliability you need. Think about how much you'll be uploading versus downloading. If you'll be running servers, opt for Silver, Gold or higher services, which have better speeds.
   
• Gamers
  If you plan on playing games a lot over your connection, put latency at the top of your priorities. With our network you'll get incredible ping times (our customers talk about ping times ranging from 30-70), especially with Silver and above. You will find slightly better ping times with Silver Plus and Gold than with Bronze Plus.

Download speed (a.k.a. Bandwidth) is how quickly you'll be able to download files. Each service has a download speed associated with it, but you won't achieve that speed all the time - it's a maximum speed, dependent on factors like the amount of static on your phone line. Judging from our customers experiences, you'll usually achieve speeds close to your maximum speed. Some customers have even reported faster speeds than the advertised maximum.

Latency is the amount of delay a bit of information takes to travel over your connection. If you're download files or browsing the web, you'll never have to think about latency. However, if you want to play real time games, latency should be the first thing you look at (it's the same as your ping times to servers).