Looking for an Internet Service Provider?

Here are the 2 most common mistakes made when choosing an ISP.

1. Selection By Price

This applies to pretty much everything in life.

True, there are things that are extremely overpriced. However, often, there’s also a reason why some things are cheap.

Take the recent glut of cheap portable battery packs recently. My mom bought a 9000mah battery pack for $20. 2 weeks later, she went back to using the 2000mah battery pack I bought 4 years ago for about $50.

If it’s too good to be true, it usually is, eh?

2. Selection by Speed / Bandwidth

This is probably the most common mistake by far, the assumption that subscribing to a service with a Gigabazzilion MBPS plan automatically means that you’ll get a fast connection.

Let’s put it this way.. In the late 90’s, I switched from then Singapore Cable Vision’s (SCV, now Starhub) 15mbps cable internet service to Singtel’s 6mbps ADSL internet service. With Singtel, I got lower pings in games, higher download speeds and a better internet experience overall, despite having a plan that was supposed to be ‘slower’ than what I had previously.

You see, ‘Bandwidth’ is like a Pipe. The bigger the pipe, the more bandwidth it can carry. However, how much stuff actually passing through the pipe is another matter.

Let’s use cars as an example. 2 cars can have the same maximum speed, but if one accelerates faster, brakes better, goes around corners smoothly and drives like a dream, which would you choose?

Does It Really Matter?

That’s actually a good question.

I guess for the most part, the differences wouldn’t be noticeable for most people. For me however, I’ve 2 issues:

1. I appreciate quality
2. I hate being short-changed

That’s why I spend a lot of time doing research on the products and services I buy and use. I guess it helps that I enjoy the process as well.

So, if you’re more of the ‘as long as it works’ crowd, feel free to subscribe to whatever’s most affordable and convenient for you. I suggest you get the home bundles, like Starhub’s HomeHub packages, so that you squeeze the most value out of your TV, internet and mobile phone plans.

If quality does matter to you however, then this is where one will need to learn how to look at the whole picture. When it comes to ISPs, this means not only looking at the prices, but also it’s infrastructure, the quality of connection provided and the experience of existing users. And this is how I ended up with Viewqwest.

Want to know how I ended up with this choice? Then feel free to check out my Viewqwest review.