Imagup General Magazine 2024
The Internet changed how a lot of things function, and it will go down in history as the invention that connected the entire world. More than ninety-nine percent of all people in the world have a stable internet connection nowadays, and almost all of them are using it daily. Whether for social media or education, it doesn’t matter, what’s important is that it is used for a good cause.
Internet connections
When it comes to internet connections, there are a few things that you need to understand. One of them is the speed of the connection, which is probably the most important factor for a lot of people from the newer generations. Whether it is for downloading movies or songs, or simply playing video games without any lag, speed is important. Various internet providers will have different offers when it comes to the speed of the package you’re getting.
Upload vs Download speeds – Importance
Upload and download speeds are completely different, but they are both equally important. For those of you that are not very familiar, upload speed is what’s going to determine how fast you’re going to be able to send a photo for example or attach a video from your PC to YouTube. Download speed is the complete opposite. It determines how fast you will be download and store something from the internet to your computer’s hard-drive.
Each package that you’re going to purchase from a provider will have different upload and download speeds, so make sure to make up your mind about what’s more important to you, and choose the offer based on this decision. If you find yourself constantly downloading a lot more than you’re uploading, you might be able to save some money by choosing a package that doesn’t have a high upload speed. It’s all up to you.
Cable Internet vs Satellite Internet
Now, when it comes to internet connections, there are two popular types that people are choosing from. Satellite Internet and Cable Internet.
Cable internet is probably the one you are currently using since it is very popular and widely used in homes. These packages are almost always offered by your television provider, and in most cases, they will offer a complete bundle of telephone service, internet connection, and TV channels, with a slight discount.
These types of connections can be quite stable and reliable to use, and they are also available almost anywhere in the world. Not that Satellite connections aren’t, but we’ll get to this a bit later. If you are a casual computer user, and you don’t need your connection for anything else more than browsing YouTube or social media, this can be a good deal for you.
Of course, if you want to do more demanding things on your computers, such as heavy and competitive gaming, or live streaming in high definition, you will have to purchase a package that is more expensive but offers a lot more bandwidth and speed. This cannot be done with satellite connection because in general, this type of internet is a lot slower and used for more casual surfing. E-Mail reading and maybe some slight Facebook and YouTube at most.
So, like we already said, cable internet is being installed in your home by a professional team that can connect the already existing internet cables in your neighborhood, with the one you’re going to be using in your home.
For satellite internet connection, you’ll still need the help of a professional team, except there are no cables involved in this procedure. What happens instead is the following. A provider that operates with satellite internet sends its signal to a satellite that is cruising around our planet. Then, that satellite sends the signal straight to the dish that you have installed in your home, which will usually be on the roof or the side of your building or house. This is how you get an internet connection from a satellite. Now, if we were to compare these two types of internet, we can find quite a few differences. Let’s take a look.
Satellite connection can be a bit cheaper than cable, of course, depending on what kind of a package you’re going to choose, but in general, it is cheaper. Now, a lower price means that you will be sacrificing a bit of quality, but that’s not always the case since there are some satellite internet connection providers, such as HughesNet that have high-speed packages for you to choose from. The statistics below are just for the average comparison.
Usually, cable package speeds range between 30 to 110 megabits per second, compared to satellite connections which are on average from 2 to 15 megabits per second. As we can already see, this is quite a difference in speed. But, it doesn’t end here. If you played an online video game in your life at least once, you know how important latency is. If you have high latency, you can’t play the game well because all of your actions are delayed because of the slow connection.
This can also be referred to as high ping or “lag”. If you play on a satellite connection that has high latency, you’ll experience these things a lot more. For cable connection, the latency can be something between 30 to 400 milliseconds. For satellite connections, however, it can range between one thousand up to two thousand. Again, this depends on the provider and the package that you’ve chosen.
The last thing that matters is the price of the package, and as we mentioned above, most cable connections are bundled with television and telephone services, which is indeed good for families, but some people don’t need anything else other than the internet connection. This is where satellite providers are considered the most. Please remember that if you choose to go with a satellite connection, you will need to install a dish as well, which will usually be covered by your provider, but you will still need to pay for it. Take these things into consideration before making your decision, and choose the option which suits you the best.
