Picking The Ideal Internet Service Provider

Picking The Ideal Internet Service Provider

Good day to those neighbors that don’t password their WiFi…and the rest of you of course. Ladies and gentlemen, like all stepping stone moments on life you must come to a brief pause and think. Picking a career course, a spouse, a new car, a new neighborhood, your lunch etc. You as i have must make the ever make-or-break choice of the ideal Internet Service Provider. Mind you, there is no such thing as the perfect network. Like the famous George Powell novel, all ISP’s are equal but some are WAY more equal than others.

 Before i continue i will like to disclaim a couple of things. I have not been paid by any of the ISP’s/Network operators to advertise or defame the name/character of any of the will be mentioned parties. And any harsh or over placed joke about the may be mentioned parties is simply a joke by the writer. But note, the jokes may lie but the download speeds do not. So let’s go.

 Before you go out to hand that hard-earned money of yours to any well labeled crook in title of a corporate organisation in return for a plug and pray internet connection which they promise to go at speeds that make Pietro Maximoff look like Per Metersaker in a 100m dash, just chill first. A lot of things they tell you on the advert/brochure is airtight in terms and conditions, not only that there are other small tactical issues you need to consider.

  • First, forget the adverts and the testaments of your friends. Like salvation, slow internet is personal.
  • Your mobility. The network could be solid where you live but once you take a bike to see your guy and want to show him DJ Khaled’s proposal video you get 2kb/hr.
  • Network traffic. Lets not lie, a lot of us stay up till 0200hours when 90% of the population is asleep so you get the awesome download speeds. Then at 0700hours you are making your coffee seem like chloroform.
  • Proximity from the Mast/Head Quarters Router etc. This is especially for broadband users. Your friend living opposite the HQ is getting 72mbs/sec and you are miles away and your connection can’t muster 500kbs/sec then you call customer assistance…you get where this is going.
  • Price and value. The only point as important as the quality of the connection and because money has refused to grow on trees(in my region o, i don’t know about yours)

For good measure i will have you know that in March 2012 somewhere in Nigeria somebody(people) was good enough to analyse this monolith of a problem by surveying all the ISP’s in Nigeria and come up with a list of the best 10. Suffice to say that these numbers are now grossly unreliable being that a couple of those ISP’s have gotten better while others have gone to doodoo. Here is a list of the top 10 ISP’s in Nigeria as at March 2012 and their broadband speeds.

  • Netcom Africa Limited 18.12Mb/s
  • ipNX Nigeria Limited 2.82Mb/s
  • Gateway Telecoms Integrated Services Limited 1.46Mb/s
  • MTN Nigeria 1.13Mb/s
  • Cobranet Limited 1.05Mb/s
  • EMTS/Etisalat Nigeria 0.94Mb/s
  • Globacom Limited 0.94Mb/s
  • Swift Networks Limited 0.79Mb/s
  • Mobitel Nigeria Limited 0.75Mb/s
  • Multi-Links Telecommunications Limited 0.71Mb/s

 While in 2013 i cannot vouch for any mobile network as I have not personally seen any exceed 800kb/s i will not play pick on any of the ISP’s, i will rather have a testament from a customer of the would be ISP. In the era of LTE connections that go as fast as 72Mb/s and people in better parts of the world complain of downloading a GB file in 8 minutes as being too slow, one can only begin to imagine when will Nigeria be great. So if you are out there using this elusive quality internet connection, please do well to tell us your provider and your location because…because there is love in sharing. I cant believe i actually said that out loud.