Avoid being throttled and capped by your ISP!

Whilst the thought of being ‘throttled’ and ‘capped’ by your Internet Service Provider may make it sound as though your ISP is part of the Mafia and will be coming round to ‘sort you out’ these terms actually refer to the actions that Internet Service Providers may take to ensure that you are not hogging the information superhighway by using the Internet to a point where it is affecting the services and speeds that others in the area are able to receive.

There are many people that have unlimited broadband connections, which they usually pay significantly more for than capped usage plans. However, whilst unlimited plans may sound tempting they usually come with some form or fair usage policy, which means that if you use the internet to a point where you are affecting the service that others are receiving you could find that your speeds are throttled during certain hours or that your usage is capped.

Whilst most people are able to adhere to the fair usage policy on unlimited broadband plans – that’s if they even realise that one is in place, which often people do not realise – there are some people that use the Internet so much and for such high bandwidth activities that they do get flagged up by their ISP and this is where they are in danger of having their internet usage capped.

This is because of the contention ration, which is where the amount of available bandwidth is shared between the number of people that are online at any one time. This is why many ISPs use throttling and capping, so that basically everyone gets a fair crack at using the Internet and available bandwidth. However, this does not help the person whose internet speeds are being throttled or whose usage has been capped.

How to avoid these measures

There are certain times of the day when more people are online and therefore need a slice of the available bandwidth. If you can avoid carrying out bandwidth hungry activities such as downloading and online gaming during these times then you are less likely to be capped by your ISP. Early mornings and late at night are the best times to do these sorts of activities in order to avoid infringing on the quality of service that others will be receiving, so try and limit this sort of activity to these times.

Of course, you may be in a situation where your usage has already been capped because you have inadvertently breached your provider’s fair usage policy. If this is the case try and cut back completely on your internet usage for a while or speak to your ISP to find out what your available options might be to try and get your usage back on track.