Users who want really fast broadband should shop around while rising demand for high-speed services is an opportunity for ISPs
You could get the impression that all broadband services are more or less the same these days. The speeds available depend largely on the underlying infrastructure, which is usually shared. In most European countries, the average download speeds on offer are around 40 Mbps or 50Mbps. Some, ‘super-fast’ options may also be available, but typically they can’t deliver much beyond 100Mbps.
But it is possible to go quite a lot faster and, if you need even higher speeds, it’s worth persisting and doing some research. For example, as revealed in an article on the Forbes website, a recent report by the Internet performance testing and metrics provider, Speedtest, shows that a Danish ISP called Hiper has been able to deliver average download speeds of 582.7Mbps, and even faster upload speeds of 641.05 Mbps, which according to Forbes is the fastest internet in the world.
Hiper is a relatively small and specialised company that focuses on providing services to users who want the very highest speeds for online gaming and video streaming. It is the fastest growing broadband company in their market, which shows that there are clearly enough customers who want a faster service. At Zyxel, we know all about Hiper, because they are using our equipment to provide end-to-end fibre connections. They have deployed our GPON (point to multi-point) equipment in their networking operations centre, while at the customer premises they deploy a simple GPON ONT bridge to terminate the fibre and link it via Ethernet to a Zyxel wireless gateway.
As a relatively small and specialist ISP, Hiper will have configured its infrastructure to ensure it delivers the very highest speeds to its customers.
As demand for higher speed services increases, more ISPs will start to see the potential and offer faster services. Eventually, the price for these higher speeds will come down. From a customer point of view then, the more ISPs who can be persuaded to offer a faster service like Hiper’s, the better.
Service providers that offer a higher speed service will, for some time, be ahead of the game and able to charge a premium for the faster performance they offer. Zyxel will be very happy to support them in delivering the service, as we have in Denmark and can from our local in-country offices throughout Europe.
Wherever you live or work, don’t assume that all broadband services will offer you something very similar or almost identical in terms of performance. Not all broadband is equal and if you want something faster, and you are prepared to pay a little extra to get that higher performance, it’s worth doing some research to see what’s available. Checking out the Speedtest report would be a great place to start – see http://www.speedtest.net/reports/nordic/ for more information.
To find out more about Hiper visit https://www.hiper.dk/.
