How To Choose The Right Broadband Plan

Most of our ISP's provide various broadband plans to choose from and it can get a bit confusing for some to choose the right broadband plan as they dont want to end up with a huge bill . Some countries do not exactly have a choice of plan , as they get unlimited data usage like in the USA . But in countries like India where there are plans with limited data download/upload for an affordable price people do tend to go for such plans which can be very beneficial than going for an UNLIMITED plan . So here are a few ways to choose the right plan :

I guess its pretty obvious that choosing the right plan is based on your internet usage . If you are a light user who just browses a few webpages, checks email once in a while , then you DO NOT need a plan with HIGH download limit . A plan like Home 250 would do as 1gb is more than enough . Therefore you dont have to waste money on an unlimited plan which costs about 750 rs . So hence you save 500 rs every month . Here are a few tips you could use :

1)If you are a person who does not download much but only browse websites then go for a plan with 1 or 2gb usage per month
2)If you are a heavy downloader then go for a plan which has NIGHT UNLIMITED therefore you could schedule your downloads at night
3)If you are a person who watches a lot of youtube or use a lot of skype , then its a bit difficult to choose the right plan as it depends on how often you use skype etc and for how long. In such cases you could just go for a plan with 2-3gb usage and then use a Internet monitor software which monitors your internet usage . Use this monitor for around 3 months and find an approximate average you use per month . THen you could go ahead and decide the right plan for you.
4)Unlimited Plans are suitable for power users who needs to download during the day as well or even transfer files to servers.
5)If you get an extra usage amount of say 20-30 mb per month on an average then you shouldnt worry unless its getting more expensive than a higher plan with a higher DATA USAGE limit.

On an average, when one checks email , one spends approximately 1mb of usage . Using skype/yahoo video/google talk video etc is approximately 1mb per min.Typically each website you open is around 200-300 kb . These are normal websites , if websites have a lot of flash,pictures and videos then it would be a lot more . You could use flash blockers etc to block flash on websites to save on the data usage.

So now lets take BSNL as an example and analyze its various broadband plans and see whats suitable and for whom. This is again on an approximate , it may vary according to your usage :



Now from this table , you can see 6 plans currently
1)now home 125 and home 250 are the basic plans - this is for casual web browsing like checking email , visiting a few websites etc - no youtube videos , no skype video calls!!There is no night unlimited also , so no downloads
2)home 500 and home 1000 are the next level plans - here you could do skype and youtube as well , but yea to a certain extent. Also you could schedule all your downloads at night as you have night unlimited
3)Home 1800 and Home 3300 are like unlimited plans i feel - as in if you schedule all your downloads at night and use only youtube and skype during the day then it should be pretty much enough!!
4)And lastly , if as mentioned earlier you download a LOT during the day and use services like skype,youtube etc more during the day then an unlimited plan is always the best way to go.

Thats about it!!If you still feel your in the wrong plan , just use software to monitor your internet usage for like 3 months and then find the average usage and then choose a plan.