How to choose a broadband in 2024

This is going to be a no nonsense guide on how to select an ISP in your area in order to have a satisfactory internet experience. Most of the things that will be mentioned in this article may seem obvious and repeated but it will be a collection of all the points which are scattered across different threads of this forum.
I am going to keep this as detailed as possible, fellow members can add relevant points or something which they think are missing in this article.

1. Understanding your requirement: This is the most basic thing people miss out on, they just tend to run behind advertisements are marketing gimmicks without understanding their internet requirement. There's no perfect ISP. Some offer crazy speeds and OTT bundle for very attractive price while some have great routing and offer good stability which comes at a premium. One should understand their priority, whether it is gaming, casual browsing/streaming, downloading or WFH.

2. More speed is not equal to quality: This is the biggest myth which prevails in galore. Just because one has a 400 Mbps connection from a particular ISP for let's say 999 per month, it does not translate to or guarantee a better internet experience than some ISP who offers 200 Mbps for 999. It depends on a lot of factors which are mentioned later in this article.

3. Local reviews matter: No matter how good a ISP is in a particular city, let's say Delhi, it doesn't have to be the same in another city, let's say Agra. Two people can have completely different experience from the same ISP present in two different cities. This factor also varies across different areas of the same city. Always read local google reviews or ask your neighbours who are availing service from that particular ISP.

4. Fault Resolution Timing: In case the connection goes down for whatever reason, how much time does it take to get the connection back up again? This also varies from city to city and area to area. Always keep the LCO/Local Engineer's number so that so that you can call them directly if you run into issues. Choose an ISP which has a better fault resolution timing. This point will help save you a lot of trouble and unnecessary drama in the future.

5. Prioritise your requirement: This is an extension to point 1, after you have understood your requirement, you must choose ISP accordingly. If you are a working professional who uses internet for WFH and casual OTT streaming/browsing, choose an ISP which has better routing and uptime. If you are a gamer, always choose ISP with good routing so that you get lowest pings possible to international as well as domestic servers. If you are heavy downloader who doesn't want to spend much then choose ISPs which offer great download speeds for cheap but this will most likely come with a compromise in connection quality and uptime.

Bonus points for a better internet experience:​

1. Use your own router: ISP provided routers are cheap and perform sub par in terms of WiFi range and multiple client handling. Get a dual band router and connect it to your ISP router(in Bridge mode preferably). This will elevate your experience by a huge margin.

2. Get a router UPS: This will save you a lot of trouble if you live in a city with frequent power cuts. You will have uninterrupted internet experience for a few hours. This a boon for WFH employees and internet heavy house.


I hope this article is useful for someone who is confused as a beginner in choosing ISP/broadband.

 

[Skeeter]

My requirement is 24*7 uptime, as I don't stay awake all the time during the day but my father and retired mother is using Internet all the day for different tasks such as talking to family members on WhatsApp video call, finding perfect recipe of some food, watching spiritual content during the morning and evening. I dont want them to wake me up saying Internet is not working, so I have two connections, one from Airtel(300Mbps) and Excitel(400Mbps), I use Excitel for backup only, but it turns out, I need another backup connection as Excitel is down 3-4 days/week, trust me it works good only when it works, and if its down, no idea when will it come back.

With Airtel, I had only one fiber cut in last 2 months, and that was because of Utility Pole shifting process, and it was resolved without me throwing calls to Airtel CC or local Airtel technicians.
With Excitel, if its down, I have to make several calls to the LCO and his technician and keep following up till it gets fixed. I dont bother if excitel goes down, I just raise a ticket on their portal and wait, its just I dont want Excitel to be down when there's some maintenance work going on in Airtel's backend, though very rare, like once in a month for 3-4 hours.

Yes, you are completely right, 100Mbps of Airtel is much better than 400Mbps of Excitel (for me at least), because from what I have observed for last 2 months with Excitel is, it looses PPPoE connectivity during the day, while Airtel's PPPoE remains intact for very long time.

I usually browse reddit most of the time and it just loads fine on Airtel, while on Excitel, is loads very fast, Idk if its due to load in Local Network or Excitel's side. so I route i.redd.it through Excitel.

Latency to services I use, Hotstar, netflix, prime are similar on both the connections.

Excitel has better routing for some services like CF, Vultr, Anexia, I guess its due to peering maybe?