What Does Best Effort Mean In Broadband Service?

Fast Speed Internet

It never seems to end. Complaints about our broadband speed seem to be stacking up in all social media waves. Sometimes we’re surfing at top speed and other times we feel like throttling somebody’s neck when our surfing connection speed is throttled down.

Why are we having this problem? We complain to our service providers but we are still experiencing this problem from time to time. What is really going on?

Ok, remember when signing up for the broadband plan? Remember reading or coming across the words “best effort delivery”? Exactly. That’s why we’re in this scenario.

Our service providers try their best to deliver top speed as per mentioned in the package that we’ve signed up for.

However, best effort delivery of broadband service depends on factors such as modem capability, location, coverage, distance from communication towers and number of simultaneous users.

Meaning, a network service provider is unable to provide any “guarantees” of data speed delivered to customers. However, customers should obtain the best bit rate that network can offer to him at the delivery time, depending on the current traffic load.

For example, if 10 users were connected to a broadband from the network, one user can obtain the best download bit rate at the interval (maximum up to his package plan) provided that the other 9 connected users are not performing heavy download activities at the interval. In any particular interval, the network service provider shall ensure that the entire network capacity is distributed fairly to customers’ needs.

These are some general variables that would affect customers’ internet speed:- 

• Telephone line technology and service quality 
• Distance from the telephone exchange/tower 
• The number of, and type of, other services being used over the same broadband by other customers 
• The configuration and line quality of the network dimension between the exchange and the customer’s premises/residence 
• Electrical interference from outside sources, e.g. electric motors, electric fences, CCTV 
• The customer’s hardware or modem 
• The software configuration and application on the customer’s computer, in particular how it uses the uplink back to the exchange 
• The capacity of, load on, and access data rate of the destination host computer which the customer is accessing