Internet Service Providers (ISPs) usually allocate you a specific amount of bandwidth depending on the amount of money you paid (package subscribed). Bandwidth is the amount of data that your ISP transfers to you and are measured in bits per second(bps). However, it is usually expressed as Mbps on ISP packages. This is also what most people refer to as speed as it determines how fast you will download your files, or which quality will you be able to stream your videos. The higher the bandwidth, the more speed or higher quality you will get.
Limitación del ancho de banda
Almost everybody has experienced this injustice when doing any data intensive task. For instance, you may have been streaming online videos legally the whole day, and at a certain point, you realize that the quality dropped. Or you could have been torrenting, and at specific times you realize your speed drastically declined. Most people will assume it’s the links that have been congested or give another reason and wait for the speed to be normal. But that’s not the case; the link will be free most times, the fault goes to your ISP. If you doubt this, next time you experience a reduction in video quality, just do a speed test. The figures (Mbps) you will get are not the ones you paid for.
¿Por qué los ISP limitan el ancho de banda?
Hay muchas razones o excusas que explican por qué los ISP deciden limitar tu velocidad. He aquí algunas de ellas;
- Mintieron sobre su ancho de banda: este es el caso en el que el falso marketing desempeña un papel dudoso. Los ISP pueden haber anunciado 20 Mbps, pero cuando haces pruebas de velocidad, siempre acabas obteniendo entre 13 Mbps y 15 Mbps, incluso cuando no se está descargando nada. En este caso, los ISP no pueden cumplir lo que prometieron y, por tanto, carecen de ancho de banda para repartir. Lo mejor es darse de baja de ese ISP y buscar otros mejores.
- Horas punta: son las horas en las que todo el mundo utiliza Internet. Durante las horas punta, la demanda es tan alta que la infraestructura del ISP no puede gestionar el servicio con eficacia. Para evitar un colapso, los ISP limitan el ancho de banda en un porcentaje determinado, de modo que todo el mundo tenga acceso a Internet. Aunque esto es bueno (igualdad en Internet), también es un error, ya que la gente gasta el dinero que tanto le cuesta ganar y, a cambio, recibe un mal servicio.
- Data-intensive services – some ISPs may decide to limit bandwidth on some services to strong-arm users to pay more. For instance, ISPs may throttle data coming from streaming and P2P services. They will then come up with another pricier package that allows you to use the said services smoothly.
Evitar que los proveedores de Internet limiten tu ancho de banda
Si después de hacer un par de pruebas descubres que la velocidad que obtienes no es la que has pagado, es que eres víctima de la estrangulación del ancho de banda del ISP. Lo siguiente que debes hacer es poner fin a esta injusticia, pero con un pequeño coste adicional.
To throttle your bandwidth, ISPs usually have an insight into what you are doing on their network, that’s, they are continually monitoring which services you access and so on. To avoid throttling, you must first hide your internet traffic from your ISP. The surest way to do this is by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
A VPN encrypts all your internet traffic and channels it through a secure tunnel that even your ISP won’t be able to see. Hence your ISP won’t be able to throttle your bandwidth if the ISP doesn’t know what you are doing. But you should expect a small drop in the bandwidth like <1mbps due to encryptions involved.
