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Gaming is a favourite hobby for so many Australians. But the fun and thrill are completely marred if you don’t have a good internet connection. Today most of the popular games require an internet connection when you are playing live with other real players. You also require connection for new patches, updates and even for downloading new games.
But considering the horde of broadband options available in Australia, which ones should you sign up for? Go through the features of all popular plans, read online reviews, compare them side by side on websites such as www.comparetv.com.au, and you would be able to come to a decision. To make it easier for you, let’s take a look at the most important evaluation factors from a gamer’s point of view.
Download Allowance
How many games do you download in a single month? If you can’t stick to one, you definitely need a greater allowance, especially if you buy titles digitally. Most of the hit games take up around 50 GB for PlayStation, Xbox and even PC, so that’s a whooping amount of speed. If your download limit is 250 GB per month, then a 50 GB download means that you have used 20% of your allowance in just a single go.
What if you don’t download, and instead, resort to discs for games? Initially, this would work fine. But for how long would you be able to avoid updates? Sometimes the sizes are low, but we have seen games where even the updates take up nearly 50 GB.
So what should be the ideal broadband limit for you? If you are a diehard game fan, and download games regularly, go with an unlimited broadband plan. And this is especially so when you share the connection with the rest of your family. Think this would incur unnecessary expenses? Not really. Research and you would be able to find an affordable, unlimited broadband plan. Belong, Mate, Dodo, and Barefoot Telecom are some options worth considering.
Speed
Speed is a factor that can immensely help you out if you often download games. Considering an ADSL2+ connection, a 50 GB game would almost take 12 hours to download, but the same game would download in a just a little over an hour on NBN connection with a speed of 100 Mbps.
But greater speeds don’t come without a cost. For an NBN connection it means paying around $20 more per month for a 100 Mbps connection. If you choose a 50 Mbps connection, you would have to pay around $10 more monthly.
Performance
Gaming performance is often measured in ping, which refers to network latency between your device and gaming server. The value should be on the low side for a smoother play. However, ping is not something in your control, and depends on various factors related to where your ISP server is located and their international capacity.
