finding the best Internet service
provider can be a challenge and it's
tempting to just look for a ranking and
pick the one at the top it doesn't work
that way of course and that's why you
won't find a simple ranking like that on
reviews or what you can do though is
answer a few questions about how you use
or will use the Internet in your home
then you can compare providers who are
going to be able to deliver what you
need so let's take a look at how to find
the best internet service provider for
you let's dive in now the first thing
you need to know is availability this is
pretty simple stuff obviously no ranking
will ever matter if it's ranking stuff
that you can't even get in your area so
to find out for sure what's available to
you check out the zip code locator tool
that we have scattered all over reviews
org especially in the internet section
and what you'll generally see when you
use that is a cable provider a DSL
provider a satellite internet provider
maybe a fiber one thrown in too if
you're lucky as an example I threw in a
random zip code and the results came
back with CenturyLink which is DSL
mediacom which is cable via sad that's a
satellite company and suddenly another
cable provider now once you have that
list of possible providers to look at
you can move on to the next question
which is about how much speed and data
you'll need answering the speed and data
question is all about knowing what you
want to do with your internet connection
and then how much of that you want to do
and while a lot of providers will for
obvious reasons try to sell you the
speediest and most expensive plan that
they think they can get away with in
reality you can often make do with less
speed than you might think so if you
have a fiber provider promising gigabit
speeds you can pretty much ignore that
if you're mostly just gonna browse
Facebook and watch the occasional
YouTube video in that case DSL is
probably gonna be just fine for you on
the other hand though if you have a
half-dozen people in your household and
you're all simultaneously gaming and
browsing and streaming then yeah you're
probably gonna need some beefier speeds
in that case you probably want a cable
or a fiber connection if you can get it
but don't forget the second part of this
question data when we talk about data
being part of your internet plan we're
talking about data caps you're probably
familiar with data caps from your cell
phone plan but in the last few years
they have become a part of your regular
internet plan too
most of the time
honestly you probably won't need to
worry too much about it since data caps
are usually quite a bit higher than what
you'll actually use the exception would
be households that are extremely wired
maybe you're constantly streaming video
or you do a ton of gaming or you have a
hundred little connected smart devices
just to give you one example if you
stream live TV maybe through sling TV or
DirecTV now or whatever and you watch
four to six hours of TV a day that'll
eat up about 200 to 300 gigabytes of
data over the course of a month so if
your data cap is 250 gigabytes a month
you might be in trouble and you should
look for a plan with a higher cap so now
you know what's available and what you
actually need your internet to do for
you so you can start whittling it down
obviously the next big question will be
about price this is one question though
that's gonna be tough for us to answer
we can tell you which provider is
cheaper and which is pricier but we
can't tell you whether a provider is
worth it to you maybe Xfinity offers
speeds of 100 megabits per second in
your area while CenturyLink offers only
25 megabits per second but at a lower
cost but that's where all these reviews
we do come in handy so hit up the
internet section on reviews org to see
individual reviews of all the major
providers with some head-to-head
matchups and best of zin there as well
we'll tackle the technical questions as
well as the tougher ones like customer
service so if you want all the details
on say CenturyLink we've got that for
you
or if you want to see how CenturyLink
stacks up against Xfinity well we've got
that too
and of course we want to know what you
think of our approach to picking your
internet service provider so hit up the
comment and on your way be sure to LIKE
and subscribe of course thanks for
watching everyone and we'll see you next
time
you