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JUST who offers the best broadband for downloading?

This guide will look at the broadband providers offering the holy trinity of best broadband features for downloads: fair traffic management, fair or non-existent fair use and fast speeds.

Downloading vs download allowances

When we talk about downloading in this guide for ease we're primarily going to talk about moving files (music tracks or movies from iTunes, books for the Kindle, Word documents etc) from web pages to your computer.

However, note that all online activity is technically downloading of a sort - even viewing web pages means downloading information.

When broadband providers advertise monthly download allowances, also often called usage limits or caps, alongside their broadband deals, then, they mean that any online activity will eat into that GB limit.

Some are much more data hungry than others. We'd put online activities in the following general order, from the least GBs consumed per second to the most:

• Browsing webpages
• Emailing
• Streaming content (e.g. iPlayer, Spotify)
• VoIP (e.g. Skype)
• Online gaming
• P2P downloading

Although much of what we'll talk about in this guide applies to all internet activity, then, it's in the bandwidth-heavy activities like P2P and gaming, and downloading individual files of any size, where it'll really show.

Putting downloads in the fast lane:

The best traffic management policies

A traffic management policy is exactly what is sounds: the amount of bandwidth a broadband provider allocates to online activities to keep everything running smoothly.

Broadband providers are forced to manage traffic like this to some extent so that high bandwidth activities don't completely drown ordinary online activity, like browsing, that takes up very little space.

It's hard to visualise exactly what this means for downloads in practice so we're grateful to whoever uploaded the following YouTube video which shows a Be broadband connection, without any traffic management, and a BT connection downloading side-by-side.

As you can see, or if you didn't watch it, the unmanaged BE broadband connection is definitely in the fast lane.

So traffic management is a bad thing? Not quite. Although we love unmanaged connections, traffic management policies that favour downloads can have just as dramatic an effect on your online experience.

For example, Plusnet offer a £5 add-on to their broadband deals called Plusnet Pro, which prioritises downloads, gaming and VPN traffic.

We'd be willing to bet that the deal is better for downloads than Sky broadband, which also does without a traffic management policy but has a far higher contention ratio than Be, meaning that customers are fighting it out for space.

Along with Be broadband, Sky and Plusnet with the Pro add-on, Eclipse internet has a good reputation for traffic management: broadband customers can use a simple tool to prioritise their own connections.

Speeds

Do they matter for downloads?

As we saw in the last section, the way that broadband providers manage connections is vitally important to downloads.

But fast speeds certainly don't hurt, either.

Here's a quick guide to how broadband speeds should, in theory, affect downloads.

	8Mb	20Mb	50Mb
5MB music track	5 secs	2 secs	1 sec
25MB video clip	26 secs	9 secs	4 secs
4GB film	1 hr 11 mins	24 mins	11 mins

As you can see, for relatively small downloads there's little performance difference. Again, it's the larger downloads where you really need to watch out.

Fast speeds certainly help with downloads, then, which has thrown the cat among the pigeons a bit when it comes to the best broadband for downloads.

Specialist gaming broadband deals have all but disappeared, for example, as serious downloaders migrate to fibre. Although some of the fastest broadband providers, such as Virgin Media, manage traffic the boost in speed is such that downloads are still much quicker than they would be elsewhere.

How unlimited?

The worst offenders and best fair use policies

Finally, those looking for broadband that's good for downloads must take into account their deal's download allowance: both in the form of the advertised cap on usage and the less obvious limits imposed by providers that have a fair use policy in place.

Like traffic management, fair use policies aim to stop the most data-hungry unlimited broadband users from ruining everyone else's online experience by slowing those using the most bandwidth.

Even Be broadband have one to allow them to step in when one individual's downloading is heavy enough to affect multiple connections.

Having said that, though, some policies are fairer than others. See our full fair use policy guide for a full breakdown by provider.

In general, only the heaviest of downloaders need to worry about fair use policies slowing downloads.

Those downloading a lot at peak times are especially vulnerable as are those served by a market 1 (least competitive) exchange. Not only do providers in these exchanges charge a premium for broadband they often impose stricter rules on downloads than the provider's 'main' packages, even when both are advertised as unlimited.

If you live in a more rural area with less choice of broadband, then, not only are you likely to have an issue with downloads when it comes to everyday speeds a fair use policy could slow you down even more.

The best advice for everyone, but particularly those in rural areas, is to check and double check the small print on that unlimited broadband.

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