As of April 2022, 63% of the world’s population is connected to the Internet. When 3 out of 5 people worldwide are online, it’s no longer a ‘nice-to-have-technology'. The Internet, in this day and age, is a necessity, and having a stable internet connection is just as important as having good shoes or a reliable banking partner.

While an unstable and slow network can be a source of frustration for individuals, the impact is more severe for businesses. It means the organisation is losing time and potential money it could make if it had a faster, more reliable internet connection.

With more and more workforce working remotely or from home, the significance of a stable internet connection has increased to a considerable extent. E-meetings have become the norm of office life. A shaky internet connection can result in poor video or sound quality. This leaves a bad impression on the clients, and the meetings prove to be a waste of time. Thus, a stable and robust internet connection is the need of the hour.

Top10VPN reports suggest that Indian businesses lost around $2.8 billion in 2020 because of unreliable internet connections, often during working hours. In addition, a 2016 report from Verizon highlights that approximately 87% of large enterprises use cloud infrastructures for at least one of their critical functions. Without the Internet, these functions suddenly stop, affecting the teams' productivity. Broadband and Internet connectivity issues can cost up to an average of 44 minutes in productivity, per employee, per week, says a survey by OnePoll.

If the data above aren't convincing, here are reasons people should look for a stable internet connection when choosing an ISP.

Helps to Match Pace with Rapid Digitisation

According to a survey by PewResearch conducted in September 2021, 29% of Internet users said they made significant upgrades to their gear to improve the speed and reliability of their Internet. This shift can be attributed mainly to the Covid-19 pandemic that enabled the transition to digital.

Moreover, the number of Indians with an active internet connection rose to 61% in 2022 as opposed to 21% in 2017. This number speaks volumes about the changing landscape and reliance on the internet to stay connected.

Everyone remembers the times when they had to spend 7 minutes of a 10-minute Skype call just asking if the person on the other end could hear them. That doesn’t cut it anymore since more than 47% of Internet users in India also use it to make video calls. The recommended Internet speed for uninterrupted video conferencing, 1:1, is 3 Mbps when one device is connected. This requirement increases as multiple devices get connected to the same broadband, and/or bandwidth is divided between uploads and downloads.

After the pandemic, when the world has become accustomed to the Internet and started harnessing its power more than before, users will have to look for stability in their Internet plans. From search engines to social media networks, the amount of data consumed by various apps has risen significantly and will not be compatible with unstable, unreliable internet connections. It is for this reason that many mobile network companies have shifted their advertising strategy in such a way as to focus on the stability of the connection. The company that promises uninterrupted internet connection with seamless bandwidth is fast becoming a preferred choice.

So, the ISP must be reliable to be on par and not miss out on global tech advancement.

Maximises Efficiency of Remote Work

One of the most significant shifts in the corporate world since the five-day work week is the ability to function remotely. When the pandemic halted the globe, everyone relied on the Internet to turn their living rooms into offices overnight. The major requirement to keep the work-from-home office running smoothly and seamlessly was a stable internet connection. Overnight, the demand for excellent packages and plans rose. The companies that were able to meet this burgeoning demand registered an astronomical growth in the number of subscribers.

There was a catch, though. People who used unstable ISPs had to deal with the stress of their internet connection going poof at any time, along with the pressure from their jobs. Research papers in the National Library of Medicine show - cities like Bangalore saw a 100% increase in Internet traffic.

Without proper infrastructure to support this massive surge in usage, many ISPs buckled and gave away poor Internet to their users. This led to chaos in their online workplace.

While the number of people working completely remote has decreased significantly since the beginning of 2022, 30% of the Indian workforce is still functioning wholly or partly remotely.

Not just that, but a CBRE South Asia Pvt. Ltd survey says that 73% of all office occupiers want to enjoy remote work benefits if they could, with the way the offices are evolving. So, this 30% will grow or, at the very least, stay the same for some time. To keep the work train smooth and sailing, people must look for a stable internet connection.

The best way to help remote teams stay more productive is to empower them with a stable internet connection. This would keep them connected through the ups and downs. In addition, since video conferencing is the new norm, a high-speed, highly reliable internet connection will significantly help brainstorming, decision-making, and working together.

Already, nearly 25% of offices with remote workforces are paying for their employees' internet connection wholly or partly in 2022, 3% more than in 2021. For an employer, the internet plan of the employee is no longer just an expense that’ll be reimbursed but an investment that the employers will make on their behalf.

This is undoubtedly a paradigm shift in the way companies have started working today. Companies are saving a lot in terms of infrastructural costs, which are now diverted to ensuring a stable internet connection to their workforce spread around the world. It especially holds true in the case of tech companies. This cost is still negligible when compared to other costs that the employer companies had to bear when the employees worked from offices. Thus, it is a win-win scenario for employers and employees. The latter have become accustomed to working from home and, after an initial dip in work productivity, it is again reaching the pre-Covid levels.

Adds to the Convenience of Banking

Banking is another sector that got massively fuelled by the Internet and rose to heights never imagined. The amount of change in technology that the banking sector experienced is so high that almost 26% of households have a digital bank account, and 71 billion transactions have been made digitally in 2022 alone.

A central inhibition people have about transacting online is a slow internet connection that never favours a successful transaction. Razorpay lists downtime from either end of the transactions as one of the three main reasons online transactions fail. Thus, it is important to ensure a stable internet connection to engage in safe and instant banking transactions.

For a good customer experience, a bank must have flawless Internet connectivity in its branch. In the digital age, customers visiting the bank expect things to happen much faster, and that is possible only if the branch is equipped with a reliable, stable internet connection. So, a stable internet connection is necessary for individual customers and banks to cope with a digitally connected world.

Every sector is realising the significance of robust and uninterrupted internet connection. Thus, the responsibility of mobile companies has grown exponentially.

Empowers the Concept of Education from Anywhere

Schools, students, and teachers have experienced many changes in the last few years. Students consult online sources for studies; teachers stream their classes through videoconferencing, and schools have started using cloud-assisted applications to keep everybody informed about the syllabus, student performances, and subjects.

Even before the pandemic, 12.5% of all college students took online courses apart from their academic syllabus. It is also no secret that EdTech and online education commands a vast market in India, depending on online education and the potential of complete remote learning. Hence, seamless Internet is every student’s right. Beyond schools and institutions mandating or following an online curriculum, students know their way around the internet and prefer learning online.

The vast number of resources and their easy accessibility are just a few reasons the internet is a great place to learn from. Ideally, the internet speed must be 1.5 Mbps (when using one device) to ensure optimal download and upload speed.

Teachers and students have all collectively reported in various surveys that the second biggest hindrance to their online learning expedition is the stability of their internet connections. Even now, as schools are opening up and students are returning to school, teachers are employing more innovative teaching methods, like videos and smart boards, which essentially require high bandwidth. Beyond the curriculum, most schools now have an on-cloud infrastructure that helps parents and teachers keep themselves informed about the children's progress.

Now, schools and colleges are open and offline classes have started in earnest, but the demand for a stable internet connection has not abated. Despite attending offline classes, students need to use the internet to gain knowledge about various subjects and courses. It can be fulfilled only when their phone devices or laptops have a strong internet connection.

So, if you’re a parent, teacher, or school owner, a stable internet connection with an excellent up-and-down speed is one of the best investments. Explore multiple options before selecting the best plan which is ideally suited to your requirements.

Makes Gaming Effortless

Gaming has gone from an obscure niche of entertainment to mainstream entertainment and a means of livelihood for a lot of people. Streaming games online is one of the coolest, most popular jobs of the 21st century.

One of their most significant advantages is typer-realism. Unfortunately, their engines have a lot to render, and online sync has made it mandatory for players to have a stable internet connection to enjoy playing with their friends.

A stable internet connection becomes an ideal investment for a streamer or someone who frequently uploads, Let alone playing downloading games on consoles takes a lot of data. If the ISP is slow, DLCs and games will be challenging. The average game size for consoles like PS5 comes to about 50-60 GB, and flagship games can easily stretch to about 150 to 200 GB.

Irrespective of the consoles and experience, the data and Internet bandwidth that games require are a lot. On average, 1 hour of online gaming will exhaust between 40 Mb to 800 Mb of data, depending on the graphics.

Having a high-speed, stable internet connection is more important than having a lot of data in one's internet plan. Higher pings or Internet downtimes in the middle of a gaming session can be disastrous, sometimes leaving hours' worth of hard work pointless. To enjoy a good gaming experience, one must ask for a stable internet connection from the Internet service provider.

You’ve s(b)uffered enough. Ask for ACT!

From healthcare to households, every place now needs a stable internet connection to make the lives of the stakeholders easier. Moreover, as services as products increase demand for data, people are invariably bound to expend data faster. This means that many of us are due for an upgrade.

India is ranked 68th in Internet speed and reliability. ACT, the favourite Internet service provider for many, can offer up to 1 Gbps speed in selected cities like Bengaluru.

ACT has the perfect internet plan for everyone, whether a student or school, banker, transactor, gamer or streamer, employee or employer.

Get in touch to find the nearest service provider or know about the plans ACT offers. Happy surfing!