Borealis Broadband

Symmetric Bandwidth

"Symmetric Bandwidth" means that you can transmit OR receive communication at the same speed on the network.

This is standard with Borealis Broadband - our entire network is built around a symmetric bandwidth model. More specifically, when you connect to us, you're almost literally connecting to a very fast Ethernet network and you get all the associated benefits, the symmetric bandwidth being just one of them.

The differences are easy to see. For example:

A Cablemodem or DSL service level of 1 Mbps may provide you with a 1 Mbps download, but only a 256 Kbps upload speed. So, when you download a web page, you get it at 1 Mbps but when you send out an email, it drops down to roughly 1/4th of your service level.

For most home and casual Internet users, this is quite tolerable, since there will be few users uploading simultaneously in a home. That is, unless you're running peer-to-peer applications, sending out large files such as photographs, video, etc. Then the difference can become noticeable.

However, for a business, this low upload speed can rapidly become a significant bottleneck as multiple users consume the very limited upload bandwidth, which will then also affect the download capacity, bringing it to a crawl.

Businesses absolutely need symmetric bandwidth. You should insist on nothing less.

By comparison, Borealis Broadband delivers symmetric bandwidth as standard fare across all of its services, including our residential service. A 1 Mbps service level from Borealis means that you can download at up to 1 Mbps, upload at up to 1 Mbps or any combination in between.

Just like ethernet.

As it so happens, most computers and network devices come with built-in ethernet ports so you just plug right into us. What a coincidence!