When it comes to the Internet these days, one can never quite have too much speed or bandwidth to do all the cool stuff they want to do.

These days, you don't just surf the Web. Users preview, buy and download songs from the Online Music Store, swap the movies and tracks over Bit Torrent, watch streaming video trailers of Gong Li's monumental return to screen in The Curse of The Golden Flower, make free VOIP calls and Windows Live Messenger video conferencing to geographically distant but virtually borderless friends and family, TeamSpeak with tens of other brave but sleep-deficient caffeine-enriched fellow adventurers as they raid the Dark Portal to face the Burning Crusade, listen to Mr Brown's "cockly" podcasts, upload pictures of their dogs and babies to Blogger and even watch a full length movie through a video-on-demand service.

And if they still have time left over, they'll surf the Web and read articles like this one.

The question is - do you have enough oomph in your broadband Internet line to run all the applications smoothly? Do you zip through your downloads like Speedy Gonzalez?

Do you watch streaming video without having to wait every 10 seconds for another 10 seconds of buffering? It's not just enough bandwidth for yourself, but for the entire family. This is something that StarHub's MaxOnline can supply.

At the beginning of 2006, the fastest broadband lines in Singapore were going at 25Mbps to 30Mbps, depending on who your service provider is. But in the last days of December, StarHub raced ahead and carved out an unassailable lead with the launch of its 100Mbps service (MaxOnline Ultimate). With rival ADSL-based technology apparently hitting the wall at 25Mbps, this is a pole position that MaxOnline will in all likelihood maintain over the near future.

With the new 100Mbps service, StarHub opened the new year with a bag of goodies for all MaxOnline customers. Everyone received a free speed upgrade. MaxOnline 4000 was boosted to 6Mbps (6,000Kbps), middle-tier MaxOnline 6500 saw a doubling of speeds to 12Mbps (12,000Kbps) while the top-tier customers got the ultimate rush when they saw their 30Mbps (30,000Kbps) line more than tripling to 100Mbps (100,000Kbps).

In addition to the free speed upgrades, MaxOnline also "opened up" a "faster lane" for access to websites and applications hosted on StarHub's servers under its Velocity content hosting programme. Under this programme, all MaxOnline users, regardless of which plan they are on, can access partner sites at speeds of up to 100Mbps. However, you need to fork out a little extra to purchase a new 100Mbps-ready cable modem to take advantage of the higher speed. Even if you don't, you still get a speed boost of up to 32Mbps when visiting these partner sites.

Effectively it means that MaxOnline subscribers now get a two-tier access to the Internet. Everyone gets 100Mbps (or 32Mbps without the modem upgrade) to all partner sites and the prescribed speed (i.e. 6Mbps, 12Mbps or 100Mbps) of their MaxOnline plan when accessing any other website or online content.

There is plenty of exciting content available on partner sites, and the list is growing. For gamers, there is the sizzling hot MapleStory, Pangya, Audition and StarHub's Game-On-Demand service. Yahoo and MSN are also on board. You can also check your webmail at super fast speeds plus send instant messages over Windows Live Messenger (previously called MSN Messenger) and Yahoo Messenger instantly. All local education (edu.sg) and government (gov.sg) websites are in the list too, so you will experience supersonic access to these sites.

There are many reasons why you should subscribe to a "faster" broadband service, or to a bigger pipe with more capacity. Having a wider pipe generally ensures you have a smoother Internet experience and faster file downloads. By having a bigger pipe, you are eliminating the chance that your last mile may be the bottleneck. If you are just viewing simple web pages, having a 10Mbps or a 100Mbps line won't make much difference. But when you are downloading ultra huge files or watching streaming video, there will be a significant improvement.

It becomes an issue if you are running multiple applications, torrents or downloads at the same time. And it is a seriously big deal when everyone at home also wants to use and share the same line. You need to have a bigger pipe to ensure everyone can get their individual throughputs as high as possible. If your pipe is too small, then everyone gets their individual throughputs throttled.

With high-definition TV, multi-media teleworking and a host of new bandwidth-hungry applications coming on board, having a bigger pipe ensures that you are able to support them. For example, if you have a 512Kbps line, you will have a very difficult time trying to view high-definition video on your computer.

Because throughput is never a constant, it is impossible to put an actual figure or to guarantee a throughput for Internet users. And actual throughput will depend on how well the ISP manages its network, including making sure that there is enough bandwidth end-to-end. IDA however has started measuring the local and international throughput of the various broadband Internet lines. According to IDA's latest report, for the last three months in 2006, StarHub's 30Mbps service (before the upgrade to 100Mbps and before the Taiwan quake) was 30-45% better than its nearest competitor, for its international throughput.