Broadband and Dial-up

What is broadband?

Broadband is a method of carrying pieces of data very quickly over a telephone wire. So that you don't hear the noise of the signal, it is transposed to a pitch outside of human hearing. Internet service providers have spent billions on developing the broadband network around the united kingdom. Except in places that are very remote from a telephone exchange, most people are now able to acquire at least some level of broadband.

Broadband speeds vary from 512 Kbps to 16Mbps. 512Kbps is about 10 times the speed of dial-up internet and 16Mbps is about 320 times as fast as dial-up.

You will need to concern yourself with upload and download speeds, along with data limits. Most home broadband suppliers offer a high rate of download, to a small rate of upload. This means that you can view web pages quickly, but sending data out to somewhere else will take longer. For example, you could have a 1Mbps download speed, with a 128Kbps upload speed. In effect, it would take eight times as long to send a file as it would take to receive it. This isn't usually a concern for most home users, as they are likely to download more data (ie web pages, etc) than they are to upload vast volumes of data.

Of course, you can pay for the privilege of a higher upload speed, however these services command a higher price.

Buying

There are countless suppliers of broadband out there. It would be impossible for me to list them all, nor keep my site up-to-date with their most recent offers. There are other sites out there to do that. The best site I've seen so far is HERE.

Testing

Once you've got your broadband set up and are using it, it is worthwhile just checking the real speeds you get. The best site I've found to do that is http://www.dslreports.com/tools. It will test the time it takes to send and receive a file of a known size. It will then show you how fast you are in comparison to the level of service you should be receiving.

Changing suppliers

Thanks to the telecom regulator's work over the last year, it has become far easier to change suppliers without losing service. You no longer need to cancel and set up a new connection. You have to have completed your contract with your current supplier, however once you're outside the tie-in period, you can phone up and ask for a MAC code. This is a code that your new supplier will use to identify the kit in the exchange belonging to you. They will then take over the administration of your broadband service.

You may still want to have a back-up dial-up connection to the internet. Although slow, it can give you emergency access to your emails. My Web hosting company is kind enough to provide such a service for free (if you exclude the cost of the calls, naturally).

Setup Instructions

The easiest way to set up the internet access is to download Heart Internet's free setup wizard. It only takes a few seconds to download and configure your computer to connect to Heart Internet (Microsoft^® Windows^tm only).

Simply have your computer dial:-

0845 604 0489

You can specify any username or password you like e.g. username heart and password internet!

They even provide a free out going mail server for use in programs like Outlook Express, simply point your outgoing mail server to smtp.outitgoes.com.

Here's a link to my site hosts