Broadband Providers
There are many types of broadband providers out there, I know because I%u2019ve used quite a few personally at home and in work. In the next few pages I will give you my personal opinion of each and give you the pros and cons on each of them.
The broadband providers I've used are, Tiscali, BT, Sky, AOL and currently Eclipse. I own a computer repair shop and spend a lot of my time repairing computers or doing call-outs to people who can%u2019t get online with their broadband provider. A lot of this is down to simple setting up of the equipment but there have been a few instances of faulty equipment, more often than not the filter they provide.
There are some good deals out now, Tiscali spring to mind where for £15 at the moment you get broadband plus your line rental is included in this price. Where I live line rental is over £10, so really you are paying less than £5 for broadband. Included in this are free evening and weekend calls for local numbers. I will go into more detail on the Tiscali page.
I will also be going over some of the other broadband providers I haven%u2019t used but have seen working through work and things I%u2019ve picked up from some of my customers.
I now want to explain quickly a few differences that some of my customers get confused about regarding types of broadband Internet usage. The main problem is the difference in mobile and wireless. Somebody came into the shop the other day, bought everything I told him he needed to go wireless as his friend had suggested then brought it back, everything opened, telling me it wouldn%u2019t work. After calling to his house I found the problem quite quickly, he didn%u2019t have a landline. I explained he needed mobile broadband and took everything back and then had to try and re-sell the equipment after the boxes had been opened.
The broadband providers I've used are, Tiscali, BT, Sky, AOL and currently Eclipse. I own a computer repair shop and spend a lot of my time repairing computers or doing call-outs to people who can%u2019t get online with their broadband provider. A lot of this is down to simple setting up of the equipment but there have been a few instances of faulty equipment, more often than not the filter they provide.
There are some good deals out now, Tiscali spring to mind where for £15 at the moment you get broadband plus your line rental is included in this price. Where I live line rental is over £10, so really you are paying less than £5 for broadband. Included in this are free evening and weekend calls for local numbers. I will go into more detail on the Tiscali page.
I will also be going over some of the other broadband providers I haven%u2019t used but have seen working through work and things I%u2019ve picked up from some of my customers.
I now want to explain quickly a few differences that some of my customers get confused about regarding types of broadband Internet usage. The main problem is the difference in mobile and wireless. Somebody came into the shop the other day, bought everything I told him he needed to go wireless as his friend had suggested then brought it back, everything opened, telling me it wouldn%u2019t work. After calling to his house I found the problem quite quickly, he didn%u2019t have a landline. I explained he needed mobile broadband and took everything back and then had to try and re-sell the equipment after the boxes had been opened.
Dial-up is where you have to connect
to the phone line every time you want to use the internet and usually
pay per minute you are on there. While online you can%u2019t use the
phone or receive calls. This type of connection is very slow, usually
around the 5kbs speed.
Broadband is where you connect at about 5Mbs nowadays though it used to be about 1Mbs. 5Mbs is 100 as fast as 5Kbs and is now needed as 5Kbs takes forever to load pages. The other advantage of broadband is that you can use the phone as well through use of a filter. Most people nowadays also use a router, a piece of equipment that connects to the phone line and can let all the computers and some consoles in the house use the net simultaneously. These routers also come in wireless, if you have a wireless card in your each of your computers they can all connect to the router from anywhere in the house without wires. Usually over 100 computers can use the same router but the speed for each would be very slow.
Mobile broadband is basically a USB stick that fits into your computer and use the mobile network such as 02, T-mobile and Orange to connect. As a general rule these tend to be a bit slower and have a smaller usage cap (explained later) but the big advantage is you don%u2019t need a landline.
The usage cap I mentioned earlier is what some companies use for broadband or mobile. Its where if for instance the cap is 2Gb per month then you can only use 2Gb per month, this includes downloads. If you download a lot of music for example then most songs use about 5Mb so in a month you could download about 400 of these per month but a film is about 1.5Gb so you could only get 1. Also the time online counts as usage. Companies that claim unlimited usage also mention a fair usage policy which varies. For instance Tiscali has a lower threshold, I know this from when I was with them. After you use so much per day they slow your downloads down to almost unusable speeds, this was my main reason for leaving and going to Eclipse who are for me the best broadband provider.
Broadband is where you connect at about 5Mbs nowadays though it used to be about 1Mbs. 5Mbs is 100 as fast as 5Kbs and is now needed as 5Kbs takes forever to load pages. The other advantage of broadband is that you can use the phone as well through use of a filter. Most people nowadays also use a router, a piece of equipment that connects to the phone line and can let all the computers and some consoles in the house use the net simultaneously. These routers also come in wireless, if you have a wireless card in your each of your computers they can all connect to the router from anywhere in the house without wires. Usually over 100 computers can use the same router but the speed for each would be very slow.
Mobile broadband is basically a USB stick that fits into your computer and use the mobile network such as 02, T-mobile and Orange to connect. As a general rule these tend to be a bit slower and have a smaller usage cap (explained later) but the big advantage is you don%u2019t need a landline.
The usage cap I mentioned earlier is what some companies use for broadband or mobile. Its where if for instance the cap is 2Gb per month then you can only use 2Gb per month, this includes downloads. If you download a lot of music for example then most songs use about 5Mb so in a month you could download about 400 of these per month but a film is about 1.5Gb so you could only get 1. Also the time online counts as usage. Companies that claim unlimited usage also mention a fair usage policy which varies. For instance Tiscali has a lower threshold, I know this from when I was with them. After you use so much per day they slow your downloads down to almost unusable speeds, this was my main reason for leaving and going to Eclipse who are for me the best broadband provider.