Beginner's Broadband

[jivecat]

In a bid to reduce the amount of time I spend waiting for pages to load while I play on my various forums I think it's time I went on to broadband. Tiscali is offering a 20x faster service for only a pound more than I'm paying at the moment, but there is a 2 gb (?) download limit. What does this mean and is it likely to affect me? I don't download music or games, at the moment, anyway.
Any advice gratefully received!

[TheTramp]

It means that once you've downloaded 2gb (gigabytes) of data, you can't download any more until the time period expires.

I'm very dubious about taking any broadband with limits like this. I don't know how much I download, but with reading 4 forums, various sports pages, ebay, university stuff, and the odd bit of general surfing, I'd hate to reach a point where I couldn't access the internet any more.

Given that you can get such good deals (I would look them up, but I'm too lazy!) which don't have limits, I don't see why anyone (unless they don't, and won't be using the internet much) would potentially restrict themselves.

I'm with telewest broadband, on a 1Meg connection. It costs me £25 a month, and I've never had any problems with it.

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by jivecat

In a bid to reduce the amount of time I spend waiting for pages to load while I play on my various forums I think it's time I went on to broadband. Tiscali is offering a 20x faster service for only a pound more than I'm paying at the moment, but there is a 2 gb (?) download limit. What does this mean and is it likely to affect me? I don't download music or games, at the moment, anyway.
Any advice gratefully received!

Before you sign up with any ISP I'd check out www.adslguide.org.uk, which is a fantastic resource for people wanting to research broadband providers.

I did a quick check, and noted that Tiscali are much worse for Speed, Reliability and Customer service, than three other suppliers that I've used at various times and use as a benchmark these days (Nildram, Plusnet and Zen).

Also, quite a few providers are starting to provide cheap capped services. Plusnet is one (and even their 1b Gb per month limit would probably be enough for you if you don't do much in the way of downloading large files).

Definitely worth shopping around.

HTH,
Chris

[Zebra Woman]

I'm with NTL Freedom broadband no limits 512K

£16.99 / month. I think I'm tied in for a year. I wouldn't recommend NTL it was just the right choice for me at the time. Now I think there are better offers out there.

NTL Technical help line is 70p a minute, although I have managed to get problems fixed by ringing a cheaper line to customer services.

Well worth taking care over your choice. As you are

ZW

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by TheTramp

It means that once you've downloaded 2gb (gigabytes) of data, you can't download any more until the time period expires.

It definitely does not mean this.

It means that you have to pay a bit more if you exceed the cap.

I'm guessing that JiveCat's referring to Tiscali's service here

Capped services, and indeed pay as you go ones, are going to get more and more common, and IMHO are the way to go, since you pay more fairly, and don't subsidise the people downloading huge movie files all day long.

Chris

[Clive Long]

UK ADSL comparator here >>>> http://www.adslguide.org.uk/

Bit of information overload

My suggestion (for what its worth) avoid any service with download limits - there are several that don't have that restriction.

I think there is a BT facility on their web site to check ADSL "over the wires" availability in your area. Cable is a different option - but coverage might be an issue.

I am NOT an ADSL technical nor service expert but if you want to ask a few naive questions about the options either post or PM me. I am sure there are plenty of tech heads who can give more accurate info though.

Maybe also do a search on this forum for ADSL.

Good luck. I couldn't work on dial-up now. IMO more and more services and sites are assuming that 512k is standard connection speed.

[TheTramp]

Originally Posted by ChrisA

It definitely does not mean this.

It means that you have to pay a bit more if you exceed the cap.

Well. Okie. But for a poor student, costing more usually means that you don't get it

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by TheTramp

Well. Okie. But for a poor student, costing more usually means that you don't get it

A Gb of extra data transfer usually costs less than a couple of quid. So if mostly a 2Gb limit would be ok, the odd month where it's £17 quid instead of £15 is still better value than paying for an unlimited service that you don't use. Obviously if you need 10 Gb a month, a service capped at 2Gb plus a quid or two per extra Gb isn't going to work out cheaper.

I'm on an uncapped 0.5 meg service with Zen at the moment, for which I pay about £25... it's an excellent service, but I'm contemplating moving to a capped 1Mb (or even 2Mb) service at some point.

But not all ISPs are the same, and some are much slower than others, even for the same nominal speed, which is why personally I'd be reluctant to use Tiscali at all, given the ratings on adslguide.org.uk.

Chris

[philsmove]

I have used Telewest at home for several years, no problems, apart from when I cut through the cable
Even then it was quickly repaired free of charge

I had BT at work and would never, ever, use them again. BT Openworld customer care service was the worst I have ever encountered, for any supplier of any sort

Beware once you go over to broadband your use of the net will rise dramatically
It’s always on and you tend to use it for everything

At work we dumped a one whole bookcase and two filing cabinets of reference material and now look every thing up on the net

[RobC]

Personally I would never sign-up for a service that limits what I can do, however high the limit may be set compared to my current usage patterns. One thing that is without a doubt, if you are moving from a dial-up connection to broadband (ADSL or Cable), your internet usage patterns will change, whether it's spending more time online, downloading more files (music, video or even software updates)

I have always used Demon as my dial-up provider and set my parents up with Demon as well. At home I now have NTL Cable broadband access, and while many people don't rate NTL's customer services, I've never had any cause to actually call them. BT have finally (just before xmas) upgraded my parents phone exchange, so over xmas I upgraded their Demon dial-up to ADSL. It was a smooth and painless process and the best thing about Demon is that they give you a static IP address. This is a godsend if you want to be able to run any servers off your connection, or host any multiplayer games etc as you don't need to worry about services like dyndns.org

[Banana Man]

Originally Posted by jivecat

In a bid to reduce the amount of time I spend waiting for pages to load while I play on my various forums I think it's time I went on to broadband. Tiscali is offering a 20x faster service for only a pound more than I'm paying at the moment, but there is a 2 gb (?) download limit. What does this mean and is it likely to affect me? I don't download music or games, at the moment, anyway.
Any advice gratefully received!

Sounds like a good deal to me, although once you do get the faster connection, sure you'll be downloading, and I guess the limits apply whether you are just looking at stuff or downloading it to your PC. I looked at some WCS clips the other day, 6 low res clips at 3Mb, downloaded some music, 8 tracks 4.5Mb, so total there is 54Mb, you'd need to be doing this sort of thing and more every day to go past the 2Gb limit. As ChrisA says, the extra cost isn't too much if you do go over.

I use Zen, as I can give a month's notice, don't need to sign up to a long contract. I also need good tech backup if any problems as I work from home sometimes.

Don't know if you've got Firewall software at the moment, but this is a must if you have broadband. You'll get hackers coming at you from all directions, as soon as your PC is connected.

[philsmove]

I use Zen, as I can give a month's notice, don't need to sign up to a long contract

This is something to consider

With BT, if you up grade (e.g. to a static IP address) they insist on a new 1 year contract

Note if you want a wireless router for your lap top, you may need static IP address

[Clive Long]

Originally Posted by Banana Man

<< snip >>
Don't know if you've got Firewall software at the moment, but this is a must if you have broadband. You'll get hackers coming at you from all directions, as soon as your PC is connected.

Very important advice.

I have an ADSL modem / router* (NetGear) and this has built in Firewall whose default settings are:

* Allow all PC to internet (outbound) connections
* Disallow / block all internet to PC (inbound) connections

This should do the job, and is pretty secure, unless you want to contact into your PC from the internet.

I would guess most "free" modems supplied with services don't have such firewall options. (waits for someone to show me to be wrong)

If you run a software firewall on your PC this will consume SOME CPU and memory - but I don't know how much. ZoneLabs I believe is free and well trusted.

There is a freeware online tool that tests your setup vulnerability to hacking by port scanning - but I can't remember its name just now.


XP will probably automatically configure a software firewall for you and cause confusion at some point.

Yep you will be online a lot more.

Good luck.

Clive


{* it's really a hub than a router but let's not quibble}

[Clive Long]

Originally Posted by philsmove

<< snip >>
Note if you want a wireless router for your lap top, you may need static IP address

Don't think this is right

I have a static IP public address and use the private 192.168.x.x address range for "internal" wireless support (I can't run cables in my flat so wireless is a requirement)

I use a modem / router (see other post) that allows me to do this. I THINK this is a requirement but I may be wrong. I went for a router as I have several devices connected. Not necessary if broadband is a direct replacement for single PC dial-up.

Limit of knowledge now reached.

CRL

[jivecat]

Thanks, everyone, for these very helpful suggestions. I've even understood most of them.

I can't really justify paying £25 per month for internet use. I've been waiting for BB prices to get more affordable and now they have.

I don't think, at the moment, that I would exceed 2 Gb per month according to what people have said. Assuming that I have understood all the info properly. But I take the point that once things become faster then I will be tempted into using it more. I'd certainly like to download more music. But I will be getting better value for the time I spend sitting in front of my PC i.e. hours. Do ISPs inform you if the limit has been exceeded? I don't want to find I'm running up bills unawares. If I find that I am regularly exceeding the limit I could look for another package as most likely prices will have come down again by then.

Yes, Tiscali is rubbish. Their dial-up service is unbelievably slow and seems to be getting worse. I can't remember now why I signed up with them in the first place, I was certainly unaware of the choices and how to find comparative consumer info. However, now I'm inclined to stick with them because the hassle of changing my email address etc just seems too much. Can anyone tell me how easy the process of changing providers is? And I'm lazy, and could change within Tiscali at the click of a mouse.

[philsmove]

Originally Posted by jivecat

Can anyone tell me how easy the process of changing providers is? And I'm lazy, and could change within Tiscali at the click of a mouse.

try this tread



Dial up or Broadband?

if it does not work ,search ISP on this forum

Good luck

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by RobC

Personally I would never sign-up for a service that limits what I can do, however high the limit may be set compared to my current usage patterns.

There are obviously lots of misconceptions about these 'limited' services.

They don't limit what you do.

All they do is make you pay for anything you use above the amount that comes included with the package you buy.

It's just like mobile phone contracts - your price plan includes so many minutes, and any more than that you use, you pay for. And if you need to upgrade to a plan that includes more minutes you can do that too.

Simple as that.

The reason deals like this are proliferating is that lots of people download colossal amounts of data, and to support these, the ISPs need networks that can accommodate the traffic. And if everyone pays the same, then the low users end up subsidising the high users.

So the ISPs are trying to limit things by making people pay for what they use. It's not rocket science, and it doesn't stop people using what they need. Now there have been one or two ISPs that have used unacceptable tactics to reduce some users' activity - they've done things like move people on to very slow connections for a few days if their consumption is high - but for the most part, it's just a question of paying for usage above a certain threshold.

Whether it's a good deal or not for you depends on what you need. If you need huge amounts of data, get a relatively expensive unlimited deal (and even these are getting cheaper). If your needs are modest, a 1 or 2 Gig deal that you occasionally exceed and pay another couple of quid for, may well be just the ticket.

This is becoming particularly true since ISPs are realising that it's data transfer that they need to limit, not the maximum speed, so you can get very cheap 1 or 2 meg deals with 'limited' data transfer.

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by jivecat

Can anyone tell me how easy the process of changing providers is?

It's very easy.

Don't sign up with anyone that won't:

- give you a min one month contract
- release you to another provider, free
- transfer you in from your previous provider, also free.

And make sure they're well rated on adslguide.org.uk.

Plusnet is a pretty good ISP. And cheap, for the low end packages. You'll probably have to pay about £50 to get connected, but once you're in, any other ISP you go with should waive the connection fee and just transfer you over.

[ChrisA]

Just as an extreme example of where the 'pay for what you use' concept is going, check out..

http://www.metronet.co.uk/adsl/paygo

Not sure I'd go with them yet, but I reckon it's the shape of things to come.

[jivecat]

OK, it's gotta be done.

What disruption/inconvenience can I expect to my forum-visiting activities if, when I change to broadband?

I gather the entire process might take 2 weeks to get all the bits done. And if I change to another provider how does the changeover of bank details/ payment stuff get managed?

And, gasp, will I end up not having access to the net for a few days in the middle of it all? Hands trembling & cold sweat in anticipation.

Thanks for any advice/help at all.