What are the options available to me for connection to the Internet?
Author: Szilvia Orritt |
 | "The options available for connecting to the Internet are using your existing phone line provider or using a cable provider. Ideally most people would want to have a broadband connection; this allows a semi-permanent connection to the internet using your existing telephone line and does not prevent you from making and receiving telephone calls on that line. Broadband is not available in all areas, and usually where this is the case neither is cable access, therefore you can connect using a method known as 'dialup', this is not very suitable for surfing the internet and does not allow for making and receiving telephone calls simultaneously, however it is adequate for downloading e-mails. If you really need a quicker solution, ISDN is a more expensive possibility (beyond the scope of this article). Most providers regardless of access method provide flat rate billing which means that you always know what your Internet is going to cost each month, typically around the £15 pm mark for a domestic contract if you are running your business from home, you will probably pay more for a commercial contract. If using dialup it is of course possible to pay per call if your use of the Internet is very infrequent. For broadband users, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) would ordinarily provide the extra hardware you need as well as a simple to use installation disk designed to make the configuration of your machine as painless as possible. For dialup users, your ISP will expect you to already have this hardware, most new PCs come with one as standard. For further information and free e-mail support see http://www.mavb.co.uk. Mark van Bellen" |
