Just got a letter through the post from Telewest, they are offering free installation to the Blue Yonder broadband connection (normally £50 + £75 for the interface card), about bliddy time too!

So thats me becoming even more of a Net junkie. It means I can find out this BBS is crocked again even faster now. Marvellous!

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Answers

what's the monthly rate? AOL are down to £40 and I'd heard of another at £22

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

£25 a month. Good value really considering I currently pay BT £14.99 for the privelige of constant disconnections in the middle of online time.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

yep ... I'm AOL at the mo and they've just stuck it up to £15.99

£25 sounds a good deal

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Freeserve anytime just went up to 13.99.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

I was with AOL a few years ago and wasn't that impressed to be honest. I always had trouble sending and recieving email attachments to people with different ISPs.

How the hell can they justify putting the price UP when most of the other ISPs are fighting each other like dogs to give the cheapest service?

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

AOL tries to be clever by sending a lot of attachments (mostly multiple attachments) via compression (MIMMS file, I think). A lot of people just use Winzip or the like, so hassling with an extra piece of software (that even earlier AOL versions didn't have already installed - not sure about the new one) was agro.

I find it relatively ok, although it can hang quite a bit once the US users sign on. And I still like my juvenile username :-)

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

I expect most people can't be bothered to switch from a working ISP so they can stick modest price increases on. Even if 6% drop them they are still making more money. I don't see that %age stopping their subscription

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

they also probably use the extra revenue to subsidise the real battlle which is the broadband prices

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

I think I still get my home internet free via NTL, although it's being phased out. No wonder they're going bust!

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Can't see dial up connections lasting much longer once the battle for broadband users really hots up.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Andy, I'm on BY Broadband and I've no complaints. Cost is £33 a month or £25 if you've got a Telewest phone line and/or cable TV and worth every penny if you're a gamer or download lots of stuff. Personally I'd never go back to narrow band. Excellent service and support - and if you move house Telewest re-install BY free of charge while ADSL will cost around £50. Some of the ADSL suppliers are cheaper now by a couple of quid and Telewest haven't announced they're going to drop their prices to compete but I'm happy with what I've got. I think ADSL has a better upload and slightly narrower download but after some of BT's pranks over the last few years (eg choking ports for users running P2P applications like Morpheus) I'll stick with Telewest. Mail me off board if you want to know any more.

Martin

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Took the BT boradband option, went live on Wednesday. It costs £30 a month, but will allow me to disconnect the second line into the house using their Anytime product at £15 per month.

Tried to ask about networking PCs in the home and was told it wouldn't be suitable, but you can do it with their wireless stuff, I asked why wireless could worked but wired couldn't. Question was too hard.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Cheers Martin, I've got an existing cable TV account with Telewest so it will cost me £25 a month. I get installed on the 23rd of this month.

Now all I have to do is upgrade my archaic P.C. to something with decent processor speed. More expense. :-(

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Probably no money in it for them Mac. This is BT after all..

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Also just switched to BT Openworld Broadband after BT Anytime, which became a £14.99 a month nightmare during peak periods for those forced to move to the "heavy user" dial-in number.

Been on it for over a fortnight now and my first impression hasn't changed. It transforms use of the web with the obvious added bonuses of speedy downloads etc. Could never go back to the old 56K.

You can prob get cheaper deals than £29.99 a month, and I reckon the costs will come down again. If you're wavering - don't. It's worth every penny. Bit like swapping a knackered old black and white telly for a new colour one. The only major frustration is for those live in locations that don't offer broadband.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

I've got NTL broadband for £14.99

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Go for it Andy. I've had BT broadband for a while now and the web download speed is enough to keep me paying my £30 a month. 15-20 min downloads take about 3-4 mins with broadband. Well worth it I reckon.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

..... I've got NTL broadband for £14.99 .....

That looks too good to be true Logan. Is that the price, end of story, or are there other costs on top ? Like line rental, or somesuch ?

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Andy, I echo Martin's comments. And if you've got more than one pc/mac you can hang them all off the same line, although officially BY say he can't, either technically or contractually. Thing is, they'll never know. I use a Skyline Wireless Broadband Gateway (£200) to chuck out ip addresses via wireless to other macs in the house via 802.etc., but it works with either mac/pc/both together. It also has ethernet ports for wired connection. It's only been out for a month, it's better than airport for mac, and it's the dogs bollox. And I've never had a problem with BY since the second week, 6 months ago. (week one they had a local network problem which they fixed immediately). Help desk though can take half an hour plus, but what's new? They'll only pull the cable in through the front of the house though (up to any floor height) so you'll have to take it through the rest of the house yourself - hence my wireless solution. Go for it.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

If it's like Belgium wher eI got ADSL a couple of months ago, the big advantage I found is that you can still use your phone while you're on the internet, so people can ring you, and also it's far faster so you can actually download mpegs of goals or new virus definitions, or software upgrades in a few seconds instead of a few minutes. Here it cost about 30 pounds for the ADSL modem and 20 pounds a month. Great value. And it never cuts out.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

I've looked at broadband but can't get me head round how it works. At the mo I've got two phone lines so I would save there wouldn't I by not having to pay the line rental on one of them? So I can knock that saving off the boardband cost. What difference does it make to my ordinary phone. Do I still effectively have two lines or does the PC "share" the phone line and if it does, how can you use them both together. Made me head hurt thinking about it!

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Jacko - as I understand it, with broadband you don't need a phone line. The internet connection is more analogous to a cable tv connection.

I'm paying £10 pm for Blueyonder's snail connection, SurfUnlimited. It will cost me £25pm for their broadband service and I can get rid of the 2nd phone line that I use exclusively for the net. That would save me £10pm - so the net increase to me for BY's broadband is effectively only £5pm. Must get around to it!

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Don't think I would need that wireless thing Mysterious, I live with 4 other lads in a house share and only one of them has a P.C....unless he wants to go halves on the cost mind. Hmm, got me thinking now..

I reckon we will all be on broadband pretty soon with the costs coming down so rapidly now.

So Clarky for an extra fiver what ya waiting for!!

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Jacko...as I understand it, "broadband" ADSL lines have something like ten times more capacity than an ordinary line. That means your phone takes just a small part of it...which allows you to talk on the phone, surf at hyper-speed and launch a NASA satellite all at the same time.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

You can get ADSL for £19.50 a month now can't you?

You have to buy your own modem, and some "micro-filters" for all your phone sockets to convert it (a fiver each) and away you go.

ADSL might make you normal phone line sound a bit crackly though for some reason.

We're currently on some rip off BT Internet thingy that's gone up to £13.99 a month. Free after 6pm weekdays and all weekend, local rate all other times. Unlimited is only a pound more, we really should change.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

I've got BY broadband too, £25/month. The line is split off the cable to the telly, but I've got two phonelines anyway, one for phone, one for fax, tho I must get rid of the latter now as it's never used. Sorry, I've already forgotten who asked the question, but to get yr head round it don't think of broadband in terms of a phone line. As it runs off cable, it's basically always on, so there's no dial up and no call charges - it's just like switching your telly on and off. It is much better than old dial-up, but in my experience not devoid of problems - sometimes, with no explanation, the whole thing will just not connect to anything or be incredibly slow. 80-90% of the time, though, it's fine.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

BT Openworld have just announced they're increasing the monthly fee for "Anytime" from £14.99 to £15.99, as from May 1st:

"Even at this new rate, it's still one of the best value flat rate packages in the UK. We want to keep improving the high quality of service we offer you, and this price rise is in line with the current industry trends."

I'd pay the extra £14 for Broadband.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

If I didn't know better I would think they have a hidden agenda and are trying to get people away from dial ups and onto broadband.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Exactly.

-- Anonymous, April 13, 2002

The broadband service comes in on your existing phone line. All it does is allow more to come in. The 'broad' bit is usually described using a pipe analogy. A 'normal' phone modem will connect at up to 56k, (56000 bits of data per second) although the modems are bright enough to check what is the fastest they can link and use that speed. This mean your modem may say 56k on it but you only be getting 33k, say.

In the ADSL service BT supply a pipe that can do 576k, or 10 times faster. It is actually a bigger step up than that cos your PC knows to try and send data in manageable chunks. So it may decide to send chunks of data at 2k per time on the 56k modem just in case it doesn't get there and it has to try again, it won't have 'lost' too much in trying. The 576k modem can send huge chunks fe in the nkowledge that it won't matter.

You will rarely us the full 576k of this great pipe so there is always spare available. This means the supplier can set aside a tiny % for a normal voice connection, on the same bit of wire. This is where the filter comes in. The voice quality should be exatly the same as before.

In the future we will have the joy of "Voice over IP" (VoIP) which is strange sounding but will be great. It means using the internet for phone calls. At the moment if you try and connect to the NASA internet site, or NUFC.COM site it costs you the same, the price of your internet connection. Phone calls are different, phoning Houston costs lots more than phoning North Shields. BUT, there is no reason why you can't voice connect to Houston through the internet. Suddenly all voice phone calls are "free" or just your monthly charge to your broadband supplier. What is needed is for the world to have VoIP phones and suddenly we can all talk for free. This means ever ger problems for telecomms companies !

Next

-- Anonymous, April 13, 2002

Bu99er, Bu99er, Bu99er! I just got an e-mail from work "inviting me to consider Broadband due to the amount of time I spend "working at home". But when I checked the BT site (that's the supplier we use), they indicate that ADSL is not supported on my local exchange and there appear to be no plans to implement it :-(

So all that "extra time " I spent trying to get my usage up (ooh er missus) seems to have been wasted. Damn.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2002

If work are paying are they prepared to go to the extent of paying for the BT Satellite link ?

A bargain to the likes of IBM at £900 installation and £60 a month fee. Could probably sell spare capacity to the neighbours too.

http://www.btopenworld.com/satellite/

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2002

In the future we'll have voice over ip? nah...we've already had it for years.....what do you think all those phone cards are that you buy in the newsagents for cheap calls? loads of them send voice over ip, other just route it the cheapest way around the globe....they've all been pretty crap in my experience....

I've got BT ADSL, it's the bollox.....cable is fine but apparently has lower ping rates and isn't quite as fast....i've also heard that cable lines are shared by street so the more people who use that in a street the less bandwidth is allocated to each house....

These aren't facts...just stuff i've heard :)

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2002

I'm going broadband on me new parallels, but then again Mrs gus has put me on a diet!

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2002

Bit like swapping a knackered old black and white telly for a new colour one

Oh - are these new colour jobs worth going for then? Will I need 3 aerials? Should I buy dark glasses?

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2002

Jonno, don't bother, we all know you have black and white eyes anyway

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2002