Special offers:   Broadband   Wireless

Going broadband

Connecting to the Internet with a dial-up modem on a Pay-as-you-go or Unlimited Access package?  You could be getting the benefits of an Internet broadband connection for not much more money than you are paying now.  If you use the Internet for more than an hour a day it could be cheaper to get broadband.

Pay-as-you-go (with a local 0845 or 0844 number) costs:

• 6am-6pm weekdays – 4p per minute (£2.40 per hour)
• 6pm-6am weekdays – 1.5p per minute (90p per hour)
• Friday midnight- Sunday midnight – 1p per minute at weekends (60p/hour)

That’s between £72 and £18 for a typical 30-day month depending on when you connect.

Unlimited Access packages typically cost £12 to £18 per month.

Broadband prices start from £14.99 per month and have the following benefits:

• Faster connection speed ― typically 20 times that of a good dial-up modem
• Always–on connection ― get you email immediately, web browsing always available, software updating automatically, etc.
• Receive incoming and make outgoing telephone calls ― no line busy or hang-up problems
• Better Internet experience ― view movies and animations, download music, send photos, etc.
• Share your Internet connection ― use a simple router to enable others in your home to get simultaneous access to the Internet.  Even wirelessly!

Broadband packages from major suppliers such as Wanadoo, BT, AOL and Tiscali start from £15 to £18 per month for a basic connection, a few email addresses and even a bit of web space for you own hosted web-site.  Connection speed of 1Mbps (one megabit per second) are available with a typically monthly download capacity of 1 to 2Gb of data.  This is more than enough for email, web-browsing, sending photos and downloading a few software packages and music files.

Enhanced packages with faster speeds, higher capacity limits and extra services such as anti-virus and anti-SPAM are available for £25 to £30.

Broadband connections are also available from specialised Internet Service Providers (ISP) such as Pipex, Demon, PlusNet, Bulldog, etc.  These offer packages for residential, together with small and medium businesses. They typically offer better service with local support and knowledge but do indeed charge a bit more for this.  Good deals can be found however.

You have a wide choice of ISPs and packages as well as three main broadband supply methods; via the telephone line (usually BT) called ADSL, via a street cable from NTL or Telewest or via satellite.  ADSL is the most popular and available from the majority of ISPs.

When you sign up with an ISP via the Internet or by telephone you usually have to wait about 10 working days for your ADSL telephone line to be activated for broadband.  They will send you a letter or email to confirm the actual date.  Depending on the package selected, in the meantime they will send you a free USB ADSL modem, microfilters and cables together with installation instructions and the relevant CD. Activation charges (up to £75) are also usualy included in the monthly fee depending on the contract.

PC-fix-IT can help you:

• select the correct ISP,
• install the equipment,
• test the connection,
• share the broadband between your computers,
• configure each computer, web browser, email program, etc.

Call us on 01256 474997 for further information and an estimate.

Wireless

Wireless networking has exploded with popularity.  And quite right too: it's convenient, particularly when it's used to share a broadband Internet connection.

Once your wireless network is set up, you can check your email  in bed, surf the web from the sofa  and share your music anywhere in the house.

We can help you achieve this higher level of convenience within your home with the added benefit of no unsightly cables running everywhere. And the costs have never been lower.  This advanced technology is available at commodity price levels fro reputable manufacturers.

For example a typical desktop plus laptop sharing a broadband Internet connection can be achieved for under £200 with equipment, installation and secure setup.

Contact us on 01256 474997 for further details.

Wireless benefits

• You can access the Internet via PC, notebook, or other devices, cable-free.
• You can work from anywhere in the home or office and still stay connected.
• You can share your broadband connections between many computers and users.
• You can share other resources such as files and printers easily within your network environment.
• You don't have to route and hide cables within your home or office.
• You can add extra computers easily and at less cost.
• It can cost less than wired LANs (Local Area Networks).

Broadband backgrounder

The Age of Broadband is nigh. It might not have arrived in time to ride the wave of the Internet boom, but the spread of high-speed connections has achieved something more important: critical mass.

By the end of this year, some 1.8 million households in the UK will have access to high-speed Internet services, or just over 5 percent of all households nationwide. Globally, there are now 80 million high-speed subscribers, an increase of almost 75 percent over the 2002 figures, according to research group Point Topic.

That is a lot of people -- and it's having a huge effect on what we see and do online. Video and music are increasingly becoming the norm, and consumers are enthusiastically adopting high-speed e-commerce. In fact, those who move to broadband are three times more likely to download videos as those using a dial-up connection, according to a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a US non-profit organisation that studies the impact of the Web on everyday life.

Train times to bank accounts
Broadband is also changing our daily lives, says Jed Kelko, an analyst with Forrester Research. "Broadband means that more of our daily transactions are conducted online, from checking train times to accessing our bank account," he says.

Research conducted by analyst group Ovum suggests that the increased use of broadband has been responsible for the growth of several applications. Ovum argues that software downloads, music downloads, video on demand, online learning, live concert broadcasts, online gaming, gambling, and adult entertainment could not have survived without broadband.

Always-on applications
Of course, these services existed before broadband, but the key point is that these applications are compelling enough for people to go out and buy broadband services, says Andy Kitchener, chief executive of e-commerce software vendor Shopcreator. "Broadband is evolving from an exciting new technology to being a platform for these powerful, always-on applications," he says. Applications such as BT's Datasure online backup or Voice over IP phone services would not have survived without broadband, Kitchener claims.

Broadband is a term applied to a range of technologies that make accessing the Internet up to 30 times faster than was possible using a standard dial-up connection. To be considered broadband, a connection only needs to deliver data at speeds of 256Kbps or faster. Broadband isn't just changing what we do in offices: consumer adoption of broadband mobile phones and wireless broadband is also increasing dramatically.