Broadband

[Sharon]

Hi all

Our villiage ( out in the sticks of the UK) has just got broadband.

The thing is I have no real understaning of how broadband works other than it is very fast and can enable me to down load music quickly, which I want.

I have two BT telephone lines. Line one, in the kitchen, is my telephone line. Line two is here for the computer. I pay two line rentals, obviously.

If I go for broadband, which I want to, what will happen?

Do I request to lose a line?

What do I do?

I don't want to move the computer as it's tucked away nicely in the box room, what happens next?

Thanks
Sharon

 

[gnome]

I don't know how it works in the UK, but here the two major methods of broadband are via cable modem (offered by a TV cable company) or DSL (offered by the telephone company).

Neither will require you to maintain the second phone line, and so once the broadband connection is working you may very well wish to cancel it.

My only advice would be to avoid a kind of DSL called PPPoE. If you go for DSL, ask if it's PPPoE which is a vile hybrid of broadband and dialup. You don't want that if there are other alternatives.

 

[Vagabond]

I don't know how it works in the UK, but here the two major methods of broadband are via cable modem (offered by a TV cable company) or DSL (offered by the telephone company).

Neither will require you to maintain the second phone line, and so once the broadband connection is working you may very well wish to cancel it.

My only advice would be to avoid a kind of DSL called PPPoE. If you go for DSL, ask if it's PPPoE which is a vile hybrid of broadband and dialup. You don't want that if there are other alternatives.

Well, I am not sure what gnome is talking about with the PPPoE. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it except for the fact that is what you will probably get if you go through your local phone company. This can be good or bad depending on your love/hate standing with them. There are other alternatives for DSL, but the primary drawback is they are going to use the exact same line which belongs to the phone company. If you have line trouble, you are gonna have to beg the phone company to fix it when they have no incentive to do so since you aren't their customer. Or worse do any trouble shooting on the line in the first place to discover the problem. The company you are actually paying has no ability to do this nor fix the problem once discovered. So consider this before you just go with whoever is cheapest, because paying a few hundred to the phone company to fix the line is gonna blow that ten bucks a month you are saving quick.

He is correct with either option you won't need a second phone line. The speed for cable modem and DSL is comparable. The difference being, the cable modem is likely to be faster at 2 AM because nobody will be sharing it with you. This is something you might want to consider if you are the first person in the neighborhood to get it. Now it will be fast but 6 months from now when lots more people are hooked up it will be much slower. The DSL you aren't sharing with anybody, the sole determination for the speed is how far you are away from the DSLAM. The maximum distance is like 7 to 10 thousand feet. But closer is better. They will tell you how far you are away if you ask. If you are close you can and probably will have faster speed than a cable modem and if you are far you probably won't. I hope I helped and if you have a more specific question I will try to answer.

 

[Vagabond]

As far as the computer location goes you can go wireless and this wouldn't be a factor. The computer could be anyplace. Otherwise it would need to be within wire distance of where the cable comes into the house for a cable modem or a phone jack for the DSL.

 

[gnome]

Well, I am not sure what gnome is talking about with the PPPoE. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it except for the fact that is what you will probably get if you go through your local phone company. This can be good or bad depending on your love/hate standing with them.

2 issues with PPPoE:

- It requires proprietary software to use, that has occasional conflicts with existing software.
- It operates by "dialing" into the connection, and so you suffer the occasional problem of spontaneous disconnections.

Good DSL setups operate as a LAN, just like cable modems, and don't require extra software to give you an internet connection.

He is correct with either option you won't need a second phone line. The speed for cable modem and DSL is comparable. The difference being, the cable modem is likely to be faster at 2 AM because nobody will be sharing it with you. This is something you might want to consider if you are the first person in the neighborhood to get it. Now it will be fast but 6 months from now when lots more people are hooked up it will be much slower. The DSL you aren't sharing with anybody, the sole determination for the speed is how far you are away from the DSLAM. The maximum distance is like 7 to 10 thousand feet. But closer is better. They will tell you how far you are away if you ask. If you are close you can and probably will have faster speed than a cable modem and if you are far you probably won't. I hope I helped and if you have a more specific question I will try to answer.

I have spent time on both DSL and cable. I purchased DSL in order to avoid the sharing problem. However, having seen the results on friends machines, and now my own, even at peak times the cable line tended to be faster than the DSL service I had. Not a stupendous difference, however.

 

[Vagabond]

2 issues with PPPoE:

- It requires proprietary software to use, that has occasional conflicts with existing software.
- It operates by "dialing" into the connection, and so you suffer the occasional problem of spontaneous disconnections.

Good DSL setups operate as a LAN, just like cable modems, and don't require extra software to give you an internet connection.



I have spent time on both DSL and cable. I purchased DSL in order to avoid the sharing problem. However, having seen the results on friends machines, and now my own, even at peak times the cable line tended to be faster than the DSL service I had. Not a stupendous difference, however. [/B]

I did tech support for SBC DSL so that is the one I am most familiar with. But, in respect to that you are only partially right. If you have windows XP or OS 10 or better you don't need any of the software off the disk to get it to work. They already have PPPoE on them already. You don't even need to put the CD in the computer. I only have experience with SBC but an educated guesstimate on my part is that any other DSL provider is still going to use PPPoE and you are still going to have software to load if you don't have XP or OS 10 or better.

In the ten months I did tech support it was nearly unheard of to have any software conflict even with the software on there and if it did, it was a conflict with spyware.

I am not sure what modem you are using but the current DSL modem that SBC uses and the 2 wire homeportal wireless system work just like a router. They are always connected just like a cable modem is. There is no dial up whatsoever. If you are dialing you have an bad modem or system. Doesn't have anything to do with DSL in general.

As far as speed goes if you are getting 500-600 MBS that is good. You can only download as fast as it is sent. If you have at least that speed you are normally going to be waiting on the other end of the connection anyway. You aren't going to be the weak link. Faster is always better, but anything more than that and it's mostly just for bragging rights.

 

[gnome]

I did tech support for SBC DSL so that is the one I am most familiar with. But, in respect to that you are only partially right. If you have windows XP or OS 10 or better you don't need any of the software off the disk to get it to work. They already have PPPoE on them already. You don't even need to put the CD in the computer. I only have experience with SBC but an educated guesstimate on my part is that any other DSL provider is still going to use PPPoE and you are still going to have software to load if you don't have XP or OS 10 or better.

Verizon in Tampa doesn't seem to use PPPoE, but I don't recall if extra software was needed for Win98 so you could be right. Some of this is news to me, so thanks for clearing it up.

In the ten months I did tech support it was nearly unheard of to have any software conflict even with the software on there and if it did, it was a conflict with spyware.

Two firms I have done tech support for specifically had conflicts with SBC DSL... granted, they had a proprietary loadset...

I am not sure what modem you are using but the current DSL modem that SBC uses and the 2 wire homeportal wireless system work just like a router. They are always connected just like a cable modem is. There is no dial up whatsoever. If you are dialing you have an bad modem or system. Doesn't have anything to do with DSL in general.

It could be that the technology has improved since... I had family with BellSouth Fast-Access DSL, and that required dialing. I thought that related to PPPoE but it's clear I don't have the entire picture. If that aspect of the technology has gone obsolete, good.

As far as speed goes if you are getting 500-600 MBS that is good. You can only download as fast as it is sent. If you have at least that speed you are normally going to be waiting on the other end of the connection anyway. You aren't going to be the weak link. Faster is always better, but anything more than that and it's mostly just for bragging rights.

True, you have to benchmark the results, not the capacity...

 

[Vagabond]

There is DSL the electric companies are still experimenting with. It works but they haven't gotten it to a marketable state yet. It gives you DSL through the powerlines. This could be huge if they can get the same download speed at a comparable price. It doesn't have the dropoff in speed cable has for numbers and DSL currently has for distance and it could go to anybody who has power vs only those with cable connections or within 10,000 feet of a DSLAM.

 

[Darat]

Hi all

Our villiage ( out in the sticks of the UK) has just got broadband.

The thing is I have no real understaning of how broadband works other than it is very fast and can enable me to down load music quickly, which I want.

I have two BT telephone lines. Line one, in the kitchen, is my telephone line. Line two is here for the computer. I pay two line rentals, obviously.

If I go for broadband, which I want to, what will happen?

Do I request to lose a line?

What do I do?

I don't want to move the computer as it's tucked away nicely in the box room, what happens next?

Thanks
Sharon

Well you could keep the two lines and just have the computer line upgraded. Or a much better solution would be to have only one line and your bedroom line altered into just being an extension from the main line. (You can make and receive calls even when online with BT ADSL.)

You'll need to put a line filter (around a tenner) on each line before you plug a phone into it. They are a small box with two connectors, one to plug your ADSL modem into and one for your standard phone.

Going broadband should be cheaper for you.

 

[Vagabond]

Verizon in Tampa doesn't seem to use PPPoE, but I don't recall if extra software was needed for Win98 so you could be right. Some of this is news to me, so thanks for clearing it up.<<<<

I would like to point out that you aren't avoiding having PPPoE on the computer if you have XP or OS 10 or better anyway. It will still be on the computer whether you use it or not as it's part of the operating system.

 

[Chocolate Chip]

2 issues with PPPoE:
- It requires proprietary software to use, that has occasional conflicts with existing software.
- It operates by "dialing" into the connection, and so you suffer the occasional problem of spontaneous disconnections.
Good DSL setups operate as a LAN, just like cable modems, and don't require extra software to give you an internet connection.

As to the first point, if you are using WinXP, you can setup DSL WITHOUT proprietary software (software you are supposed to use for your DSL hook-up given to you by the DSL provider). Make sure that if you are using winXP, it's upgraded to Service Pack 2. You would setup the DSL (Broadband) connection using the Internet Connection Wizard.

If you do not have WinXP, there is still another alternative to proprietary software. You can use a driver called raspppoe. You can get it here:
http://www.raspppoe.com/
If you are not familiar with installing drivers, please find someone who is. If you are going to go this route, please read instructions carefully.

As far as spontaneous disconnections, I've never experienced one, nor have I ever heard of anyone (except gnome) experiencing one.

Like the others have mentioned, going the broadband route will eliminate the second phone line, and the cash you used for the second phone line could go to pay for the DSL service.

I've used both cable and ADSL. I've always found cable to be about twice as fast as ADSL. No matter what time of the day I was using it, although I can only speak for myself.

 

[Chocolate Chip]

Here is a step by step from Micro$oft on how to setup your DSL (PPPoE) connection in WinXP:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=283070

 

[Vagabond]

As far as spontaneous disconnections, I've never experienced one, nor have I ever heard of anyone (except gnome) experiencing one.

I've used both cable and ADSL. I've always found cable to be about twice as fast as ADSL. No matter what time of the day I was using it, although I can only speak for myself.

I have never heard of anybody getting disconnected with DSL either. Despite the fact I did tech support for DSL, I have never actually had it myself. It has only become an option in my neighborhood recently. I have a cable modem and it does periodically lose connectivity sometimes for whatever reason.

As far as speed goes I had a customer once that had the DSLAM in his backyard and was getting well over 1 gigabit down. So if you are under 3000 feet from it, it will probably be faster than cable modem. If you aren't in a big neighborhood where you are sharing with many people cable will probably be faster. I have never even bothered to check the speed on the cable modem because it is plenty fast enough for my needs and currently my tenant is footing the bill for it. So DSL could be twice as fast and it wouldn't be better than free cable modem.

 

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Vagabond
As far as speed goes if you are getting 500-600 MBS that is good.

500-600 megabytes per second? megabits per second?

Either way, that seems much too fast. My DSL is rated at 3 megabits per second, and I get about 330 kilobytes per second.

 

[DonOne]

All clear now Sharon?

 

[Vagabond]

500-600 megabytes per second? megabits per second?

Either way, that seems much too fast. My DSL is rated at 3 megabits per second, and I get about 330 kilobytes per second.

It stands for bits. It's really just a ballpark way to judge speed. A byte can be up to 8 bits but it doesn't have to be and most of the time it isn't. It's like judging your typing speed in words per minute when some words are "the" and some are "imagination". It's possible you could be getting 3 megabits that is still much faster than dialup but sounds slow to me. 500 MBS is about average for a DSL so that means half the people are slower than that, but I never heard of anybody that slow before. Might be something wrong with the line or you might be just using a bad speed check or something.

 

[Iconoclast]

It stands for bits.

So, you meant to write 500 to 600Mb/s, yes?

A byte can be up to 8 bits but it doesn't have to be and most of the time it isn't.

It does have to be, and it always is.

It's like judging your typing speed in words per minute when some words are "the" and some are "imagination".

Eh?

I get the feeling you're talking about "Baud Rate" above, though you've not mentioned it yet. An old shortcut we used to use was that the transmission rate in bytes per second could be found by dividing the baud rate by 10. This obviously assumes a frame size of 10 bits (8 data bits plus one start bit plus one stop bit). The numbers don't work out so neatly if you were using 2 stop bits and/or a parity bit.


[edited to change "packet" to "frame"]

 

[Smike]

Originally posted by Vagabond
A byte can be up to 8 bits but it doesn't have to be and most of the time it isn't.

It does have to be, and it always is.

up to? A byte is 8 bits. That is what a byte is. QED.

 

[Iconoclast]

up to? A byte is 8 bits. That is what a byte is. QED.

Isn't that what I said?

 

[Vagabond]

So, you meant to write 500 to 600Mb/s, yes?

It does have to be, and it always is.

Eh?

I get the feeling you're talking about "Baud Rate" above, though you've not mentioned it yet. An old shortcut we used to use was that the transmission rate in bytes per second could be found by dividing the baud rate by 10. This obviously assumes a frame size of 10 bits (8 data bits plus one start bit plus one stop bit). The numbers don't work out so neatly if you were using 2 stop bits and/or a parity bit.


[edited to change "packet" to "frame"]

If you think all the modems in the world are just transferring empty 8 bit bytes around all the time you have a board for a head. Not to mention it's obvious you have no interest in actually offering any information but just want to argue. Go argue with yourself in the mirror.