Feb 2020  To see how far Britain is behind France regarding broadband speed see this example I had from a friend in Paris. And the average speed in France is now 17 Meg.  And that is down telephone lines not cable.  Amazing !

An advantage with Broadband is the fact that you do not need an extra line in order to use the telephone at the same time as being on line.  This can be quite a saving and should be taken into account when calculating the total cost.  

To see offers of Broadband go to http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/
Broadband Genie provides a place on the web where consumers can learn about broadband and how to compare broadband providers in an unbiased, independent, plain-English environment. Regular updates showing the best deals.

Want to see how fast your Broadband connection is ?  Have a go at http://www.adslguide.org/tools/speedtest.asp. You may be surprised at how slow your 'upstream' speed is.  That is why it may seem to take an age to send a video file or large picture to someone but why downloading things is much faster.  My downloading was correct at nearly 2Meg. (As against 45k on dialup).  But uploading was a mere 127k - in other words, less than a TENTH of the speed of downloading.  Other sites which does this is http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/ and http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

N.B. You may be disappointed that your broadband speed is nothing like what you are paying for.  This can be down to more than one factor. The first is (in the case of BT telephone line based broadband) the distance from the nearest digital exchange.  In the case of cable it can be down to the 'contention level', meaning the number of people in your area competing for the line.  But another factor seems to be rearing its head.  One contact (using cable) had complained he was not getting the very fast speeds he was paying for.  He decided to replace his expensive Norton Internet Security Suite with free software, such as AVG and Zone alarm.  Suddenly the speeds on ALL of his connections (he has four) increased dramatically. So, it does seem likely that security software can slow things up by spending time checking everything that goes on.

Want to change from one ISP to another ?  These days is should be comparatively easy, although you should check the small print to see if you have any 'tie in' with your current provider.  With Broadband, as they often supply equipment and software there is often a 1 year contract.  Having sorted that out what you need from your current ISP is a MAC address.  That is nothing to do with those pretty computer often favoured by designers. It stands for Migration Authorisation Code. Once you have this it should be comparatively easy to change. Internet Providers have an Association. See www.ispa.org.uk, especially if you have a complaint against one that you cannot resolve.
You can get useful information from places such as Internet Magazine, which lists ISP's and how well they are doing

SkyDSL is promising broadband downloads (via satellite) anywhere in Europe from £4.57 a month and can provide up to 16 megabits per second for £33.  However, you require a dish and a dialup connection to your own ISP, too, which takes the shine off that rather.

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One of the main things to look for in an ISP these days is how they handle Spam and, even more important, how they deal with Viruses.  For instance, whilst I was using AOL I did not receive any attempted virus for months, whilst others are getting them almost daily. AOL also effectively blocks Spam and Popups. When you hit the 'Report Spam' section they are deleted and a copy is sent to AOL who block future spam from that address (if they get a few reports).  This system helps but can be rather draconian.  AOL (version 9) has a Spam folder. Sometimes things get in there that shouldn't, so check.  Generally it won't stop emails providing you have the address already in your address book so, if you WANT a particular advert, make sure you do this.  My alternative e-mail address, especially useful when I am away from base, is with Googlemail. It, too, has a Report Spam and Report Phishing facility. So, if you are being bothered by either you might consider changing your ISP or getting a Googlemail address.

What if you have Broadband and also have a laptop or second computer which you would like connected to the same system ?  The answer is a small local network. This can be achieved by connecting the two machines via a cable but the popular way these days is a Wireless connection. For this you will need each machine to have a wireless gadget.  Modern laptops usually include this on board.  Earlier models will need a wireless PC card adapter or, possibly, a USB2 wireless adapter.  The main machine will need either a wireless card or a USB2 Adapter.  I must stress that the faster USB2 is needed to cope with the Broadband connection. Lastly, it is preferred (I found essential) to have an additional gadget called a Router, which sorts out the various connections to Broadband. This will have tiny aerials on top and will sit on the PC or on your desk. This will be connected to the PC via a USB2 cable or, in the case of Cable Broadband (e.g. NTL, Telewest etc) you will need an Ethernet cable connection (NOT USB)
Although it is possible for connections to be made between Windows 98 and ME machines it is easier and preferable if they are all using Windows XP (SP2) I would also recommend that all the equipment is by the same manufacturer. The big names are Linksys, Belkin, Netgear and BT

To settle complaints about ISP's you can look at the following sites  www.ispa.org.uk (Association of ISP's) www.otelo.org.uk (Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman), www.cisas.org.uk  (Internet Services Adjudication Scheme)

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