Dial up, broadband, what’s it all about?

To the newcomer to the Internet world, all these technical sounding words can seem a little off putting.  As with most things to do with computers though, once you see through the complicated sounding names, they're pretty straightforward really.  In this section I'll guide you through the different choices available to you.

So then, what options do you have when it comes to getting connected to the Internet in your home or workplace? 

Dial up connection – This method of connecting to the Internet has been around for quite a number of years now, and is still very popular today.  It’s called ‘dial up’ because it uses a normal telephone line to connect your computer to the internet using a modem.  When the computer is connecting, you can actually hear the modem dialling out, just like you do when you make a phone call.  The fact that it uses a standard phone line means that it’s available to pretty much everybody, so it can be a good place to start. 

Dial up internet connections usually have a speed of 56kbs, which by today’s standards is pretty slow, but it’s perfectly adequate if you’re just using the net for basic surfing and sending emails.  It can be cheap too, you can pay either on your normal phone bill for the same price as a local phone call - or more commonly these days, pay a flat rate fee to an ISP so you get charged the same amount no matter how much you use it. 

You can expect to pay around £5-£15 for a monthly flat rate package.  If you’re going to be using the net quite a bit, you should consider taking out a monthly package; if you’re planning nothing more than a couple of hours a week then you’ll probably find it’s cheaper to pay as you go.

Broadband – Broadband is setting new standards for what we can achieve on the net. It’s been around for a couple of years or so now and is getting better all the time, and becoming available to more and more people.  Broadband is currently available to 95% of homes in the north west, and to everyone who lives in Hyndburn. 

So why is it called ‘broadband?’  Well, if you imagine a small stream, with a trickle of water passing through – the water will tend to amble along nice and slowly.  The wider the river gets, the more water passes through, and the faster the water will travel. 

It’s pretty much the same thing with the internet, ‘broadband’ gets its name because it allows a lot more information to pass through at one time than older, dial up connections (these are sometimes referred to as ‘narrow band’). 

So what are the benefits?  Well – it means you’ll be able to do more things, and quicker.  For example, if you’re interested in downloading music from the net, then broadband is the way to go.  Music files can be very large, and using a dial up connection would take a long time.  With broadband, it’s likely you’ll have internet access around 10x faster so you can download your tunes in no time!  It’s the same when it comes to watching films, sending large email files such as complex pictures and the like. 

Using broadband also means that your telephone line won’t get tied up as it does with a dial up connection. With dial up, you can’t make or receive phone calls at the same time as being on the net, whereas with broadband you don’t have that worry! 

So how much does all this cost?  Well the answer is that it’s not as much as you might think, and it’s certainly coming down in price all the time.  Depending on which option you go for, you can expect to pay between around £15-£30 per month for broadband access.  (Make sure you know what you’re signing for before you agree to take broadband, as usually you’ll be committing yourself to a twelve month contract.) 

Most broadband connections have a speed of 512kbs which is almost 10x faster than a dial up connection.  There are other options available though – cable broadband can be even faster still, or slower if you prefer.  As a rule of thumb, you can reckon that the faster the connection, the more you’ll pay.  A 150kbs ‘broadband’ connection will probably not set you back very much more than one of the more expensive dial up packages; so they can be really good value.