About internet set up, broadband connections and home networks!
Types of internet connections:
- ADSL/Broadband via your telephone line
- Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX)
- Satellite Broadband
- Mobile phone networks
- Hotspots
- Dial-up modem via telephone line
Broadband connections seem to be improving all the time.
Areas previously without broadband due to distance constraints are becoming a thing of the past. BUT!
Connections in outlying areas with slow (512Kbps) connections can and still do suffer with regard to the options for running reliable networks. There are unfortunately some small communes which have no broadband available at their telephone exchange.
WiMAX can provide broadband wireless access (BWA) up to 30 miles (50 km) for fixed stations, and 3 – 10 miles (5 – 15 km) for mobile stations.
There are two types of satellite broadband:
1. Download is achieved by satellite, upload via a land-line telephone modem.
2. Two way satellite connection (ToowayTM and SES Astra Connect)
Tooway have recently stopped taking on new domestic customers in the areas served by beams 15 & 21:
- Charente All
- Charente-Maritime All except the far Western part (La Rochelle, Royan area)
- Deux-Sevres All
- Vienne All
- Haute-Vienne All
- Dordogne All
Tooway Pro is still available.
SES Astra Connect is still available for both domestic and business customers.
4g, 3g & HSDPA connections are reasonably speedy but reliable connections are normally found only in metropolitan areas. GPRS connections suffer from the same problems as Dial-up modem via telephone line connections (see below)
These are WiFi networks sometimes also called ‘Cloud networks’ and may be public, semi-public or private. Public would be the equivalent of hooking up to an unsecured WiFi router. Semi-public could be the equivalent of the UK’s BT Total Broadband system where if you elect to allow your WiFi router to operate as a hotspot as well as a private WiFi router you pay a reduced charge for broadband and other BT Total Broadband customers benefit from a large network of hotspots (several million). Private hotspots where you pay for the privilege of using someone’s WiFi network, some hotels and shops do this.
Dial-up modem via telephone line
Most of us won’t have to suffer this any more. Websites are, generally speaking, not now designed with connections of this type in mind and most would feel unbelievably slow to display.
