Shrewton Village WebsiteBroadband Tips.

(Updated July 2007)

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Just got broadband, or about to get it? Here's some stuff you should think about before you even turn it on. (Originally distributed to the Till Valley Broadband interest groups).

How to go Broadbanding: By Alan Trevennor
(With thanks to Harry Hampson for additional material)

So far as I have been able to find out, all homes in the Till Valley can now get connected to Broadband Internet. Most users have already had broadband installed by the service provider of their choice. For those few of you yet to take the plunge, you may have some questions that are answered below.

Q) Can I get broadband no matter where I live in the Till Valley?
A) Yes. People in Tilshead (which is the longest line length from the exchange at Maddington) have had BB installed and are using it just fine.

Q) What line speeds are being offered?
A) I can only speak for what BT themselves are offering. BT is offering a full range of packages for home and business. These start from 512Kbits/second and can be ordered in a range of speed steps right up to the high end 8Mbits/Sec for the most expensive domestic and business packages. For the non-technical reader, these speeds equate respectively to about 10 times and 142 times the speed of the dial-up link you have been using! In Tilshead Norman Bayne has found that speeds top-out at 512Kbits/second due to the line length and the cable type which is in the ground. Norman is looking at ways to persuade BT to fix this problem and make higher speeds available in Tilshead area, so please contact him if you want to support that activity.

Q) What other advantages could I get from BB?
A) These are too numerous to list exhaustively.  Just a few advantages:

• Speed. You can do what you do now, but at least 10 times faster and with instant connection (no “dialing… please wait.” Delays).
• It's always on - you need never disconnect from it, as you only get charged a flat rate fee.
• You can use the normal telephone at any time - whether or not you are connected to the Internet.
• If you spend a lot on telephone calls, you might save a lot of money by using a thing called Voice Over IP (VOIP) which allows you to using your PC to make local-rate phone calls to anywhere in the UK and also to many International destinations. VOIP uses broadband and the Internet to carry your voice calls around the world as data traffic. For a “get started” introduction to VOIP see http://www.solwise.co.uk/voiceoverip_intro.htm or for a typical product that lets you do VOIP see http://www.skype.com/ which is a freeware VOIP package.

Q) Is it possible to have multiple computers share the same broadband link?
A) Yes, but make sure you buy the right package to make this happen. Tell your service provider that this is a requirement to make sure they supply you with a broadband router - which is a device that includes a BB modem, a firewall (see below), a network traffic router and a thing called an Ethernet Hub (or a wireless hub) that allows you to plug in multiple computers. In this case, you need to make sure that each PC has a LAN connection capability (look in your PC manual to see if it has a 10/100Mbits/sec CAT5 LAN port).

Q) And the downside is…..?
A) Security is far more of a concern in the broadband world. If you protect yourself – and maintain that protection - as summarized below, it's pretty easy to get protection from threats.

Ensure you have current antivirus and anti spy-ware protection installed on your PC(s) well ahead of your BB installation date, PLEASE don’t leave it until afterwards! It would be too late by then.

Imagine a virus invading your PC and deleting all the files on your hard drive, causing you to lose all those irreplaceable family photos that you have taken with your digital camera. How would that feel? You need to make certain that - on each PC in your home - you have an up to date anti-virus package installed. The one that came with your new PC several years ago will be all but useless now, unless you have been meticulously updating it. So, you need the most current version of the anti-virus software itself AND you need to make sure that you have the latest set of virus definitions (basically this is a frequently updated dictionary of known viruses that the software refers to when guarding your machine against known threats). Antivirus software may cost you about £30 to buy, but it can also save you from incredible amounts of grief from lost or corrupted data and days of wasted time trying to get rid of viruses.  The anti virus software should automatically download updates every couple of days. You buy an annual subscription to the update service to continue to get these downloads. In this way, your protection against all known threats is kept current.

I would also strongly advise you to get an Anti-Spyware package, this stops attempts by unscrupulous web sites trying to plant unwanted snooper software into your system and sending out your personal details without your permission.

Optionally, if you are plagued by annoying pop-up windows on the websites you visit, you may also want to install a pop-up blocker in your web browser (you can get a free blocker from www.google.com/downloads/ - it is contained in the Google toolbar software offered there).

Ensure that the broadband router (or package) you get with your BB package includes a built in feature called a "Firewall" which serves to block unwanted intrusion attempts from the Internet.

There are many anti-virus, firewall and anti-spyware packages available. Antivirus: www.norton.com (available from Symantec - see their Norton Antivirus and Norton Personal Firewall products) is probably the most widely used at the moment - but there are many others too. Visit your local stockist or online sites like www.dabs.com or www.misco.co.uk to find out prices.

Anti Spyware packages: 
Microsoft has a free package - Windows Defender - available at www.microsoft.com/defender
Lavasoft have a free product: www.lavasoft.com
Spybot is also free and available from: www.spybot.info

With your firewall - working in combination with your anti-virus software, anti spyware and your own common sense - you should be secure. The common sense element is to train yourself and everyone that uses your PC to NEVER EVER open emails from sources you don’t know and trust - especially if they have attachments - it is best to delete such emails, unopened. In Outlook Express, single-click the right-hand mouse button on the suspect email, and then from the pop-up menu presented, left-click on “delete”. This deletes the item without ever opening it.

Q) How does our local broadband system perform?
A) From my own experience it performs very well, we get the promised bandwidth pretty much all the time and everything happens a lot faster and there are none of those annoying delays establishing a connection. Of course, some websites are still slow (just because they are busy sites I think) but all of our uses for the network (Web access, email access, work network access, online gaming etc) are a *lot* faster and more available. Websites that used to be painful to access now load up like "That!!" (snaps fingers).

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