Wherever cheap wireless broadband is available, it has pretty much replaced dial-up web access altogether. Most people get their broadband connection using an upgraded landline phone called ADSL, for asymmetrical digital subscriber line. Besides being much, much faster than dial-up, there are other benefits.
To get cheap wireless broadband, the service provider you use will set up a phone line before you can get online. It won’t affect your normal calls in the meantime. You’ll also receive a broadband modem so your computer can use the signal, and filters to make sure your modem gets a clean signal. The filters are important: you may get spotty or even no access unless you use them.
To get the best rates, you may have to lock into a 12 month contract, or even a 24 month contract so that the broadband company can recoup costs.
Switching broadband providers is theoretically simple, but the providers used to make it as difficult as possible. However, the Office of Communications, or Ofcom, cracked down, and now the providers are much more cooperative with those wishing to change providers. If you want to change, first find out whether you’re locked into a contract. Wireless broadband plans generally are for 12 or 18 months, and if you try to get out of a contract before that time, you may be charged a hefty penalty. And if you’re not part of a contract, you’ll have to pay for or return any equipment they provided for you.
Most cheap wireless broadband providers will transfer you to their company for free. After all, they’re happy to get the business. Some may still charge a migration fee. If you’re charged a migration fee, it will be around £15. Another quirk of changing providers is the new company will only allow you to switch at the same speed as you already have, but afterwards, upgrading should be no problem. You will need your “MAC code,” or migration authorisation code, and you can get it from your existing provider. Typically they turn this over with little hassle.
But if you do call up asking for a MAC code, they will most likely ply you with extras and gifts and discounts to entice you to stay. In any case, it’s worth listening to the wireless broadband plan they offer you. Who knows? It might be better than the one you want to switch to. If you get your MAC code, give it to the new broadband provider, and the transfer should go much faster. Otherwise it could take up to several weeks for the transfer to take place.
Free broadband or Wifi
Before signing up for cheap wireless broadband, you might ensure that you don’t qualify for free broadband, which is available for lower income families. The UK government has 270,000 grants for free web access and laptops to distribute. If you have school aged children, you may be eligible. You can go to http://www.homeaccess.org.uk/ to learn more about eligibility.
And there is free wi-fi available in other places, too. If you have a laptop or netbook with a wireless internet card (and if it was made in the past few years, it almost certainly has one), then there are numerous high street venues offering free wireless, and more are coming on board all the time. Wetherspoons, Walkabout, and McDonalds all offer free wi-fi, and independent businesses will often have it as an enticement to give their place a try.
Another new option for free wi-fi on the go is finding out if there is a BTfonero hot spot in your vicinity. The Spanish wireless broadband provider Fon aims to turn the world wireless through connection sharing. People buy a special wireless router for £33. It splits the connection into a secure connection for you, and an open connection for other Fon members, who reciprocate at their home location, wherever it may be. BT customers don’t have to buy the special router, because BT total broadband has an arrangement with Fon to do this. Anyone who has BT total broadband service who sign up for the Fon scheme will also have free access to BT’s OpenZone hotspots. Since these usually cost in the neighborhood of £6/hour, it can represent quite a savings.
When using free wireless broadband that’s open to everyone, try to avoid entering any secure personal information at that time, because theoretically it could be intercepted for purposes of identity fraud. Another risk of taking advantage of free wireless broadband is the risk of getting drawn in to the point that pickpockets and handbag thieves can operate easily while you’re in an internet trance.
Broadband speed
Internet speed is given in Kbps, or kilobits per second. It’s the amount of information that’s transferred in one second. The slowest broadband connection is 512 Kbps, which is already almost 10 times as fast as dial-up. Broadband connections of 8 Mbps (the same as 8,000 Kbps) is another 20 times faster, and some places can get broadband at 24 Mbps. However, those speeds are under ideal conditions. They will get slower depending on how far the nearest BT exchange is, and how many local people are competing with you for bandwidth. On average, in the UK, average broadband speed is 3.6 Mbps on an 8 Mbps connection.
Broadband providers do sometimes use “traffic shaping,” where they cut connection speeds during peak, or heavy traffic times. Different types of traffic get triaged differently. The biggest speed hits come to those downloading from peer-to-peer networks.
Mobile Broadband
If you’re interested in broadband without phone line service, you can get mobile wireless broadband plans at fairly cheap rates. This is a form of cheap wireless broadband that is rapidly catching on. Rather than connecting with a landline, third generation (3G) web access uses mobile phone networks, so if you’re near a mobile signal, you can get on the web. The kicker is that you don’t necessarily have to have a mobile phone because you can get a little USB modem called a “dongle” that goes into a USB port that does the job.
However, mobile broadband is in general not as fast as home-bound cheap wireless broadband. But the basic 3G signal is still faster than dial-up. If you have a 3G handset and need to get on the web pronto, you may already be able to connect the phone to your laptop by Bluetooth or a special cable, and get on the net. But unless you have a mobile broadband data plan the costs can rapidly shoot up, so this should be an emergency move only.
Compare Broadband Providers
Ask yourself several questions when choosing broadband. Where can you use it? Is it cheap wireless broadband for the home, or is it mobile. If you choose mobile broadband, make sure the 3G signal is good where you spend the most time. Does the broadband deal gain you access to any special wireless hotspots when you’re away from home (such as the BT / Fon deal)? What are the charges if you go over your monthly alloted data plan limit? With 3 Mobile broadband, you could end up paying over £100 per gigabyte for overages! To give you a rough idea of how generous the data plan allowances are, one gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes, and should be enough to surf and check email. However, if you plan to download video and music, one gigabyte will likely not be enough.
Also when comparing broadband providers, find out if there are up front costs. If you only use mobile broadband as a backstop, there are pay as you go options, which may cost more per gigabyte of data, but if it’s only used rarely, it would be far less than having a whole mobile broadband plan as backup.
If you plan to use mobile broadband in other countries, beware: most 3G plans cost a lot for use abroad, even for small amounts of data. Try to limit your use abroad to the essentials only, and for any other broadband connections, use a web cafe or a wireless hotspot, both of which will undoubtedly be cheaper.
Cheap wireless broadband in the home sometimes leads to good mobile broadband deals. For example, Virgin Media offers home wireless broadband customers a 1 GB mobile broadband plan for £5 per month. This is perfect if you only need to do the occasional email check when you’re away from your primary wireless broadband network. Orange has a similar plan for its home wireless broadband users.
Moneysaving Tips for Mobile Broadband Plans
Learning to minimise data usage can help you save a lot of money with mobile broadband. If you go over your monthly data limit, you could be slapped with heavy penalty fees. One thing you can do to maximize savings on mobile broadband plans is to turn off automatic updates. Turn on updates whenever you have your cheap wireless broadband at home available, however, so that you don’t leave your mobile machine with security vulnerabilities.
Additionally, turn off images when you surf the web. It is usually a matter of using your browser’s Tools menu, advanced settings, and scrolling until you find “Multimedia” or something similar. There should be a check box for “show pictures” and for “play animations in webpages,” and you can uncheck both boxes to turn off data hogging images and animations. If you’re abroad, try managing your email on a web based service instead of your email client so if you are stuck with emails with huge attachments, you have the choice of waiting to download them until you get back to your cheap wireless broadband at home. Getting rid of adware and spyware will also help minimise your data usage with mobile broadband.
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