How Choosing an best ISP

Choosing an ISP

• Reliability, speed, contention ratio, cost
• Download limits and fair use

Within the University, the computers are connected permanently to the Internet. If you want to
connect from home, you'll need to connect temporarily to an Internet Service Provider, or ISP,
each time you need to access Internet resources. Setting this up is a fairly painless process, though
you need to choose your ISP carefully.
What to look for. The first decision to make is the type of connection you want. If you're a
very occasional user, then getting a dialup connection is still often the cheapest and simplest. It's
also useful if you travel around a lot, as it's not (usually) tied to a particular phone line/number.

Most people, however, will want a broadband connection, because it gives a reliable, almost
instant connection (or 'always-on' operation) at a high bandwidth.
You might also consider a wireless connection using data over a mobile phone network. These
offer the ultimate mobile solution, but can be very expensive, often charging per megabyte of
download.


Choosing a broadband provider

• Dialup, broadband or mobile?
• Occasional or extensive use?
• Tied to single line, or available anywhere?



For broadband ISPs, there are several important factors to check, including reliability, speed of
connection, how many other customers share the total bandwidth (the Contention Ratio), and of
course, cost. Most charge a set-up cost, and many have a minumum contract period, so be careful
you don't get locked into a poor deal for many months!
There are now also variable packages, where you can control the amount of bandwidth
available, paying extra for more capacity if you need it. For more recommendations
and relatively independent advice I find ThinkBroadband [http://www.thinkbroadband.com/]
(formerly ADSLGuide.org.uk) useful.
A recent development is the capping of Internet connections by limiting the monthly downloads
to, say, 10GB. This may seem reasonable at first, but if you wish to listen to Internet radio or
download video clips from the BBC, for example, then you'll hit this limit sooner than you expect.
Check whether your ISP offers an “unlimited” or “unmetered” service.


How fast? How reliable?


• Balance speed, reliability and extra features
• Think about your typical usage
• Don't get locked into a long contract
• Keep a separate emailbox



Another thing to look out for is the speed and reliability of the connection. This is partly
dependent upon the speed of your modem and your computer (see above), but also depends on your ISPs facilities too. Again it's worth shopping around to see which service provides fastest
access, and the quickest, most reliable connection. There are a number of websites that run
independent tests and surveys on each of the major ISPs, so there's no shortage of advice!
It's also worth shopping around for extras, such as webspace and email boxes, domain names,
and even telephone deals.
Remember, though, that if you use your ISP's email facilities, your email address will change
each time you change your ISP; it's often better to have a separate, permanent account from an
independent email provider, such as Microsoft's hotmail [http://www.hotmail.com/] or Google's
gmail [http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en/about.html].


Connecting through the University


• Basic dial-up service
• ResNet in student halls/accommodation
• For accessing the Uni network, Virtual Private Network is better



You can use the University as your ISP. Check the DialUp page [http://www.its.ex.ac.uk/dialup/]
for more details.
If you live in University-run accommodation that has a built-in network connection, you can also
connect to ResNet [http://www.its.ex.ac.uk/resnet/], the University's residential network. For a
small(ish) fee, currently £70 per year, you get an always-on connection into the campus network.
Note that this is only a limited service; you get full web and email access, but other services such
as chat, filesharing or multimedia streaming may be limited.
Whenever you connect to the campus network you're also bound by the University's rules and
regulations [http://www.its.ex.ac.uk/regs.shtml], so don't do anything naughty - someone may
be watching!

Configuring your computer


• Your ISP should provide an installation CD
• Should also provide settings for manual configuration



If you're using your own PC, you'll need to configure networking for your operating system (eg
Windows XP). The easiest way to do this is to obtain a CD with the tools and settings combined---
most ISPs give these away free. If you know all the details of the connection (usually obtainable
from the ISP's tech-support website), you can set up the connection by hand, but this is often
not for the faint-hearted!
There are some hints on configuring Windows for the University's dialup [http://
www.its.ex.ac.uk/dialup/] and ResNet [http://www.its.ex.ac.uk/resnet/] services on the IT
Services website (the ResNet pages are particularly good).




Measuring Bandwidth




• basic unit is the bit per second
• megabits per second (Mb/s) more commonly used
• a megabit is around a million bits
• Don't confuse with megabytes per second (MB/s)
• divide Mb/s by 8 to get MB/s


Though the speed and quality of links are not the most important factors for Internet traffic, they
will still affect your use of the net. In particular, you'll notice the difference (hopefully) between
connecting on Campus, and connecting from home using a modem. Modems are described by
their bandwidth; a typical analogue modem may have a bandwidth (or speed) of 56kb/s (kilobits
per second), and a broadband modem anything between 256 to 2048 kb/s. This compares to the
campus ethernet network, which has bandwidths of between 10 and 2000 Mb/s (megabits per
second). Of course, on the campus ethernet, this bandwidth is often shared between many users
(eg all computers in a single building) whereas the bandwidth of your analogue modem at home
is exclusively yours. Broadband (DSL) connections often state how many others you'll be sharing
your bandwidth with - this is called the Contention Ratio.


Mind your bits and bytes


A bit is a single binary digit (a zero or a one).
A kilobit (kb) is about thousand bits
(actually 1024, or 2 to the power 10),
and a megabit (Mb) is around a million bits
(1024 x 1024, or 2 to the power 20).
You're probably more familiar with bytes, which
are a group of eight bits, and can represent a single character or digit. Hard disk
drives, for example, are measured in megabytes (MB - very small), gigabytes (GB)
or terabytes (TB - very large) - note that in abbreviations, bytes are capital B's and
bits are lower case!
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