Tomorrow it will be one week since I installed broadband at home. This was a move from 56kb/s dialup to a 256kb/s always on connection. But is it really worth it?
From a non-technical standpoint, the other occupiers of this house are happy because the phone line is always free, and there's no waiting for the modem to dial in.
For me, I'm happy because downloads are much faster, and my quota has been increased and rationlised. On dialup I had a 300MB hard quota, based purely on data downloaded through the modem. With my broadband ADSL, I have 1GB of downloads during peak times, and 1GB off peak (midnight to 8am), plus any traffic from local sites is free.
I found my ISP using the amazing facilities provided by Broadband Choice. I went with the cheapest plan from the most popular broadband provider, iiNet's Bliink 256 lite. I chose my modem after looking at the Oz Cable Guy's site, and confirmed my views by looking for forums responses in the DSL hardware forum of Broadband Choice. There they also have a comprehensive list of reviews of every modem/router on the Australian market.
I didn't go with the hardware recommended, supported or supplied by iiNet based on these reviews. Instead, I picked the Billion BIPAC 741GEv2 based on features, price and support. It's a 4-port router/switch/firewall/modem for the price of a plain old ADSL modem. Although I hadn't heard of the Billion name before starting my research, it soon became obvious that they were highly regarded in the broadband arena. The Billion web site provides a list of retailers which I used to find the best Australian online site. I based my choice on price and quality of web site, and ended up at Warren Computers. The price, including postage, was about $200. After ordering on Friday afternoon it covered the 4000 kilometres to arrive at my doorstep first thing on Monday morning, either by magic or Australia Post's Express Post service.
After unpacking the modem it took barely 5 minutes to be up and running on the Internet. I then took the rest of the morning playing with the router's firewall settings, for my peace of mind, as the router was going to be permanently on.
When I connected to my new email account I found I already had 67 emails waiting for me - 1 from iiNet, and 66 spams. I complained to iiNet, and they said that my account name had been in use prior to me taking it on, so I was getting the previous owner's spams. Once I get the filtering down pat the spams should be under control.
All in all, I'm very happy with the change. All that's left is for me to move all of my web sites over from the old ISP to the new one. Should be fun...
