Subject - Frequently Asked Questions - Glossary

What does "always on" mean?

Provided that your computer is turned on, and your e-mail program is running, any new mail will arrive on your computer whenever the program checks for new mail. This can be automatic or manual. For automatic mail checking Eastserve Broadband recommends an interval of 1 hour as a balance between timely arrival of mail and reducing the traffic on the system.

"Always on" also means just that, the Internet is always there, any time of the day or night, with no added costs. Want to look something up? You just do it, with no worry about the ever growing Internet phone bill.

What is an Eastserve Broadband "distribution point"?

A distribution point is a transmitter(s) located at a central point with a good view of the surrounding area. Many receivers will be able to see and use the distribution point at the same time. A distribution point may have one or more "access points".

What is an Eastserve Broadband "access point"?

An access point is a single piece of equipment that allows up to 2048 users access to the network.

What do "Mbps" and "kbps" mean?

Both "Mbps" and "kbps" are measures of data transfer rates.

Mbps means Mega bits per second (Mega = million)
kbps is kilo bits per second (kilo = thousand)

It is important to remember that the measurements for data transfer rates and file sizes are different. For instance, a transfer speed of 1 Mega bit per second will not download a 1 Megabyte file in 1 second. This is because there are 8 "bits" in 1 "byte", therefore at 1 Mega bit per second a 1 Megabyte file would theoretically take 8 seconds to download and so on.*

*These transfer rates are calculated assuming the user is connected at the maximum speed available, as there will be multiple users sharing the connection a slightly slower transfer rate is normal.