Subject - Frequently Asked Questions - General

What is Broadband?

Broadband describes how fast data can be transferred between computers. A broad road, such as a motorway, can carry more traffic than a narrow country lane. Broadband Internet connections are the motorways of the "information superhighway", modems are more akin to a country lane.

Each access point provides an 11Mbps (million bits per second) connection to the network. This will be shared between a number of users but will still provide a very fast connection to the Internet.

What is Eastserve Broadband?

Eastserve Broadband is part of the government sponsored Eastserve Project.

By setting up our own network it means we can keep control of the costs and enables us to provide Internet access to our customer at a very competitive price.

Because the network is run locally it also means that local people have more say in the way the network evolves and the type of services offered. The Network is currently only available to East Manchester residents (Ancoats, Beswick, Clayton, Gorton, Miles Platting, Newton Heath, Openshaw).

I don't have an Eastserve supplied computer. Can I still get access to Eastserve Broadband?

Yes, but your PC will need to be compatible with our equipment and you will need an Ethernet port on the back of your PC or a spare PCI Slot so we can fit a Network Card.

#NB We can only fit Laptops if you have an Ethernet Port, we do not supply Laptop Network Cards. If you would like advice regarding this, ring the helpdesk (0161 231 9580)

If you use an alternative operating system to Windows our help desk will only be able to provide limited support if you have problems. We will support the hardware we supply but you must be capable of doing any necessary configuration on your PC.

Your PC hardware will need to be running Windows 2000 or above.

How much faster than a modem is Eastserve Broadband?

The useable speed of Eastserve Broadband, and indeed most other broadband services, depends on a number of factors: mainly on how fast the underlying connection is, and what the users connected to the system are doing at any particular time.

Each user will share an 11Mbps (11 million bits per second) access point with a number of other users. Standard dial up modems only connect at 56kbps (56 thousand bits per second - theoretical maximum, more typically 45 thousand bits per second) so you can see that the broadband connection is considerably faster.

On our Gold service, you should be able to consistently download data at between 400 and 500kbps (kilo bits per second) over the network which is about 10 times faster than a dial up connection.

What does this speed difference really mean?

For ordinary web browsing it will mean that the pages load far more quickly - the other meaning of WWW (World Wide Wait) becomes a thing of the past. File downloads will be faster as well. A 1 megabyte file should download in seconds instead of over 3 minutes. It also enables watching movies and listening to Internet radio stations in high quality.

What are the benefits of broadband?

Always on: no waiting for the modems to connect.

Your telephone line will not be tied up when you are using the Internet.

No more choices to be made about who uses the phone and who uses the Internet.

People calling you will be able to get through when you are on the Internet.

Those with only mobile phones, or with no telephone, will now be able to get the Internet.

What are the disadvantages of broadband?

You might spend longer on the Internet than you do currently! As there will be no requirement to release the phone line for incoming or outgoing calls, and because of the improved speed of loading web pages, using the web should be a far more enjoyable experience.

Do I have to keep my computer turned on?

No, but if you want to use the Internet you will have to wait for your computer to boot up and you lose the immediacy of the always on
connection.