Latest interaction with the Knutsford Probus group - October '08

This page has now been 'FINALLY' updated but it is still open to change if anyone has feedback that it should be

I have enclosed a lot of material below but it all relates to the various discussions that happened on Monday. I have also provided the content of the foils at Probus - Foils used on Monday. If you want to go directly to the links they are at: Links to other resources. With any of the links on this page you will need to use the back button on your browser to return here because THIS PAGE IS NOT FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION as it is intended solely for Probus members - ideally just those who attended the session on Monday.

Your scenarios - only numbered for reference just in case we talk by 'phone

Due to time constraints and lots of good questions we didn't have as much time available to discuss scenarios as I had hoped. Most attendees however seemed to be most interested in one simple scenario - from home what is the best approach to getting: Talk, e-mail and surfing... Broadly speaking the conclusions are in three areas although we only really discussed the first two in any detail:

1. If you don't have a BT line and have NTL (Virginmedia) as your main supplier of communications then you are likely to find the easiest and probably the cheapest approach is to stick with Virgin unless you have telephone call costs in excess of £20/month. If your call costs are more than £30/month you should get an itemised bill for at least one month and do a rough calculation with the rates from the 18185 web site to see how long it would take to repay a possible investment in re-connecting a BT line.

   If your overall bill for BB plus 'phone calls and line rental is more than £40/month you should certainly either:

   • Take a look at their 'bundled' deals - 3 for £30/month for instance or
   • As long as you feel that you are both willing and able to go through with this action then I would negotiate with their 'customer retentions department' (NOT customer service!) to get a better deal on the basis that you would switch to BT
2. If you have a BT line it is very likely that this will be the best route to getting your needs met with a good service and at a good price, HOWEVER if your cost of calls is more than £5/month you probably will be better to keep your line CONTRACT with BT and get other services from other providers - see 18185, Plusnet, Zen et. al. below.
3. If you could manage WITHOUT a BT line and/or you are often in other parts of the UK AND you are a light user of broadband (less than 3GB/month) then you might want to at least CONSIDER the MOBILE option. Almost all mobile operators will provide 3GB/month of Broadband (BB) for £15/month. If you only use e-mail and surf less than 5 hours a week then you may want to try using the offer from the company called 'three' which is just 1GB of download which must be used within 30 days of activation at a cost of £10.

Broadband (BB) topics - only numbered for reference just in case we talk by 'phone

1. Although PlusNet is very good for 'light users' (less than 2GB/month) they would NOT be competitive for very heavy users - for instance those who use the BBC I-Player for more than an hour per day - note that the I-Player MAY be using large quantities of bandwidth even when you are not watching it because YOUR PC is serving BBC content TO OTHER USERS unless you stop it from doing so. Moderate users could start with the £10/month deal and either top-up when needed, upgrade to the £15/month for 15GB or even accept a 'speed throttler' (128Kbps until new month) when they exceed their quota.
2. When you sign up for BB online or over the telephone you need to be very careful - even on 'BT friendly' web sites such as Plusnet that you only let them take over your BT line (i.e. the contract / payment / responsibility) IF that really is what you want them to do because you have then lost your protection from anti-competitive behaviour such as blocking the use of services from other companies.
3. Although there wasn't a question on this topic I realised that I had not given you any way of measuring your usage of this important commodity called 'download' or 'monthly usage'. Basically it is as simple as shown to the right - how much data has been BOTH Sent and Received - add the two to get usage over a period.

   Although you can get (download!) tools that will measure this in detail and with great accuracy I would suggest that rather than add yet another software component to your PC you can simply look at the XP statistics whenever you turn off your PC over the month.

   To see statistics such as those to the right you simply right-click on the network icon** (either in the very bottom right - i.e. the system tray or in Network Connections) and then choose 'Status' writing down both the duration of your network connection as well as millions of bytes received AND TRANSMITTED (especially if you run the BBC I-Player) and record that along with the date and a few words describing the characteristics of that session - e.g. general surfing and handling 1 day's worth of e-mail.

   In particular try to describe why a particular day/session is either very heavy or indeed if it was very light - that will help you understand what you are currently using and what the factors are that make a difference.

Personally I would record the above usage as:

Note that I had to look at the sizes of the files downloaded to know that it was a 12MB plus a 3MB download.

If you use the BBC I-player you should make some observations not just every 10 minutes while you are watching something which has just been produced but (every 10 minutes) for at least the next hour or so after it has been downloaded too.

If the above 4 day example was my only data then I would estimate that I was PROBABLY using between 1.2 and 2GB per month as the daily usage is 60MB ((80+160)/4) * 20-35 (working?) days in a month.

** If your connection to the Internet is via USB then your network icon and statistics will look different to the above because the modem supplier will have THEIR software linking it to your PC and so it will be THEIR tools which can inform you of usage.

'Talk' by 'phone topics - only numbered for reference just in case we talk by 'phone

1. As far as I know - 18185 is the cheapest but I have added the 18866 link to my links page for comparison. One small extra that they (18185) provide which I use quite often is their SMS Text messaging service which is available on the web. The main reason that I! use this is because I can use a keyboard but have no ability or desire to try to use the keypad of a mobile 'phone to send anything other than the most urgent and terse text message!

Skype and Voice over IP (VoIP) topics - only numbered for reference just in case we talk by 'phone

Sadly we didn't get the time to discuss and debate this but just some comments from my own usage and knowledge:

Please bear in mind that Voice over IP technology is actually everywhere - even BT and NTL use it for their core services - the challenge is finding where it can be easily and usefully used to meet your needs at an appropriate cost. Also check the cost of using an ordinary 'phone with a provider such as 18185 as that MAY be a lot more attractive than you think if you have had a less-than-competitive provider.

1. Free calls to other (PC) users! this is very popular between people in different countries where the cost of 'phone calls is high. Please check that the cost really is high by looking at the 'Talk' links (e.g. 18185) before trying to use these technologies.

   This is by far the most attractive usage but it DOESN'T need Skype or the subscription that they charge. Voice and Video chat between PCs is freely available using many tools - the simplest (because you probably already have it installed!) is perhaps Windows Messenger. Note that this is the SIMPLE messenger from Microsoft and NOT MSN Messenger which is geared towards teenage chat and exposes your PC to much more of a threat as it is constantly updated.

2. Free calls to other (Telephone!) users but from your PC. There are companies who offer this and of course it depends if they happen to match your specific requirements, see VoIPCheap (in links) as an example. Obviously if the company is charging you a subscription then you should EXPECT to have some free usage as well as discounted calls.

A copy of my 'Useful links' page

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