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General => Technical Help => Topic started by: elf on Monday 10 January 11 16:53 GMT (UK)
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At long last I'm going to get myself a laptop now I'm still on dial up ( don't laugh ) .
1 Will my new machine work ok with dial up
2 How do you transfer my internet to the new machine .
Why I'm still on dial up I don't know who to go with at the moment I'm with Tesco I ask people who they are with but get I'm with so and so its ok BUT then I say how about say BT and they say I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole So I just don't know what to do any help would be most welcome
Sue
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I'm with BT and have never had any problems. I do get free McFee with the package i've got also. I would also consider Virgin if they provided my TV and phone, nor sure about Sky a neighbour has it, it seems cheaper but he does have more proiblems than we have with BT.
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Hi,
I use mobile broadband, from 3G.
It is very convenient if I want internet access when visiting relatives who don't have it, or I want to surf on my ol' lappy downstairs when my P.C. is upstairs!
It is faster than dial-up, but not as fast as "normal" broadband, although you'd need to check that it is available in your location.
I pay £15 pcm for 15gb download limit - I use on average about 5gb pcm.
I've had a couple of occasions when the service has been unavailable, but their customer service is the best I've encountered.
There is no problem transferring your internet from one machine to another - you just plug the usb modem in to any suitable machine, it automatically loads the necessary software, and connects - no long wires, filters, or other stuff.
For convenience, I'd highly recommend it.
Hope this is helpful.
'Hat.
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Thank you both I'm a bit clearer
Sue
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Will you be staying on "Dial-Up" or moving onto "Broadband" (ADSL)?
If you are staying with dial-up then it`ll be easier to get a laptop with a dial up modem built in.
If you are going to Broadband then selecting an ISP is a minefield, I`d advise you spend a long time selecting which ISP you chose.....Please don`t rush into things.
kind regards.
Steve
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I have been with Tiscali for years although it's been taken over by Talk Talk. The main reason with the package I have is I have unlimited download, not many if any other offer this service.
You want to consider what are you going to use the internet for before taking the plunge. I'm sure you can get broadband for around the same price as dial-up.
I thought dial up stopped years ago. God how do you manage. ;D
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I have been with Tiscali for years although it's been taken over by Talk Talk. The main reason with the package I have is I have unlimited download, not many if any other offer this service.
You want to consider what are you going to use the internet for before taking the plunge. I'm sure you can get broadband for around the same price as dial-up.
I thought dial up stopped years ago. God how do you manage. ;D
TT don`t do Unlimited (in the true sense of the word) as far as I know?
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you are quite right, Steve,
They "all" do unlimited "according to their conditions". My old ADSL was on "all the time" except for built in cuts of service.
Here in Belgium I am on a prepaid dongle and I put €5 on at a time to keep check of my costs. The speed here is pretty awful (politics, I've heard) but in Britain you can get very decent speeds. This could be a good alternative to ADSL, paying a fixed sum each month.
cheers, falcybe
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1 Will my new machine work ok with dial up
depends on your definition of ok... dial up is awful after adsl for any computer, soooo sloooooooow ;D but it works as advertised ::)
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I have been with Tiscali for years although it's been taken over by Talk Talk. The main reason with the package I have is I have unlimited download, not many if any other offer this service.
You want to consider what are you going to use the internet for before taking the plunge. I'm sure you can get broadband for around the same price as dial-up.
I thought dial up stopped years ago. God how do you manage. ;D
TT don`t do Unlimited (in the true sense of the word) as far as I know?
I can download as much as I want, any time of day or night seven days a week. Most have a limit on how many Gigabyte per month. I don't have any limit, there for it is unlimited.
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Hi Sue
You should check out www.samknows.com for a summary of the ADSL providers in your exchange. The details for your BT exchange will tell you when they plan to roll out C21N - 21st Century Network - to your area. ADSL gets worse the further from the exchange you are. You cannot believe the ‘up to’ speeds quoted in the ads. If you pick a less well known brand you will be competing with fewer people. But you need to get on the forum of your intended provider to discover the true quality of their customer service. If you have Sky their basic broadband package is free and they are more tolerant than BT for high usage.
If you can get Virgin cable you should go for that. Services based on mobile phone sim cards in a dongle depend upon the strength of the mobile signal in your area. All websites will allow you to check this using your postcode. These are just as 'always on' as are cable and ADSL. They are priced on data downloaded each month - usually 5Gb or 15GB, so there are no issues with ‘fair use’ policies. You get approx 90 minutes of BBC iplayer per GB. You can get a PAYG sim card for a few pounds to check the signal yourself. All packages should come with free texts that you can send from your PC.
Ken
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Why not just go with Tesco broadband? I think that you will get a wireless router with the package which will make using it with a laptop much easier.
Stuart
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I can download as much as I want, any time of day or night seven days a week. Most have a limit on how many Gigabyte per month. I don't have any limit, there for it is unlimited.
Ok, not from what i`ve read about throttling by TT.
I`ve read of 40GB as a trigger value?
But hey you use it so who am I to disagree.
TT are it seems under investigation by Ofcom at present, not for Limits though.
Customer service is I believe lacking?
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I can download as much as I want, any time of day or night seven days a week. Most have a limit on how many Gigabyte per month. I don't have any limit, there for it is unlimited.
Ok, not from what i`ve read about throttling by TT.
I`ve read of 40GB as a trigger value?
But hey you use it so who am I to disagree.
TT are it seems under investigation by Ofcom at present, not for Limits though.
Customer service is I believe lacking?
I would say there customer service is better then a year ago, but by no means perfect.
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We've got Virginmedia and we have unlimited downloads day or night. We've never had any problems. We were with NTL originally, then when Virgin took them over we changed to Virgin. Many, many, many years ago we had Tiscali when it was a new young company but now it's grown and been taken over, I wouldn't recommend it.
If you can get it broadband is much better than dial-up. If you can get Virgin on cable, that's what I'd go for. My daughter has that, but unfortunately, my part of the same town doesn't have cable, so we're connected via the telephone line.
Lizzie
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I'm with Tiscali (Talk Talk) unlimited and I believe that since Talk Talk took over, it actually is no longer unlimited.
When I went into my account to check my package, I am now on a 40gb package!! No one informed me of the change!
I have no idea what 40gb means - how much downloading or streaming I can do. But I haven't had a problem yet.
As for there customer service - you are right! It is pretty appalling!! I had big problems 2 years ago and ended up having to go to the head office - which at the time was Mary Turner's office. I kept losing my connection in the evenings and this went on for months. When it was finally sorted, I was refunded two months subscription, but it had been really annoying!!
I worry about changing though. I think all companies have thei pros and cons. :)
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Surprise! Surprise! I got an e mail yesterday from them saying they were upgrading me for free. I then checked and found that the limit was 40gb. To be fair it's a heck of a lot and not really relevant unless you download lots of BBC i player or films.
This is the 2nd major change. The last one (2010) was an undisclosed price hike. My package went from £19.99 (based on 17.5% VAT) to £22.50. No doubt they will add 2.5% to this figure. I complained and got a £10 credit. At least with the new package, we can phone them free. Ah! By the way I got a refund on my calls 2 years ago when I complained about losing the service for 2 days.
It's a bad, bad company to complain to....but it really is dirt cheap compared to the rest. My daughter lives in Spain and we phone 5 times at least a week. I've now found a new cousin in Oz (family history) and that will be inclusive as well. So that's broadband, calls to Spain and OZ and 24/7 at home and rental for £22.50!!! No one else can do it can they?
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Thank you everyone for your help
Kind regards Sue
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Hi Sue
I'm guessing that it was you who asked the same question on another genealogy forum and you therefore have long answers from me and others there as well as the ones above on this forum. However, without in any way meaning to be rude I'm guessing that you are not very computer literate (as the phrase is) because you ask about moving your internet onto a new machine. Forgive me if I oversimplify by way of an answer.
The internet is not really yours or mine. It is just out there in the ether. Neither is it on or in your machine, so when you turn your computer off at night the internet is still out there working away. When you access the internet you do so by opening a window into it using a piece of software on your computer called a web browser. A famous one is Internet Explorer which may be what you use.
There are lots of different free browsers you can download if you don't like the one you are using, or the one loaded on your new machine. They all do the same trick more or less and new computers usually come loaded with one. PCs, including laptops which use Windows operating systems, often come loaded with Internet Explorer or Microsoft at least advises you to use it. But you could download Firefox, Chrome, Safari or various others and they all enable you to connect to the internet.
You can also use more than one browser on your machine if you really want to. Some work better than others at various tasks. I recently bought a Mac laptop which has Safari but it is not very good at reading the DJvu images available to genealogists of census pages. So I simply downloaded Firefox for that purpose and it works fine.
So don't worry, the internet will still be visible when buy your new laptop, even if you go wireless! Someone else has told you how to transfer your Favorites (in IE) or Bookmarks I believe but if you get stuck doing that ask again.
Good luck.