Internet access

[bixaorellana]

Split from: Aging+Parents

Dec 16, 2010 7:34:52 GMT tod2 said:

At 89 yrs of age this was the first year my mother has not had a computer to toy with. It was one of the older ones and eventually packed up but that's not the problem as I have spare computers and laptops unused. The problem is the cost. She has to go on line using her land line. This takes forever to dial-up and then costs quite a bit when she is busy using it. Sending emails doesn't cost but it was people sending her photos which took a very long time to download.
In the end her phone bill was way too high and she asked me cancel her link with the phone company instead of getting another computer.

Tod, isn't broadband available in her area? It would allow her to stay connected to more people. If it's relatives sending the big photos, you could send out a mass email asking everyone to please resize their pictures before emailing. It really seems a shame for your mother to no longer have this outlet.

[tod2]

Bixa, I am scarey when it comes to computers!! ;D Please explain briefly what broadband is? Is it the same as my computer which is connectd to ADSL permanently with a set fee I pay every month? This comes capped (mine is) or more recently uncapped.
This ADSL allows me a much faster internet connection but is expensive. Once I have reached the amount allowed the computer can only dial up their website which allows you to pay in a further amount by credit card.

[Deleted]

Yes, ADSL and broadband are the same thing.

[tod2]

Thanks Kerouac. Then its way too expensive unless I can get my sister to go halves with me but I doubt it as they are also going through a difficult time. We already share my mother's expenses monthly, and once a year share the cost of DSTV so that she can watch something apart from the absolute drivel that is dished out by our local station.
I will talk to the man that installs all our computers at work and see if there isn't a way to have her as part of the 'sharing'. All our computers are in one building so I don't know if that will be a problem.

If anyone knows or can suggest a method of hooking her up I am ready for any suggestions.
If it helps, what is this Wi-Fi I've heard about and also see lots of places that profess a "hot spot" - like at a cafe I go to? Is it dangerous in the fact people can get into your email, etc?
She does have a security company right next door operating on numerous computers. Would this be classed as a 'hot spot'?

I told you I'm scary ;D

[onlymark]

tod, in simple terms someone, when connected via their phone line to the internet, has a device called a 'Router' between the computer and the wall socket. The computer is connected to the Router and a wire runs from there to plug in the wall. In some cases the Router has a small aerial on it and it transmits with radio waves the internet connection to the surroundings.
With a laptop you can have a receiving device plugged in which will receive this signal and connect you to the internet using the same connection.

Mostly these connections require a password for access. A Hot Spot is where there is a connection being broadcast that you can connect to, or 'piggy back' on to that could well be free - like McDonald and some coffee shops aka Starbucks.
I doubt the security company next door will have easy access even if they are 'broadcasting' as it were.

We can all answer your questions but a separate thread is probably the way to go if you need a lot more help.

(NOTE: the messages above were all Forked from a discussion in Free Clinic after onlyMark's comment above about the necessity of a separate thread. -- Bixa)

[onlymark]

Don't blame me!
My doppelgänger must have been posting.

[bixaorellana]

One problem in these discussions is that it seems the way internet providers work in different countries varies greatly.

For instance, when I moved I cancelled my old service and got a new one, since that allowed me to get a phone without having to pay the hefty transfer fee. Also, the high-speed service combined with phone service was an attractive package.

I pay 389 pesos, tax included for a month of phone service and unlimited usage of broad band. The phone svc allows 100 free local calls a month and 100 free national long-distance calls. The modem has wi-fi.

It seems some other countries charge for time used or downloads or whatever on the internet service.

Tod, one suggestion I have is to either go to the internet provider(s) and throw yourself on their mercy about your mother's age. Also, talk to people you know to find out what internet options there are.

[onlymark]

There's broadband and broadband though. I pay half as much again as you but it could be that mine is faster than yours.

[bixaorellana]

I have 100 Mbps, which is quite zippy.

There are packages with 200 and 500 Mbps available, though.

I have the 389 package shown here: www.telmex.com/mx/hogar/paquetes/paquete-conectes-comparar.html

In Spanish, but easy to read. "Inalámbrico" means wireless.

[rikita]

which country are you in?

in germany i think these days almost all internet companies just offer flat rates for unlimited dsl, the price differences just depend on the download speed you want. and usually you get a telephone flatrate along with it...

right now (here in india) i have a dsl that is much slower than at home though, and with a download limit, but so far i couldn't figure out if i use it too much or not, as nothing here tells you when you are over the limit, and the bills only arrive after two months - so i hope i won't get a bad surprise...

[onlymark]

bixa, yours is 1Mb but a hundred something else, Mbps? as you say. I don't really understand what this means. Something to do with local stuff. All I can say is that mine is 4Mb, so in theory 4 times faster but in reality probably not. I pay almost exactly twice as much as you.

[onlymark]

tod, it depends how far you want to go with this. Whilst the kids have been decorating the Christmas tree I've be swanning around the internet to see what the situation is in SA, just for my info but if any of it helps......

Anyway, the usual thing with adsl in SA seems to have a 'capped' line. This is where you have a limit on data and once that is exceeded you pay through the nose. So I looked into 'uncapped' adsl and came up with this list -

www.hellkom.co.za/uncapped-adsl/

I then had a closer look at some of them, for example this one -
paradigmsolutions.co.za/adsl_uncapped.asp

I saw that a very basic uncapped adsl with the slowest connection, but still way faster than dial up is 179Rand per month.
But then I saw that you also, in every case, need to pay rental for an adsl telephone line from Telkom SA -
www.telkom.co.za/common/pricelist/prices/local/adsl.html

This is an extra 152R per month. Add the two together, plus taxes, and it starts adding up to quite a sum. More than I pay for a lot lesser service - this is for 384 kbit/s whereas mine is 4096 kbit/s.

It seems there is, after reading the conditions, about the same deal from most providers for about the same cost. As you would expect really as it is the same probably in most countries when there isn't a monopoly.

These two -
www.snowball.co.za/internet/adsl/uncapped/basic (the 384k option)
and www.openweb.co.za/uncapped/ (Lite uncapped adsl 384k)
are again about the same as the first paradigm solutions link.
What they offer is a system that is unrestricted on the amount of data you can download, but there is a 'fair user' type policy whereby if you are in the top 20% of those subscribers who have the same service (the amount of data you've downloaded is higher than 80% of all the other subscribers), then you'll get restricted until your average falls below the cut off line.
This is to stop people downloading films and stuff all day every day.

So, there doesn't seem much alternative. You either pay a lot and have an unlimited line (uncapped) or you pay less but have a limit on the amount of data you can download. It doesn't really matter about the speed of the line too much after you get past a certain limit unless you are watching streaming videos a lot or playing online games. The problem is if you are downloading a lot of things like videos and photos that are taking up your allocation.

The cheapest not dial-up packages seem to start at about 283 Rand a month. This would be for the same internet speed as the uncapped options but the downside is that there is a limit of 1 GB of information per month. But also includes line rental and tax.
To give you an idea, people who e mail family photos often don't reduce their size. On average they are about 1 MB each. So that is about one thousand photos to make 1 GB.

Sounds quite a lot, but bear in mind that one DVD disc can hold 4.7 GB. You can soon use up 1 GB when you are wafting around the internet loading different web pages.
It does all depend on what she wants from the internet. Plus you then need someone more expert than me to give a rough estimate of her usage, and then price up a package accordingly - and see if it is too much to afford.

[bixaorellana]

Wow, Mark -- that's helpful!

In #3, Tod mentions paying for DSTV. Maybe that can be factored into part of an internet package for further savings.

[Deleted]

Next year, I plan to completely change my setup, and probably reduce my bills by about 70%. Here, they started with 'triple play' offers and are now moving on to 'quadruple play'.

This means internet (unlimited) + telephone (unlimited to about 50 countries) + television (about 100 channels) + mobile (unlimited to chosen numbers + SMS, etc.) in an all inclusive package from the same company. It costs about 40€ a month, but I might pay 10 or 20€ more to get unlimited 3G internet when I travel anywhere in France without having to look for wifi hotels.

It is reputedly the cheapest in Europe due to ferocious competition among the principal providers.

[onlymark]

It seems in SA there are numerous providers and yet the competition isn't that fierce. It's as though they're all colluding to keep the prices high.

[Deleted]

It's one of the things the went right in the EU rules. Since all of the telecom companies of EU members could compete on each other's territory, each one tried to offer something extra that the others didn't. Even though most were forced to pull back out when the going got rough (Alice -- Telecom Italia -- and T-Mobile from Germany, for example) by selling their customers to one of the remaining providers, they couldn't go back on all of the special offers.

[hwinpp]

Here internet is still very expensive. They need more providers. Fibre- optic cable was just laid about 2 years ago. Nothing like unlimited downloads or anything available.

[tod2]

OnlyMark, Kerouac, Bixa, hwinpp and rikita: I had a discussion with my mother and she is not keen on getting hooked up with another computer. I know her mind says yes, but at nigh on 90 she is feeling less capable of managing the ins and outs of a computer. She used to worry terribly if she got SPAM mail and opened it inadvertantly. There was no such thing as just switching off her computer - mom had to go as far as bending down to pull the whole plug out of the socket........in case of an electrical storm. Quite right to do that even if one has a surge-filter, but only IF there IS a storm and lightning!

So that is the end of that. I want to thank you all for your input which was very much appreciated

[onlymark]

You're welcome.

[rikita]

well i recently got my internet bill here - and it seems i not only exceeded the 1 gb download limit, but kind of tripled it... so it cost me over 2000 rupees altogehter. we are trying to switch to a 2 gb limit - thing is, they have no higher plans than that, except for a flatrate, but that then costs over 2000 as well, so as we hopefully get our house soon, and thus won't go online every day anymore (as we have to visit this house to do so) i suppose our use will go down a bit...

well, on the one hand, this is quite a it more than what i pay at home, and for a much slower connection - on the other hand, had they told me that the only plan available was about 40 euros, i would probably still have said okay. it seems a lot right now, considering the general cost (and income) of people here, but i guess if i think about it in euros it doesn't really seem that much to me... (though i wonder how someone from here would feel if it was their bill...)

[Deleted]

Hmmm... 2000 rupees is 34€, indeed a fortune in a country like India.

I would just bite the bullet and get a flat rate, because remaining connected is an absolute lifeline when you are so far from your familiar surroundings. Or at least it has become so this century.