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10 Years in Internet Time
2005 marked approximately 10 years since what many consider the
dawning of the commercial internet and World Wide Web with the
newly-formed WWW Consortium (W3C) and the availability to
purchase domains by the public. It's been quite a ride for...
Cable vs DSL
Okay, so you are finally tired of those slow dial-up internet connections, and you want to go broadband. Good deal. But first, you may be wondering which type of broadband connection is best- DSL or Cable? Or, at least, which of the two gives you...
The Importance Of Internet For Real Estate Professionals
The Internet has become a fixture of our day to day lives. Gone are the times when a computer and a broadband connection were luxury items. More and more people are relying on the web to learn information about the real estate process, as well as...
UK Broadband
Ever since August 2000 when BT first launched their broadband internet package, speeds have been increasing and prices have been dropping. The end aim of the UK government and all broadband providers is high-speed internet in every home in Britain....
VOIP: A Basic, Basic Intro
What is it?
Most people are familiar w/ NetMeeting and other software that let you talk to others over the internet. VOIP is similar. However, it also uses your phone - the interface we're all familiar with.
Instead of connecting your phone...
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A Cheap Alternative To Broadband?
Are you a dial-up user looking for a faster connection, but don't like Broadband prices? If so, you should take a look at a new service called OnSpeed, which has received rave reviews in Internet technology publications.
What OnSpeed does is to re-route web pages and email via its own servers, compressing the data on the fly prior to sending it onwards to your PC. A small program then decompresses the data, so that you can view it in the normal way via your browser or email client.
In my own dial-up tests, with a modem running at a nominal 49kb/s I appeared to get speeds close to that of my normal broadband connection of 598 kb/s - very impressive. Image quality is often reduced but the compression for this can be improved, though with an adverse effect on the speed of course.
Also some file types like MP3 cannot yet be compressed. The company is working on these issues however and expects to find solutions soon.
Unfortunately I was unable to use email in my tests, due to a 'port' conflict with a spam filter that I was using. The standard advice on the OnSpeed site for such cases is to disable the
offending program. Not a constructive approach - to say the least - so I hope that the relevant instructions will be changed soon.
More significantly, the problem persisted even when I switched off the OnSpeed application on my PC; in the end I had to remove the program to get
the spam filter working again. I expect that this fault can be resolved, but clearly there are issues in this area that need to be addressed.
The software is easy to install, and is available for Mac as well as Windows PCs. On the whole the service is surprisingly good, and a lot cheaper than broadband. Unlike other 'speed-up'
techniques that tweak your computer's settings but result in little noticeable improvement, OnSpeed really works.
I can recommend OnSpeed for dial-up users who can't justify the expense of broadband, or who are not located close enough to a suitable exchange. OnSpeed is also stated to be great for mobile or PDA users, as GPRS (wireless) speeds can be boosted by as much as 8 times. It even helps with broadband if you can only get a reduced service in your area.
My overall rating is 4/5 - very good, but the email support needs to be improved.
If you want further details of OnSpeed, please visit http://www.On-Speed.net There is a 14 day money-back guarantee, so you can try the service without any risk.
Copyright © Richard Prosser 2004
About the Author
Richard is a software developer and entrepreneur, and may be contacted via the 'Article Tips' site given below. This article may be published without permission, but only in its entirety.
Free email course: "Drive 'Hot' Prospects To Your Site For Free!"
http://www.ArticleTips.com
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