ADSL Broadband Guide

Introduction to Broadband

Once you've got broadband, it's hard to imagine how you ever did without it.

Broadband means that the World Wide Wait is over. Much of the frustration surrounding business use of the Web disappears. You can, for example, send or receive emails with the big attachments in seconds, not minutes.

Broadband means that you and all your staff can use Web, email and phone at the same time, all the time, from a single telephone line - and all for a flat fee.

Like electricity or tap water, Broadband is 'always on'. You need never dial the internet again. Access to the Internet is immediate, and email is likely to arrive at your desktop as soon as it's sent

This guide shows how Broadband can help your business. Through Broadband, you get up to speed with the world's best companies.

A number of different Broadband technologies exist. One of the principal forms of Broadband is ADSL, (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line).

ADSL Broadband

• Runs over a normal telephone line, so you don't need to buy an extra line
• Is straightforward to install, inexpensive to run, reliable to operate
• Is entirely predictable to budget for.

There are no call charges with broadband ADSL, just a flat regular tariff.

Broadband ADSL is available to nearly two thirds of businesses in the UK.

What SMEs say about ADSL Broadband

In 2001, Fletcher Advisory, an affiliate of Forrester Research UK, interviewed more than 200 SMEs using Broadband ADSL connection:

• 90 per cent were satisfied with the reliability of Broadband ADSL
• more than half regarded Broadband ADSL as important for offering new products and generating fresh revenue streams and customers
• almost half had seen a noticeable productive increase, with 80 per cent predicting further improvements within two years
• almost half held Broadband ADSL to have increased employee satisfaction. That figure is expected to rise to two thirds in the next two years.

Whether you're: self-employed, working from home, still on ISDN, getting on the net for the first time, a small firm or a medium-sized enterprise, Broadband ADSL allows:

• Fast, easy, immediate and 'always on' access to the web for all your staff-instead of each of them waiting up to a minute for a modem to connect
• Fast downloading of Web pages
• You to move email and attachments at rates 10-40 times faster than a modem
• You to connect your offices together for data sharing and collaboration
• Employees to access your company's network when working from home.

Presence - the sensation of someone else being online

Because Broadband ADSL means you're 'always on', your PC can make you aware when one or more of your business partners is online as well. It's a bit like being in an office and sensing colleagues arriving, departing or having their heads down when busy. You know when, like you, one of your circle is at their desktop, even though they may be at another site or in another country.

To the uninitiated, it's quite an odd sensation. But presence has it's uses. Using software such as AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger, you can see whether your business patners are in work mode and available to be interrupted.