Basic broadband q

Marathon_Man

I'm thinking of signing up for the ESAT free trial.

I know that broadband is a fatter pipe but do I still need to connect to an ISP to access the internet.

Does 'always on' mean that the connection is always available and I don't need to make a connection to access the internet.

Coming from the dial-up world so it's not obvious to me how this works.

Thanks!!

Gosh

Broadband is just a higher frequency signal over your ordinary telephone line. Where the telephone line enters your house you plug in a filter. This filters out the high frequency to phones and other non-ASDL equipment. The higher frequency signal goes to your ASDL modem/router.

Yes - you still need an ISP - in your case ESAT/BT will be your ISP

As long as your modem/router is connected and your PC is on you will have an access to the internet without the process of waiting for a dial-up connection - however the access is not always instant - this depends on the contention ratio (how many people are using the same line from the exchange to your ISP at the time you are).

Always-On means the connection between your modem/router and your ISP (through your exhange) is always live - just the same as if you had dialled up and never disconnected.

Moriarty

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dsl.htm