To connect to the Internet you need three things, an Internet Service Provider (ISP), a connection between your ISP and your home, and the hardware necessary use that connection.
Most people start out using their voice telephone line and a modem to dial-in to an ISP. The school district provides dial-up Internet service to its employees (Cleveland Heights local phone number - 33K speed) with a 1 hour limit for those that need basic service for work. You can buy unlimited dial-up service from many ISPs for $10-$20 a month. Dial-up connections have a number of disadvantages: they use your telephone line, provide slow access to the Internet and take 30 seconds or so to make a connection.
The dial-up phone connection between you and your ISP is the weak link, and a number of new connection types are now or soon will be offered to the consumers in the Cleveland area. Watch for specials that provice installation and needed equipment at no extra charge.
DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) makes use of the same telephone wires used for voice, but does not conflict with your voice connection. You can be connected to the Internet via DSL at the same time you are talking on the telephone. There are a number of Internet providers that will contract with your local phone company to install a DSL line as part of a package. A DSL connection is about 10 times faster than a voice-line modem and is instantly on. Recent price drops make DSL (~$40 a month with Internet service) competitive with the purchase of a dedicated second voice phone line (~$20) and Internet service (~$20). The main disadvantage of consumer DSL is that you must be within a limited distance from a telephone switching station that supports DSL. Because the quality of phone lines also impacts the service, you will not know for sure whether DSL will work until the installer actually tests the connection in your home. There are customers in the Heights that are very happy with their DSL connection and others that could not get service. You can check for likely availability at your address on dslreport.com or ameritech.com.
Cable Modems use the cable company infrastructure rather than the phone company's lines. They are faster than DSL but the connection is shared by other subscribers in your area. How fast it actually is will depend on how many other subscribers are using it at the same time, but even a shared connection will seem very fast. In most cases, the cable company is also your Internet provider, Cablevision, that serves the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, was just purchased by Adelphia. They intend to begin rolling out Internet service in about 6 months. For more information check cable-modem.net and www.adelphia.net. Pricing will probably be competitive to DSL at about $40 a month.
Satellite based Internet services can provide fast downloads, but require a separate connection over your voice phone line to upload files and send requests for web pages. It is worth considering if you cannot get DSL or Cable service.
The faster connections also offer the opportunity to share the connection with other computers in your home over a local area network (LAN). Although the service providers generally do not provide support for sharing, you can find help at dslreport.com or cable-modem.net. An under $200 router/hub/switch combination will support a LAN on which you can share your Internet connection as well as files and printers.
With all Internet connections, you can check your school mail and use the HeightsNET Website. They are accessible no matter how you connect to the Internet. You only need to dial-in using the district service if you need to get to internal databases and files that are not on the Internet/Web for security or licensing reasons.
| How Fast Is Your Connection? | |
|---|---|
| Modem speed/type | Transfer time for 10MB file |
| 28K telephone modem | 46 minutes |
| 56K telephone modem | 24 minutes |
| 128K ISDN modem | 10 minutes (school building connections) |
| 768K DSL modem | 2 minutes download - 10 minute upload |
| 1,540K T-1 line | 52 seconds (district connection shared by all schools) |
| 4,000K cable modem | 20 seconds (shared connection among subscribers) |
| 10,000K cable modem | 8 seconds (shared connection among subscribers) |
For more information, contact S_Titchenal@chtu.org.