Broadband for my Gran?!

MissMuppet

My Gran has been on the Internet a long time but she's still on dial-up, her ISP is Supanet.

She's getting to that age where her memory isn't that good and she keeps forgetting to connect thus calling me and asking why her computer isn't working (ie. she's not getting any emails!).

I told her I would look into broadband for her, has anyone any recommendations? It doesn't have to be fast or have a big bandwidth and needs to be as cheap as possible. Supanet do broadband for £11.99 a month but not sure how good their service is...

Would appreciate some advice! Thanks!

MissMuppet

Oops, sorry I posted this in the wrong forum, perhaps a board guide could move it for me...

pepsi_max2k

hmm... downside of dial up is actually having to dial up, though the upside is that's as hard as it gets.

in my experience with technically challenged parents, adsl is much more complicated. fine when it's working, but unless you plan on teaching them about exchange sync, sync speeds, pppoe dialup, usb connections or lan dhcp leases (or even, god forbid, wireless connections), and remembering to plug the modem/router in to start with, you may end up with bigger problems than before if something stops working.

at least with dial up you just say "plug cable in to phone line / pc, double click this, click dial. done".

that said, if you do get broadband, make sure you use a modem/router with a cabled ethernet connection, not usb or wireless as you're just letting yourself in for a world of trouble there. if you're going the adsl route then get the most reliable router you can find to avoid it creating any problems, but it may be better to use cable broadband (sky / virgin) as it'll cut out any dialup / phone line / exchange problems that adsl could have. you could also set up some remote management for the modem/router, but i don't think it'd be much help if there was a problem (either modem is offline so you wouldn't be able to access it remotely anyway, or there'll be a problem with the connecting pc which again, other that confirming that, access to the modem wouldn't let you do much else).

as for prices, i don't know much about lower useage packages but PlusNet do one for £9.99... though if your nan ever takes to youtube she may start wondering why she's being told her bandwidth allowance has been exceeded.

BillScarab

pepsi_max2k wrote: »

hmm... downside of dial up is actually having to dial up, though the upside is that's as hard as it gets.

in my experience with technically challenged parents, adsl is much more complicated. fine when it's working, but unless you plan on teaching them about exchange sync, sync speeds, pppoe dialup, usb connections or lan dhcp leases (or even, god forbid, wireless connections), and remembering to plug the modem/router in to start with, you may end up with bigger problems than before if something stops working.

at least with dial up you just say "plug cable in to phone line / pc, double click this, click dial. done".

What?!?!? How many people who use broadband connections know anything about the above? I'm sure MissMuppet would be prepared to help her Gran on the day she gets broadband installed and if she has any problems.

MissMuppet, sorry I don't know who's got the best deals at the moment but who provides your Gran's telephone service as often the best deals are combined Broadband and Telephone and possibly TV.

There might be some useful info here

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/

MissMuppet

Thanks but yeah I have no idea what all that is pepsi_max! I do plan on installing the broadband for my Gran once we've decided on an ISP... I don't live that far away but the main issue is she forgets to dial-up so broadband being online all the time is what I want!!

She's with BT for her phone line... will have a look at the link though BillScarab!

LittlePiskey

Hiya MissMuppet,

I've heard that plusnet are meant to provide a good service, UK online also do a package for 9.99 a month and I think they have a lower setup cost too.

x

MissMuppet

Thanks LittlePiskey, am just looking at PlusNet... do you think 1Gb allowance will be enough? My Gran doesn't download stuff apart from the odd email with pictures, mmmm, thinking about it I reckon it should be plenty for her!

pepsi_max2k

>> How many people who use broadband connections know anything about
>> the above?

oh dear... lets just hope you have a decent cd based setup wizard then.


fwiw, here's gran's translation:

exchange sync: that green light that says DSL under it. if it's off, no internet. helps to know it at least exists incase poking it doesn't turn it green.
pppoe dialup: your login and user name. if the above green light is not green, it helps to know it should be as otherwise this won't work either and no internet.
usb connections: the blue wire / light that says usb under it. it may never light up...
lan dhcp leases: the yellow wire (at least with bt). when you plug it in, your pc will either connect to the modem/router or it won't. if it doesn't, helps to know why (right click the dual montior icon with red cross in and click repair).
wireless connections: no. just... no.
plug the modem/router in to start: white microfilter in to phone socket, black wire from microfilter socket with "dsl" under it to modem, yellow or blue wire from modem to pc.

every one of the above bits can and do go wrong multiple times (sync loss, dialup loss, ethernet/usb connection loss, blown microfilters...). most equipment is designed to at least attempt to fix things but... you gran uses windows right?

but yes, slightly naive of me to presume people would know that or think it was important to :rolleyes: if anything it saves a £50 call out charge to bt / pc world / etc to fix it.

oh and i wasn't assuming gran would be fixing anything at all, just trying to save missmuppet time from running round to fix stuff. really, dial up is much simpler if you don't know what you're doing, and 54 Kbps isn't *that* bad, and could well be cheaper for light usage.

and if you want to find the best deal, have a look through these lot, these must be someone better than PN's 1 Gb per month even if it'll never be used...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isps.html



if you don't mind changing phone providers too, talktalk and tiscali will do line rental + broadband + free calls at varying times from £14.99.

MissMuppet

Thanks pepsi_max but I get calls from my Gran every other day because she has forgotten to dial-up so I think for me broadband will be much easier... I never have any problems with mine so I am basing her experience on that, but obviously I don't mind going round there to fix a real problem, it's getting the 'you have to dial-up' phone calls that is doing my head in!

espresso

MissMuppet wrote: »

Thanks pepsi_max but I get calls from my Gran every other day because she has forgotten to dial-up so I think for me broadband will be much easier...........

Is she on a pay monthly dial-up package? Why not make the computer dial-up automatically for her?

MissMuppet

No she's on payg and I did set-up the dial automatically but she cancels it like she does virus updates etc... Haha! To be honest it's more hassle than it's worth, I might just reposess the PC...