Chapter 4 |
4 Connecting to the InternetA first step onto the InternetToday you can buy a home computer that is set up and ‘Internet ready’. Exploring what the Internet offers can be easy: you connect a cable to the phone socket, click on something marked ‘Free trial – sign up to the Internet’ and after entering your details and a credit card number, you are connected. But just as there are many competing computers with varying prices, purposes and after-sales support, there are also different ways to connect to the Internet and different levels of service. Some will suit those using computers at home and some are more appropriate for those at school or college; others will suit those with computer networks where many people want to use the Internet at the same time. Connecting by phone lineOver 95% of the estimated 7,000 UK schools currently on line connect to the Internet using the phone line. Using a modem (a device that turns computer messages into sounds that travel over the public telephone system), they link a computer to the Internet by means of a telephone call to an Internet access provider. These days, many computer systems are supplied with built-in modems; otherwise you can buy a modem for £80 to £200, depending upon how fast it communicates. Some modems have speeds of 33,600 baud (bits per second), which can transfer an A4 page of text in a second. Faster ones work at 56,000 baud, and slower ones run at 28,800 baud. A slow modem will make accessing data tedious so you will feel inclined to use it less. It is advisable for beginners to buy a well-known make of modem – US Robotics or Pace, for example – because your computer is more likely to be pre-programmed with the modem’s characteristics for connecting to the Internet. When buying, check that your computer will operate with the modem; older machines do not support the faster modems. As a bonus, the modem may also have features which enable you to use your computer as a fax, speakerphone and answering machine. The computer uses the modem to connect to (‘dial-up’) an Internet access provider. These provide you with an electronic mail account and connect you to Internet sites all over the world for the cost of a local call. If you plan to use an existing computer, the provider should be able to offer suitable software. Numerous access providers offer a free trial subscription and this is worth considering instead of committing yourself to a whole year. You will certainly be able to assess how reliable their system is and how good they are at helping with any difficulties you encounter. After the trial, you pay a subscription of £5–£20 per month. Some providers charge for joining and for extra connection time beyond, say, five hours a month. Things may not always go smoothly. You may, for instance, frequently find the service provider’s lines engaged (your modem has to locate a free modem at the other end), on other occasions the call will connect yet the line drops, and sometimes the connection fails for no apparent reason, so patience will be required. Internet providersWith around 150 Internet providers in the UK, competition on price, performance and extras is intense. Nearly all of these 150 offer local call coverage throughout the UK and:
Some also offer:
Internet access providersOne way of differentiating this huge choice is to distinguish between Internet Access Providers (IAPs) and Added Value Internet Service Providers (AVISPs). Both provide the essential connection to plumb you or your school into the Internet. Some also provide services or information exclusive to their subscribers – these are the AVISPs. Just to confuse things, the term ISP is sometimes used to refer to all Internet providers. (IP – the obvious term – has a different meaning: Internet Protocol.) IAPs concentrate on giving you the connection and the basic software to use e-mail and the Web; they assume you will trawl the wider Internet for any information you need. IAPs include large organisations like Demon and UUnet as well as small companies serving just one locality. Some, like Dialnet, support education users by offering software to filter out undesirable content. In fact, many schools and colleges who submit their examination entries electronically will find they already have a Dialnet account which they could exploit further. Other access providers specialising in the education market include Argo Internet, Enterprise, and Edex. You will find that they offer some services too – perhaps in the shape of an education-friendly helpline or links to education resources. Argo Internet, while catering for all computers, makes a special point of supporting Acorn users; it also has an area where teachers can discuss education issues. Edex offers education customers a range of different ways of connecting and hosts several projects to engage schools in using the Internet. Enterprise has offered to connect schools via a Freefone number – saving schools a great deal on call charges – but its monthly subscription is higher. Universities have a direct line to JANET, the Joint Academic NETwork. This, or its faster equivalent called SuperJANET, is a backbone of Internet connections across the country. While schools and FE colleges are not part of this system, their local university can obtain a licence to become an Internet provider for them. Such possibilities are not widely publicised, but for details look at your local university’s Web site or contact UKERNA, the organisation which oversees JANET. It is increasingly common to find familiar organisations like Virgin and Which? (the consumer magazine) offering an Internet service. Local councils, large companies, local authority centres, and even a few schools are setting themselves up as IAPs. Added Value Internet Service ProvidersInternet service providers offer more in the way of service than the access providers. This invariably comes at a price, but service providers with a large membership are able to spread the cost of their value-added offerings. Both Research Machines and BT have subscriber-only services for education. Schools may find that having links to resources related to the National Curriculum saves time. Research Machines offers Internet for Learning while BT has CampusWorld. Each provides software for PC, Apple and Acorn RISCOS computers. The services can be accessed via a local phone call or over the digital and leased line connections discussed later in this chapter. Both services provide discussion areas for teachers and students as well as notice boards for those looking for project partners and Internet pen-pals. Schools and colleges can use their Web space for publishing work on the Internet, and there is space to place advertisements or search for jobs. However, 80% of RM's ifl site is open to non-RM subscribers; the remaining 20%, including thousands of indexed curriculum links and exclusive materials, is for subscribers using RM as their IAP. CampusWorld can, on payment of a subscription, be accessed via any IAP and there is an open area for non-CampusWorld subscribers. While both services have many common educational features, they handle access to the World Wide Web in different ways. Research Machines’ ifl holds a database of educationally appropriate links that can be searched and then visited. Or you can explore the Web at large in the knowledge that access to unsavoury sites is likely to be barred. With CampusWorld, although teachers can explore the Web by entering a password each time they want to visit a site, students operate within a ‘walled garden’. Here they can find only the parts of the Web that CampusWorld has identified as suitable, together with exclusively produced material. They also offer access to FT Profile with its archive of many newspapers. Three AVISPs – CompuServe, America On Line (AOL) and Microsoft – have the lion’s share of the world Internet population. Between them, they have over 15 million customers, or about a quarter of the people connected. Each provides a full range of services and they also have exclusive information areas. While much of the content is oriented towards business and consumer use, there are educational services such as teacher discussion forums. AOL in particular has built up its learning areas for ‘kids’. It has added a UK education section with debates, surveys and a teachers’ notice board. All offer measures of protection against undesirable material with their built-in ‘parental controls’ features. Nevertheless, in the face of the amount of material available free on the Internet and the increasing quality and value for money of IAP subscriptions, AVISPs are finding life difficult. From time to time, there have been special offers to schools. For example, Microsoft’s MSN ran a scheme where all schools were offered free unlimited access for a year. AOL has offered secondary schools lifetime unlimited use of one dial-up connection. Major operators have free trial offers and low user rates which may benefit those starting out on the Internet. Computer magazines often carry discs connecting you to these providers free for five hours, for example, but be aware that you have to enter credit card details to qualify. Find out early on how to cancel the subscription as payments have been known to slip through. Choosing an Internet Provider – checklistUK schools and colleges use about 40 different Internet Providers. These are some of the questions they ask before choosing one. Becta is conducting independent performance trials of IAPs, which you can see on the Becta Web site.
How an Internet provider worksImagine the Internet as a motorway map. The roads represent a network of very high capacity lines called the Internet backbone. In fact, a handful of different companies own what is really a series of competing motorways. Even so, these lines converge on central service areas, such as the London Internet Exchange, in London’s Docklands. From here messages are routed to similar major exchanges abroad. Internet providers should have a direct high-bandwidth connection to one of the motorway systems. Very few of them actually own the system, but most buy capacity from Internet backbone companies such as BT, Mercury, Energis, UUnet and others. The universities use their own JANET and SuperJANET backbone. Nevertheless, the providers all give you a telephone number (called a Point of Presence or PoP for short) that connects you to them and in turn to the Internet. The larger providers often used to have PoP numbers for each part of the country and people connected to their nearest number. However, this meant setting up and maintaining large banks of modems all over the country. Today many providers offer nearly everyone local call access using ‘0345’, ‘0645’ and ‘0845’ telephone numbers. These they call ‘virtual PoPs’ and calls are routed to a central bank of modems, which means that spare modem lines are not wasted. No Internet provider has as many lines and modems as they have users. They rely on only a percentage of their subscribers wanting to connect at any one time. Some providers estimate this generously and usually manage to match the number of modems to demand, thus avoiding engaged tones at critical moments. [Several users connected to three PoPs. All the routing to the Internet is taken care of by the service provider.] TariffsInternet providers charge different rates for connecting in different ways. From the provider’s viewpoint, if you use larger amounts of their bandwidth or carrying power you may have to pay more – though it is not always a lot more. There may also be a difference between the cost of connecting a single user and a whole network. As with mobile telephones, tariffs can be found for low users and heavy users. For example, the consumer Internet services offer three to six hours of connection time per month for a low charge. Over this, you pay for extra hours – often at a higher rate. The basic ration allows for roughly ten minutes of connection time each day, probably enough to pick up your e-mail and browse a few Web pages. Clearly, however, this is not enough for use by schools or colleges. Most Internet services also offer a tariff for unlimited use. In the US where local calls are ‘free’, these ‘all you can-eat’ tariffs have caused havoc as people keep their connections running continuously. In the UK, call charges tend to put a brake on such over-usage. The price for unlimited use will vary with the provider – those that offer just a raw connection to the Internet will be cheaper than those that offer added-value services such as teaching resources. From time to time, some Internet providers make special offers to schools. These may be worth taking up, if only to see what you could be missing. While much of the Internet’s content is freely available, you may consider that some services are worth paying extra for, either by subscription or by ‘pay-per-view’. There are on-line educational courses, archives, encyclopaedias, scientific journals and news agencies. Both CampusWorld and the Times Educational Supplement run a service which you can subscribe to – even if you use another Internet provider to supply your physical connection. Many pay services let you explore a free sample area, but to venture further you will be invited to sign up and pay. A credit card number is the usual currency. If you do send your details, look for a message that says it is safe to send over the connection. More on connectingYou can access the Internet whether you use a Windows PC, Apple or Acorn computer. In fact, a key reason for the growth of the Internet has been the development of common standards, such as TCP/IP and HTML, that different types of machine are able to understand. To do so, though, the machine probably needs to be a recent model. The reason is that the multimedia material on the World Wide Web needs a fair amount of memory (minimum 8 Mb), hard disk storage (over 500 Mb) and graphics display capability. Another reason is that the World Wide Web is growing, not just in size, but in the complexity of its pages. This means that if your browser software is even a little older than current you may not be able to view some of the content. The pace of browser development varies dramatically between the different computer platforms. In the past, you might have upgraded your software every few years. Today, market forces are pushing development ahead on the Windows PC, with browser upgrades appearing in under a year. Users of Acorn RISCOS machines will need to keep a look out for new versions of software, as current Acorn browsers do not support, for example, frames or Java. Some Internet service providers will help you register a domain name for your school or college. For example, you may wish to be known as myschool.place.sch.uk and have your Word Wide Web pages referenced as www.myschool.place.sch.uk. For a fee, the provider gives you a licence to use the name, and ensures that when anyone types this address into their browser your pages will appear. Ways of connectingBT and the cable companies have pledged to connect all UK schools to the ‘superhighway’ at no cost. This might be via telephone line, ISDN or cable. At the time of writing, precise details are awaited, but they are expected to be competitive and affordable (£1 per student per year is a notional target). Special offers for educational users are appearing from BT and cable companies in line with the recommendations of the OFTEL education group report. These are that schools, colleges and libraries have affordable, predictable and controllable costs. ISDN is proposed as the baseline, and it is recommended that primary schools should benefit in particular. If cost were not a factor you would choose the fastest. Otherwise, which one you choose depends on what you are likely to want to use the system for, the functions you want (for example, multimedia requires a fast connection), and how much use you expect to make of it. [Users can connect to their service provider in different ways. As a result, things happen on their computer screens at different speeds.] Dial-up connectionAs we have seen, the most popular (because it is the cheapest) way to connect is over a standard telephone line to the service provider. This suits many users and, if BT is your provider, the cost of calls can be reduced by up to 25% by listing the access number as Friends and Family and joining PremierLine. The Internet provider will supply the software: you may need to tell it which brand of modem you have. When you start the dial-up software it gets the modem to dial a phone number and communicate with the provider’s modem. This establishes a type of connection called a PPP or, for AOL and leased lines, SLIP, and takes just a minute or two. With luck, this all happens automatically, so you should not need to delve any deeper into how it happens. Once the connection has been made, your mail program or Web browser communicates through a ‘socket’ on your computer, called a Winsock or TCP/IP. This is a piece of software that routes messages to and from your Internet software. So, if your machine can run several programs simultaneously you can collect your mail, browse Web pages and download files all at the same time. ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)The next step up from dial-up access is ISDN, with some 300 UK schools using it for Internet and video-conferencing. Conforming to a European (but not American) standard, it enables a network of computers to be connected to the Internet or simply provides one computer with a faster connection so that it can be used for high-speed Internet connection, video-conferencing or transferring large files. The connection to the service provider is virtually instant and if no activity is detected the line is dropped, which keeps line charges down. For ISDN Internet access you require an Internet provider offering ISDN, a terminal adapter and an ISDN line. Most Internet providers do not offer ISDN access, and some of those that do charge the same as for dial-up access, while others charge an ISDN premium. Instead of a modem, ISDN systems use terminal adapters and, for a network, routers. Costing more than modems, terminal adapters connect at a speed of 64,000 baud (fast enough to transfer two A4 pages a second under optimal conditions) which is twice the speed of a 33,600 baud modem. This doubling of speed enables graphics and sound to be transferred at a more acceptable rate. What is more, because ISDN lines can be combined, this rate can be increased (although on-line costs increase proportionately. While an ISDN line uses the same copper wire to the road as a regular line (new telephone lines are ISDN-ready), its installation and rental currently cost at least double over a year through BT. Some BT tariffs come with free usage time and these may be a better option. Cable companies offer an equivalent to ISDN at £50 per month for schools. If you use two ISDN lines, you pay for two calls. And each time the line is connected and then dropped you pay the minimum call charge. Your Internet provider has to keep a line open even though you have dropped the call, so you might expect them to charge more for an ISDN connection. In practice, you may find ISDN cheaper than a constantly open leased line. Do, however, ensure that your connection is set up so that it does not connect and drop the line too eagerly, as a bill of nightmare proportions could result! ISDN is also used for remote video surveillance, digital telephones and video-phones. Those already using such ISDN systems may have lines that they can reallocate to use with the Internet. The next version of Windows, code-named Memphis, will be able to make full use of ISDN. CableCable companies are working on providing populated areas of the country with a network of high speed fibre-optic cable. It supplies television, a telephone system, and, in the future, interactive services like home banking, games and shopping. Cable companies may offer different phone tariffs and they have offered schools competitive, flat-rate billing on modem or ISDN lines to the Internet. You can use regular telephones and modems with cable. However, a special kind of modem, called a cable modem can make an Internet connection which exploits the capabilities of fibre-optic cable. Cable modems are more expensive than ordinary modems and not all cable systems offer the two-way digital communication needed for the Internet. Nevertheless, the potential of achieving cable modem speeds of 2 Mb/sec or even 10 Mb/sec (300 times the speed of your average modem…) will be of interest to all. Leased lineA leased line provides a 24-hour connection to the Internet provider. For a fixed annual charge, it plumbs you continuously into the Internet, so that you are permanently on line – surely the ultimate for an on-line education community? If you ask for a Web page, the machine goes to fetch it straightaway. If someone sends you electronic mail, it can be delivered to your computer immediately, instead of being stored until you collect it. You would normally connect a network of computers to a leased line and this indeed is how some 200 UK schools and most colleges are already connected to the Internet. A leased line can be a single dial-up telephone line but is normally a much faster line (ISDN2, 64k/s to 2 Mb/s). You pay for the bandwidth – essentially, the speed – which suits your needs. One attraction of leased lines is that they have a fixed annual cost that allows you to manage your budget, although this cost will be several thousand pounds a year. Other technologiesOther ways of connecting to the Internet are being evaluated. Lancaster University is linking local schools to the Internet using microwaves instead of telephone lines. Satellite access, from DirecPC, provides information to the computer at a much higher speed than usual. Tomorrow’s winning technology for accessing the Internet is uncertain. Competing for the future market are TV set-top boxes, Web TV, NetStations and network computers, all at lower cost than a regular PC. Most hopes rest on a boom in consumer interest and a concomitant boom in consumer content. As a by-product, new educational applications will appear too. |