Choosing a Broadband service

As Broadband becomes available across most of Argyll in 2005 many businesses will face the choice of selecting an Internet Service Provider (ISP) for their new Broadband service. Prior to this point you need to do two things.

1) Your first step will be to check if you can, in fact, get the service from BT Wholesale.
While there are many ISPs in the market offering Broadband services nearly all of them rely on  the BT telephone network to supply this service therefore you will need to check the availability to your premises or home. The easiest way is to enter your telephone number into the BT checker on their web site at http://62.172.198.79/broadband1/getting_broadband/index.asp.
BT have now removed the previous 6 kilometre limit for their ADSL service so if you were unable to get it previously it is worth checking again. They may even have to send out an engineer to check your connection at your premises/home before this can be established with any authority.

Businesses in Campbeltown can also check with Scottish and Southern Telecom as the innovative Powerline trial is being made available to a wider customer base. There web site address is http://www.hydro.co.uk/broadband/ 

2) Speak to your local IT provider and discuss with them the requirements for your business particularly if you intend using more than one machine connected to your new Broadband service. They can advise on the necessary equipment such as routers, network cards or wireless networking kit (most of the free ADSL modems from ISPs are USB models and are only for single machine use). Your IT provider may also be able to recommend an ISPs that they have had good experiences with and supplied similar businesses to your own with a successful package.

Once you have ascertained that the service is available (and if there is any doubt over this you may have to actually order the service before BT can confirm this for a fact) and discussed your business requirements with your IT provider you are then faced with the task of ordering the appropriate service for your business from a bewildering array of Internet Service Providers (ISP).
Services such as the online ADSL Guide can allow you to compare various offerings from different ISPs (See their web site at www.adslguide.org) which they list by annual cost of ownership for the 512k, 1Mbps and 2Mbps services.

Do you need more than a basic service, usually called a 'wires only' solution? You may need email services, a fixed IP address or web hosting as part of your package. If you are not sure then discuss it with you local IT provider or contact ourselves for further assistance:

Our front desk telephone and email contact details are:

Email: aie@hient.co.uk
Telephone: 01546 602281