Broadband Gets the Whip

In light of new guidelines due to be brought into force early in 2008, broadband providers could face legal action if they do not give accurate information to customers when they sign up. This welcome ruling was put into motion by Ofcom, the technology watchdog.

The rule mainly covers the question of the connection speeds, which there has been some controversy over in recent months. It was discovered that customers were paying for speeds advertised as 'up to' 8MB, 16MB or even 24MB, when in some cases were only getting perhaps a quarter of that.

Providers argued that the 'up to' wording indicated that the advertised speed were only a maximum and not a guarantee, but Ofcom's stance was that it was misleading, and there was too much difference between advertised and actual. They have called for a 'typical' speed to be shown instead - much like the typical APR on credit cards.

The new code states that broadband providers must assess a customers line and give accurate, clear data as to what speed they can expect from their line, provide information about things that can affect line speed, and also contact them two weeks after the service installation to let them know what speed they are getting. If it's significantly lower than the speed originally quoted, the customer has the option of switching free to a different package or backing out of the deal with no penalties incurred.

For most of the broadband users in the UK, this ruling could not have come too soon. When Computeractive magazine did a study back in September 2007 it found that 62% of people who used its speed-testing software were getting less than half the speed advertised by their ISP. For example, on an '8MB' connection, the actual average speed is 2.7Mbps. That's just a third of the speed the customer would be paying for.

It can sometimes make a difference if you pay a higher price. Cheap broadband packages tend to have a higher contention rate, which means you're sharing your bandwidth with more people and therefore getting a slower speed. Paying a higher tariff can sometimes get you a lower contention, but you may need to ask about this as not all providers advertise it.

If you're unhappy with your current connection speed, try and wait until this new ruling comes into force before switching ISP's. You may find you get a faster speed and better deal.

Want broadband? Find cheap broadband by comparing broadband providers online.

J Tillotson is a UK author specialising in technology and communications.

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Bypass your School and Work Filters with an Anonymous Proxy Server

With the proliferation of the Internet, many websites promote themselves by sending you spam junk mails, advertisings and even embed spyware that is difficult to remove onto your computer. These things not only keep track of your personal information, but also enable hackers and crackers to infiltrate your system. Anonymous proxy servers act as a wall between your data and the Internet, whereby providing security to your system and data. There are however, other reasons to use an anonymous proxy server.

If your work or school has any type of filtering in place to prevent people from visiting certain websites, an anonymous proxy server is a great way to get around such restrictions. Anonymous proxy servers work by acting as a "middle man"; they download the requested pages to their proxy server and in turn you download the page, all images and other such objects from the proxy server to your browser, thus bypassing any filters or annoying firewalls. Not only is this a viable alternative for students to bypass their school's filter to access such popular student sites such as Myspace or Xanga but can be used if your workplace has strict limitations on which websites you can access. Most anonymous proxy bypass servers use one of two program, PHProxy or CGIProxy, both of which are excellent proxy software packages.

After you have discovered the benefits of using anonymous proxy servers, you will probably want to try it out. There are numerous free proxy services out there, one of the most popular is SpySurfing ( http://www.spysurfing.com/ ) and is a really fast proxy server that is popular among both students look to bypass their school filters and adults looking to bypass their work place firewalls.

Steve Avery, http://www.spysurfing.com

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