Adrian and Steve exchanged views thus: > >No dial-up on the Staffs & Worcs as far as I know ;-) > > T-Mobile still provides it. But I think you are actually using it, > and calling it "GPRS".
I think the confusion here is terminology. Dial up could be said to mean a fixed line connection with a modem (which is what Steve is refering to, and would indeed be unlikely whilst cruising the canals unless you have a residential mooring), or the old GSM Circuit Switched Data, maximum of 9.6 (or 14.4 with compression, or a bit faster from some operators who offered a dual timeslot service) to which Adrian is referring. The comms industry would normally assume "dial up" to be the former, but as so few people do it that way nowadays it is no longer a particularly common term. The latter would normally be called GSM, though as GPRS is also technically GSM it can get a bit confusing. However very few people use GSM data now either, so it is largely irrelevant. Anyway, I'll come to the point in the next bit...... > Mobile broadband might well prove less expensive for you. I think the > cheapest packages are about a tenner a month, with unlimited > downloading including Skype for about £25 which would cover most of > the cost of your outgoing phone calls. It would also often be 1,000 > times as fast! (i.e. 3 Meg instead of 3 kilo)! Which is exactly what Steve IS using, however it can only reach 3Mbps in areas where UMTS (otherwise known as 3g) has been rolled out (tends to be urban areas, and not rural ones). In other areas where it has not and there are multiple users it can drop to very low speeds such as Steve is experiencing and in fact it could be quicker to use the old GSM data referred to above (though much more expensive of course as you will pay for the minutes you are connected instead of it being in you "data bundle). > > I need access to mail all the time for various > >reasons and can't be bothered with a mailing list which is going to > >regularly send me large messages. I have to say I was a little surprised at the approach. I would have thought there are better methods for sharing large(ish) files than an email group - especially one that does not archive them. But each to their own, it will either become popular or not.... I belive Adrian would refer to this as market forces. > I access this forum via newsreader software instead of email, not > least to avoid having emails from it clogging my in box. I recommend > this approach to you. Not sure that would deal with attachements would it? Not my area of expertise though (last time I used newsreading software was at uni in 1994 - it has probably moved on a bit since then). Cheers George "Bungle" Eycott (this almost seems like work, talking of which I'd better get on with some)
