Double speed dial up

[Nighte]

I have had a quick search for this but couldn't see anything relevent so I am sorry if it has already been discussed.

 

I am in a very sleepy village where we only just have electricity let alone broadband and my internet connection drives me to distraction!!!! I am just in the process of having a telephone line put into the house (using my parents connection at the moment) and some one has suggested to me that it is possible to have two lines put it and if necessary use them both at the same time to double the connection speed? I asked at the FT shop today and got a very blank look - my french isnt that good yet!

Has anyone out there heard of this or am I on a wild goose chase?

 

Thanks in advance

Simon

[Ron Avery]

Nightie

Have a look at this recent previous thread, it is not where you live that matters it is the conversion of your telephone exchange that counts:

http://forums.livingfrance.com/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=290&MessageID=204445

If you go into one of the sites, cannot remember if it is Wanadoo or FT and put your phone number in it will tell you if you can get "super"r ADSL/Broadband.  "Super" ADSL splits your phone line so you can use the internet and the phone together, it is at least 10x as fast as the old dial up.

[Hegs]

Nightie,

I think what you are referring to is ISDN, (or RNIS in French). If you can't get ADSL, then ISDN is the next best chance to get decent internet access, unless you live in one of the departments that has WiMax wireless access (see http://www.altitudetelecom.com/wimax.asp )

The way ISDN works is that your single telephone line is split into two "channels", each giving a *guaranteed* 64 kb/s. By comparison, an ordinary modem on an ordinary line (POTS/RTC in French) gives you an absolute theoretical maximum of 56kb/s, but that is on a good day with the wind in the right direction. Base ADSL gives you 512 kb/s.

You can use one channel for voice, and one for data. You can also "bond" the two lines together to give you 128 kb/s, but that is dependent on your ISP (try www.netbysky.com) and generally you will pay twice the subscription to do that. Also you need a special modem for ISDN anyway. And FT will probably give you grief, but they are supposed to be required to install it anywhere in France unless you really are up a mountain.

[Iceni]

It may simply be that there are no lines to give you an extra one to enable ISDN. We are in that situation. FT say that 96% of the population should have access to broadband by end of 2005. Do check your line for a broadband date before you start a long and tiresome battle with FT who probably have no interest in sorting out ISDN lines when they have to roll out broadband.

[goose]

ha ha, how quickly you guys forget how us "uk bound" plebs still suffer......he says from the luxury of his mates house with broadband rather than his own with 45k, YES ONLY 45k!!

[Lautrec]

Hi Nightie,

I live in area; near Ruffec; that Tiscali does not cover for broadband. I read about ONSPEED in The Conexxion newspaper. So I paid for and downloaded the programme. It really does the job! Not quite broadband speed, but a least 4 or 5 times faster than norm. It cost about £25 for a year!

You can contact them on www.onspeed.com. Look it up and read all the details. It is a good way of speeding up the downloading process.

Lautrec.

[Iceni]

I second Onspeed - this is my second year. It certainly speeds up my work. I also turn off graphics for some of my work, I know the layout of the pages and so can work directly on a UK server at an enhanced speed.

[Mlonghurst]

I totaly agree.  Without Onspeed my 28kb connection would be useless.

 

Regds, Mike L

[Will]

It all depends what you want to use it for. I have to download a lot of high resolution graphics for magazine reproduction and the loss of quality with onspeed or a similar package would not be acceptable, although they still look fine on a screen.

I would say 45K is not a bad connection at all by French standards, I often get 48K on a dedicated internet line but it is frequently slower. It was much slower at our previous house.

[Hegs]

I will recommend OnSpeed too, I have also renewed and run it on two PCs. I have a single channel ISDN connection which is where OnSpeed works best as there is no default compression on ISDN connections unlike ordinary modems.

Will, you can disable image compression in OnSpeed and still benefit from HTML, Flash and email compression.