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Internet Personal Choices

Ø      Internet Access

BT Internet
Bt Yahoo Mail is excellent for me, with fairly accurate SPAM protection, I go online to sort the mail first, dispose of the remaining rubbish, check the Bulk Mail box and then launch Outlook to bring in the remaining mail that I want.  I believe some BT Yahoo packages include this service and other's don’t – an extra cost, so consider carefully what options they are offering.  I still use BT Internet for Pay As You Go.  www.btyahoo.com

Virgin Net
I’ve used them since 1998 on a Pay As I go basis – long time ago the mail box got very badly spammed – around 2000 e-mails and I abandoned it for a while and went to BT... I still use it on my old trusty Windows 1995 PC.

Having tried a monthly fee scheme, I always feel that you get faster and more reliable access on PAYG – if it’s not fast enough I disconnect and use another access provider – on a monthly fee, I often feel that all providers give a slower service – maybe too many sharing the connection...maybe I’m just being cynical.....Even so, I like Virgin service as PAYG and, Monthly and they now operate a Webmail service via Internet Explorer as well with some Spam Protection. www.virgin.net

Broadband – here of my two favourites, I’d consider Virgin as it’s cheaper and if you do change your mind you can end the contract within the year www.virgin.net – BT seems to offer faster, but a more expensive option and it’s a years contract, but it may be well worth it for the serious down-loaders !!! www.btyahoo.com

On Speed, if you don’t want or can’t get broadband, but like surfing the net occasionally and want it a bit faster, then maybe On Speed is the best use of £25 (around £2 a month)... for this annual fee they claim the Internet downloads will be 5 times faster, often I get 3 and 4 times faster through my jumble of phone cables & connectors and I’m happy.
(Apparently with good telephone cable installation it should be generally 5 times faster and it should speed up a broadband connection too, so they say.)  Click here to get the full and factual story from On Speed themselves.   www.onspeed.com

BT 1571
When you are on-line with an ordinary dial-up modem, the phone line will be engaged if a "voice" caller tries to get through to you.  It would be well worth signing up to BT's currently  free 1571 service which provides an answering machine service while you are on-line.  Your own answering machine can't answer the call because your own phone can't ring while your phone is off the hook while you are on-line.  This may seem obvious, but some people seem to have never thought about it.

Last modified: Sunday, 27 November 2005