Jason Slater Weblog

When planning to work from home you need to ensure you have a sufficiently capable Broadband service as you will probably be placing extra demands on your service than those you might typically use domestically.

Something to bear in mind with Broadband is its asynchronous nature (The A in ADSL) - this means that what is available for receiving information is not the same as that for sending information. This may not be particularly noticeable if you primarily use your Broadband service for web surfing, downloading media or are a light user. However, you will notice a difference if you try and host your own web site, use a combination of bandwidth sucking services like computer telephony (VOIP), media sharing, virtual worlds, online gaming or other services that require you to send as much (or more) data than you receive. Synchronised Broadband (SDSL) where the upload and download speeds are the same is slowly becoming available.

Remember too that whilst Broadband measurement is often referred to as speed, what is really being offered is throughput, and not a guaranteed throughput but a best efforts “Up To” throughput. To consider the difference between throughput and speed imagine a busy motorway with a number of lanes. These lanes allow vehicles to travel very quickly to their destination however the number of lanes governs how many of those vehicles can travel at any particular time and if not judged correctly the lanes can quickly get congested causing traffic jams. The vehicles can hop from lane to lane to find alternative ways of reaching their destination but it is likely that the arrival time of the vehicles will be impacted.

You may have a very fast Broadband connection but still experience slow response, this is because a number of factors are at play when using the Internet - not just the immediate action you may be performing, some of these factors include:

• Other activities your computer is performing
• Other devices on your in-house network
• Online services such as DNS (these are the computers on the Internet that translate a reference such as www.jasonslater.co.uk into a sequence of numbers that computers are more familiar with).
• Your distance from the local exchange (known as the last mile)
• The quality of the wiring in your house
• The performance of any wireless devices
• The amount of memory your computer has available
• The impact of essential security software on your computer

You also need to plan for when your network connection is unavailable, which can be pure downtime or “transient conditions” - which basically means that the Internet is a constantly changing network so drop-outs. Keep the telephone number for the support desk handy, the serial number of your equipment, any warranty information and other important information that might be useful in diagnosing the problem. If you are able to obtain a backup Internet connection (certain providers such as digital television or mobile phone operators offer a free limited connection) this will come in handy for those times when you have an important document to send. When talking to the support desk always try and get the name of the person you are speaking to and always ask for a case reference number - keep these details together with the data and time handy in case you experience repeated problems.

Remember too that some Broadband providers also offer free public wireless airtime (such as BT OpenZone) so you can always head off to a local wireless hotspot in times of trouble.

It is also useful to run regular tests of your Broadband connection speeds using tools such as SpeedTest to ensure you are getting a consistent speed, however run these tests at different times of the day to ensure you get a broader view of your connection speeds.

Useful References

BT: What factors will determine the broadband speed I can receive?

Test your Broadband speed

The Gadget Show Broadband Truth Campaign

This is part of the Technology and working from home series.