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When can I get it?
A.
If you are in one of our enabled areas you can have it within one week.
If you wish your area to be enabled then after your area meets
our trigger level.
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What equipment will I need?
A. Your PC needs an Ethernet card, most have these. We will sell you the WiFi receiver, you may need an external antenna. If you are on the far range we will need to fit a roof antenna. This is fitted in a similar way to a TV aerial. In this case there will be an installation charge.
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Can I install this myself?
A. Yes you can, especially if you are close to one of our access points (AP).
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Can I purchase my own equipment?
A. Yes you can do that, we register your MAC address which enables your access. This is especially useful if you own a 802.11b WiFi enabled Laptop. However you may want to consider the advantages of using our equipment. Our receivers have an exceptionally low noise threshold, this means they can pick up very faint signals. Most other equipment on the market is designed for indoor networking and has a much shorter range.
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How do I know if I can be in the initial rollout?
A. We have provided a map on the site which shows the expected coverage area.
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I am not in the coverage area, what can I do about it?
A.
You may actually be in the coverage area so requesting a signal test
could be worthwhile. We have two ways of using our signal.
1. We radiate it to fill an area.
2. We beam it from point to point.
We can beam it to your location. However to make this cost effective we are looking for at
least 3 users at your AP. You can suggest to your neighbours that they should sign up. If this is not an option then maybe you could offer to share the cost of having your own AP.
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Is this to do with ADSL and BT?
A. No, this is an alternative to BT ADSL. ADSL
best near the telephone exchange, our reaches villages and rural areas
at higher speed.
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What is your trigger level?
A. Within 5km of an enabled area we need 20 or more users at your AP. So you could say our trigger level is 20 people.
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Can I do what I like on
County Broadband?
A. Yes - but... you are not to use the system in a way likely to annoy other users or unfairly damage network performance. Be a good Netizan. See our terms and conditions.
Terms and Conditions Acceptable
Use Policy
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What
about porn and pirated software?
A. Our privacy policy explains this in detail. Here is a short explanation. We do not condone the use of our network for illegal activities. We do not monitor network content nor do we maintain the facilities to do so and take no responsibility for your content which may be illegal. This is your responsibility. However if we receive complaints against you for your activities or you are using the network to deny service to other Internet users we have the right to disconnect you at our discretion. If the police ask us for our help in solving a crime, we well seek legal advice before assisting them with their enquiries. You will not be informed that the police are monitoring you.
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I don't want my children exposed to all this nasty porn?
A. Educate them on the dangers and show them how to avoid the dangers. You can set their web browser to restrict content. Most sites use a content rating system to classify themselves. This helps them achieve accurate search engine entries and cuts down on complaints from people who do not wish to see these sites.
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Do I want SPAM?
A. We once had to explain to a customer about Spam. She said, "but I don't want any Spam". It became necessary to explain the Monty Python sketch from which Spam gets it's name.
Spam is a fact of life but we have spamassasin on our servers and take
other measures to help combat it.
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How many computers can I use on my connection?
A.
We support up to 5 computers in one home or business premises but we may
need to ask for a additional setup and support fees if things get
complicated.
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Can I resell Broadband to my tenants?
A.
We would prefer if you let us sell the broadband to your tenants, it's
better for support and billing. We would be delighted to install
broadband in your building ready for your tenants to connect. If you run
a pub then why not offer free broadband to your patrons using a hotspot.
We can help set this up.
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Your system uses WiFi, is there anything better?
A. We are investigating Mesh. We will probably incorporate Mesh as it becomes available. Mesh is a radio network in which everyone is a link in the network. It's going to be great, but there is no need to wait for it, we can do this now with WiFi.
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I can get ADSL, why
would I want Wireless?
A. We sell ADSL as well when it is more appropriate.
Wireless has several advantages, in rural areas it can prove faster and
more reliable than ADSL. You do not need a BT phone line for Wireless
and can use a VoIP phone instead. We do not hold you to a long term
contract.
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I am with freeserve (or which ever ISP) do I have to keep paying them?
A. In order to receive freeserve emails you will need to keep your freeserve account active. However in the case of freeserve you can change from the prepaid service to the pay as you go. This means you only pay freeserve when you dial up with them, only a few pence. You ought to do this once per month to keep the account live. If you forget you can easily re-activate your account from their web site. See our help page for this and other ISPs.
It's a good idea to get an email account which does not require you to
connect with them. This way you can receive your emails where ever you
are and who ever you connect with.
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Why would I want a dial up account if I have Broadband?
A. You may chose the connection only service which means you will need to hold email with some other ISP. It means you can use your existing email accounts. A dial up account is important if you are away from the CountyBroadband area and wish to connect to the Internet, say on your laptop. Also no Internet connection is perfect, there may be times when we are as bad as other ISPs are sometimes. You will want to be able to switch back to your old faithful slow modem. Don't get caught out.
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What web space do I get?
A.
you get 100Mb locally hosted server space for email and web and ftp.
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What about P2P
file sharing?
A. You can run file sharing software from your PC offering infinite file space. We reserve the right to restrict your bandwidth
or ask you to stop if this affects other network users.
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What's your contention ratio?
A.
We have about 40 people for each 4Mbit Internet connection. This is 20:1
and at 2Mbits works very effectively. As our network grows we add more
Internet connections and the ratio drops again.
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What is the maximum speed of the network?
A. The equipment has a theoretical speed of 11Mbps which is 22 times faster than ADSL. However the Internet connection is set to
2Mbps which is four times as fast as ADSL in rural areas. Between users on our network we expect between 2 to 11Mbps. This means working from home is viable option. Online games between users can be even better. Hands up who wants a games server?
In terms of file downloads, these can be as fast as 220kbytes/second
although typically 80kbytes to 120kbytes depending on a number of
factors. Files requested frequently by other subscribers like windows
updates and virus updates seem to arrive instantly due to being held
locally on our network.
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How secure is 802.11b?
A. Access to our network is only available through a registered MAC
address but we do not encrypt. Users cannot see each others data due to
their router or firewall. However all Internet traffic is potentially insecure since it crosses many boundaries outside of anyone one persons control. For this reason we have not implemented WEP security since it's like locking the windows and leaving the doors open. Users are encouraged to make their own security arrangements for Internet traffic requiring this. For
example when you do online banking the web traffic is encrypted by your
browser so is secure all the way to the bank.
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Gamers have said that
wireless broadband adds about 30ms to your ping in game. Is it true?
A.
No this is not true with our network. The ping from your PC to our
gateway adds 3ms. This may be 6ms on longer hops.
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Does the atmospheric or weather conditions affect
your network?
A. No. There is a slight reduction in signal
strength but all of our connections have signal to spare so it makes no
difference to your connection.
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Is your system
affected by private wireless networks, microwave ovens and bluetooth?
A.
Most wireless systems automatically select an available channel, avoiding
used channels. Anyone operating a new wireless network would want to chose
a channel unaffected by others so it's a mutual thing. Microwave ovens
can affect wireless but our systems are outdoors and out of range of
most ovens. We have subscribers who use our system and home wireless, bluetooth
and cordless phones all perfectly and they use a microwave oven.
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Would the speed drop much as you got further away?
A.
No. Our wireless network can run at 11Mb which is more than enough to
supply 2Mb of Internet. In some cases subscribers are operating at 5Mb
but this does not affect Internet speed.
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Can I connect from
home to
my network at the office?
A. Yes we have subscribers using VPN
and Remote computing over the network from home. It works extremely well
and if required we can work with you and your office techie person to set this up.
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What are your Terms and Conditions?
We have Terms and Conditions and an Acceptable Use Policy downloads/termsandconditions.pdf
downloads/aup.pdf
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Do I get
compensation if I lose business when my connection fails?
A.
We can compensate for up to one months connection fee but we do not
cover business losses. If staying connected is vital to you then you
should consider having two methods of connection. We recommend a dialup
account as backup. You could always have a wireless and an ADSL service,
we sell both and would be happy to arrange a good deal where one is the
backup of the other.
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You seem to have the whole thing covered, how can I get a piece of your action?
A. Please use our online order form to place your order. Alternatively give us a ring and we will be happy to talk with you.
Since we are looking for 20 people at each access point you could help sign up people in your area. Please contact us about becoming a champion of
CountyBroadband. info@countybroadband.co.uk
