Introduction
It was only a few years ago that most families only had one option when it came to the Internet: connect or don't connect. Today, most families have several different alternatives for connecting to the Internet. Which one your family chooses will depend on your budget, your use, and unfortunately, on where you live.

Dial-Up
For most families, the old reliable modem and telephone line are still the most common method of connecting to the Internet. Consumers have had a choice between local Internet service providers and national services for some time. America Online (AOL) remains the largest of the national services, and the local services continue to provide competitive pricing and services in many areas - especially those in which the national services don't have local access numbers.

At the national level, AOL's competition continues to increase, partly in response to AOL's price increases and their continued use of cumbersome proprietary software. Sprint's Earthlink service is an interesting alternative, especially for those who travel frequently, because it has hundreds of local access numbers. In addition, competitors such as NetZero and Juno offer dial-up Internet service at about half the cost of the more established ISPs. The trade-off, in most cases, is that the bargain services insert advertising in your web viewing.

Depending on the quality of your hardware and phone line, dial-up connections achieve data transfer speeds of 26 to 56 kilobits per second. This makes these connections fine for text-based e-mail and viewing static web pages. But dial-up connections quickly bog down when trying to download large animation files or any streaming media such as sound or video. The alternative: broadband.

Broadband
Broadband is a non-technical term for high-speed Internet service, typically provided by a cable or phone company. By comparison to the 25-56Kb transfer rate of a dial-up connection, broadband services routinely achieve speeds of 500Kb and more, depending on local circumstances and the precise technology used. These speeds mean you can use the web to listen to CD-quality music, watch movie trailers, and view web sites with complex animation - all with no waiting. It's just there.

Broadband Internet is available in two distinct flavors: cable and digital subscriber line (DSL). Cable Internet services are just that - web content delivered by your local cable system via a cable modem that attaches to your computer. The bandwidth (signal capacity) of today's cable technology means these systems can offer some of the fastest connections available to homes. The prerequisite, of course, is that you must have cable service available in your area. As with cars, of course, speed costs extra. Expect to pay $35 to $45 a month for cable modem services, though you may get a lower introductory price for the first few months.

The alternative to broadband Internet from the cable company is DSL, a telephone technology that also delivers snappy connection speeds in a range similar to those of cable. The big hitch with DSL, though, is that your home must be within about three miles of a DSL-equipped switching station for the service to work. This makes DSL workable in urban areas and some towns. Yet DSL availability can be spotty even in areas that logically should have it. The only way to find out whether DSL is available on your street is to contact your phone company. DSL prices are typically in the same range as those for cable modem services.

Security Issues
Broadband Internet services introduce another wrinkle into your use of the web - increased security issues. Unlike dial-up connections, which are temporary, cable and DSL services are "always on." You're connected to the web whenever your computer is on, and more importantly, the web can always "see" your computer - making it more vulnerable to hackers, viruses, and other nastiness. The solution is called a "firewall." Firewall software ($40-$60) blocks unauthorized access to your computer by those who would do unpleasant things to it. There are also ways of using hardware to solve this problem, but firewall software is the most expedient option for a single computer. If you have a full-time connection, you simply must deal with this issue. And yes, you still need a virus-checking program to monitor your e-mail.

If you have children, the final security issue you must confront is web filtering. This issue is not unique to high-speed connections, but the use of broadband increases the range of potentially unacceptable content. If your family currently uses filtering software, plan to spend some time reconfiguring it to accept or reject the appropriate levels of new content that will be available via the high-speed connection.

Finally...
So which service is right for your family? While the location of your home may eliminate one or more of the high-speed options, the trade-off between dial-up and broadband boils down to convenience versus cost. If you're on a budget, stick with dial-up. If you use the web for any sort of business activity, or if you can afford an extra dollar a day, a high-speed connection can offer a new range of web services. The choice is yours.

Back to: Finding a Family Computer
Next month - children and the web.

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