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How much do these options cost?
The slow and cheap wireless connection generally works out the cheapest per month
at about $15. Unfortunately not all of Sydney can get this yet but things are improving.
A standard modem on a phone line is a similar price provided you go with a cheap
ISP (about $10 per month) and dial in no more than about 20 times (each dialup costs a local call
charge on your phone bill). Note that a $10 plan generally does not give you a great
amount in the way of data download available before extra may be charged.
More complete plans of this type for unlimited hours and downloads with good quality of
service can run over $30 per month. If you dial-up often then you can easily generate $10 in
local call charges as well. If you use the internet a fair bit then either your phone line will be unusable
for phone calls a lot for the time or else you will need a separate line... at over $20 per month extra!
Broadband ADSL is the next cheapest, although price depends greatly on your ISP, how much you download,
and what speed of plan you choose. Prices range from $20 up over $100 per month. I must stress the importance of
being very careful about the cheaper plans. Some only give a small included data allowance and excess fees can
be very steep, particularly from some of the more popular ISPs. If your computer gets a virus or worm, or someone
hacks into your computer, or uses a p2p application, you can end up with thousands of dollars in bills... and yes,
you would be responsible to pay! Look for a plan that is "shaped" (slows down if you use it too much) or has excess
usage fees no more than $5 per gigabyte (0.5 cents per megabyte). Such plans range from about $30 upwards.
Unfortunately ADSL is not available to everyone.
Fast wireless access is the next cheapest. Usually this works out about $10 per month more than ADSL for a similar
ADSL plan. The advantage is portability and that you don't need a phone line to use it.
Broadband cable is generally faster than ADSL, and usually about the same price as the mid to high range ADSL plans. Unfortunately not
everyone can get cable internet and your options are limited.
Satellite broadband is still more expensive. This comes in 1-way and 2-way options. If you can get some other form of
broadband then you probably don't want this.
GPRS is designed for mobile phone access, or plugging a laptop into a mobile phone. Per megabyte it works out about 1000 times the cost of ADSL!
You don't want to actually use this except for emergency access, or are dealing with very small amounts of data and know
how to keep data levels small. This generally works wherever you can get mobile phone reception.
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