I wrote an article explaining the difference between PC (PCMCIA) 3g/hdpa cards and PC-Express cards late last year but soon realised that this is the kind of topic that lends itself well to a video blog. It is much easier to see with your eyes than explain with text! So here is our first video blog explaining the difference between 3g,hsdpa PC (PCMCIA) and PC-Express cards.

Hi all,

This brief instructional screencast has been produced to assist you with changing your SMTP server setting in outlook express to enable you to send emails while connected to the net using our 3G,HSDPA solutions.

Dial-up Internet Access is a form of Internet access via telephone lines. The user's computer or router uses an attached modem connected to a telephone line to dial into an Internet service provider's (ISP) node to establish a modem-to-modem link, which is then used to route Internet Protocol packets between the user's equipment and hosts on the Internet.

The following are the disadvantages of a dial-up internet connection:

Here's what you'll need:

1. A laptop

2. A broadband card (or internal mobile broadband radio)

3. A little bit of time

The steps are different though depending on if you're using Vista or XP. If you're using a Mac, you're outside my territory.

Grab a cup of mocha. You just might need it. Here we go.

Here's the Vista steps:

1. Start Button

2. Control Panel

3. (search for Network) click on Network and Sharing Center

Most broadband consumers do not know much data they will use when they are carrying out their online activities. Below is a helpful key that can help you approximate how much data you would have consumed per transaction:

When you are purchasing a broadband service, you need to consider the broadband speed you are being offered. There are various speeds you can choose from and each one  is meant to suit specific usage requirements. There is no one size-fits-all package and it important that you do buy too much or too little.

Some of the terminology or jargon one often hears when talking about broadband solutions is references to soft and hard caps. Usually this terminology only applies to Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Lines (ADSL).  Usually solutions that have a soft and a hard cap are what is called capped ADSL solutions. (For the difference between capped and uncapped ADSL see this blog post.)

As the term entails, a Local Only ADSL account gives users internet access to websites/ applications and networks that are hosted on servers located in South Africa only. Therefore it is important for would-be broadband consumers to know that if they purchase this type of account, they will not have access to websites hosted internationally.

Main advantages

ADSL broadband solutions come either as shaped or unshaped accounts. This obviously presents a poser to a broadband consumer, what is shaped or unshaped ADSL and which one is ideal for what purposes.

Shaped and unshaped ADSL are terms that are used to describe the manner in which the flow of information to a user's computer is prioritised

Shaped ADSL

When it comes to purchasing a broadband solution there is a lot of terminolgy that one needs to know to understand the various options that are out there whether its ADSL, iBurst or 3G/HSDPA. One such term is "bandwidth". This term can get confusing as it is has two different meanings depending on the context.