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You may recall from my article in the last newsletter (here) that my firm ordered ADSL broadband internet connectivity from BT and that the first stage of the process, the conversion of my home account to ADSL, had already been successfully achieved. At the time of writing the last article we were awaiting an installation visit from a BT engineer.
Whilst planning for ADSL, it had become clear that, as a firm, we did not have sufficient in-house expertise to set up a fully configured system by ourselves - BT home products come complete with a USB modem but with a network, the situation is more complicated. We called on specialist help from e-Spida (www.e-spida.co.uk) a company with experience of this type of network.
We were also aware of how important web services and email had become in the last few years. A level of resilience would therefore be required, and we chose to keep our ISDN line as a back up, which meant that we needed to connect both lines to our 50 pc network.
Given that a couple of earlier promised visits had not taken place, I was a little surprised that the third date was honoured, and the ADSL activated without a hitch. Once activated, we arranged for the network to access the new resource via a programmed router and firewall. The latter keeps the hackers out, while allowing those users who have been issued with an encrypted key to connect to the network from outside the building.
After some fine tuning, all of users of our system now enjoy increased download speeds. Because ADSL is "always on", there is no need for the system to "dial up" an internet service provider. The ISDN line used to take a few seconds to initialise and connect but this is no longer necessary. Download speeds are impressive. Even at the busiest times, performance has always exceeded our minimum requirements.
We experienced a couple of headaches during the initial few weeks - the first when BT's main domain name server ("DNS") was unavailable, and the second when our ADSL line developed a fault. The first was avoided by ensuring our system had access to BT's secondary DNS, and the second turned out to be a temporary fault that was fixed before I had a chance to authorise a switch to the backup ISDN line.
My home ADSL continues to operate without problems, incidentally, although at times the speeds are slower than I would like (but then, what's new!)
* Do as much research as you can bear before coming to a decision - www.adslguide.org.uk is a useful site.
* Even a small scale upgrade to a computer system requires careful planning, especially when the service in question is core to the needs of the business. Never assume that everything will go to plan, or that everything will be right first time; even standard off the shelf products in this field are complex.
* Build in as much resilience to the system as you can afford.
* Beware of products that were not designed to work with ADSL, a prime example being combined fax / copier / printers. It seems that many are not compatible with ADSL systems, but trying to get a definite yes or no from manufacturers or suppliers is very difficult.
* Make specific requirements known to your supplier, so that if it doesn't work, you can do something about it!
* Retain the option to say "no" to the project. Upgrading is a choice, and need not be a chore. A decision to delay may not be all bad, especially if a newer / bigger / better / cheaper system becomes available.
Keith Arrowsmith is an Associate with Hartley Linfoot & Whitlam, specialising in intellectual property transactions for the entertainment and information technology sectors. He is also the firm's IT Manager.
Email Keitha@hlw-solicitors.co.uk.
Note from Keith on costs
Line costs:
BT Business 500 (for one PC) is £29.99 plus VAT per month (plug and go installation is £85). No extra hardware is required, but consider firewall software.
BT Business 2000 plus (for network) is £149.99 plus VAT per month ( £260 installation). You can add hosting options including registration of a domain name, to the basic package. Again, a modem/router is supplied by BT, but you may want to consider a firewall.
ISDN line rental (which we kept as a backup) is £138 plus VAT per quarter plus call charges.
Check BT's web site www.btopenworld.com/businesshome (and other providers) for special offers.
Hardware:
We have a Windows 2000 server running Exchange 2000 and Outlook 2000 on each PC. We invested in a hardware firewall (approx £3,500) which also created security keys to enable authorised users to dial in. Some software alternatives were cheaper. We also purchased a router for the ISDN back up line (£500).
Software:
We already had Exchange and Outlook running. We added "Policy Patrol" for email disclaimers ($99). No other software was required although Exchange needed some specialist "tweaking".
Consultancy:
We required help setting up the routers and servers, as already described, but others may have sufficient skills in house.
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