Moving home and from dialup to broadband

Hi, I' m gonna be moving back to home in Cairns, Queensland, OZ soon. I'll also be moving from dialup to broadband, can't wait. Any suggestions on tuning broadband for the best results. Any suggestions on modems that will fit onto a laptop. I know being in OZ, you probably can't make recommendations on hardware but I can check them out anyhow. I know most providers can sell you a compatible modem but I would like some other opinions.
Any OZ readers out there, I would appreciate any broadband ISP's you could recommend.

As a bonus I will also be losing AOL (Cowboy, please note) only keeping the minimum service until I notify those on my email list. Bazza

System specs:

Gateway Solo 9300 laptop, W98SE, P2/400, 288mb RAM (maxed out) IE6, AOL UK V7.0, Internal V90 dialup modem, 30gig hard drive and 10 gig hard drive, DVD/CD player internal, optional 120mb and 1.44 mb floppies, plenty of room on hard drives.

 

what ever you do, make sure you don't use a USB cable modem.. go with RJ45 (cat5e) cabled connection. The USB ones are more trouble than they're worth.

 

Kodo, Thanks for that. It would probably have been my first mistake. Bazza

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Cowboy, thought you'd like the little aside. I will check out these links. Thanks,
I had already crossed the big "T" off my list. TPG have BB at AUD$20 per month with "free" modem and $130 setup fee. Guess that pays for the " free" modem Ha ha. Bazza

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Might be able to get Mail Washer going also. Never could get MailWasher Pro going with AOL although Mailwasher folks recommended MWP as working with AOL. Then I can deal with spam. Yet another bonus. Bazza

 

Kodo, Whilst checking out Broadband ISP's in OZ, the first one I looked at comes with a "free" modem---USB ADSL--wouldn't ya know it. What goes wrong with USB and how do the RJ45 ones differ. Maybe I 'll ask them if they would supply an equivalent RJ45 to the USB modem but I doubt it. How does the RJ45 work on a laptop, does it go through the internal modem connection input, or separate, somehow. Bazza

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I have laptop no RJ45 port, but my docking station does (laptop built in eithernet)
Here's another note before I bought docking station, I used USB eithernet device= usb to pc/RJ45 to device, there is no differance in upload or download speed

Last note I have broadband service my cable modem has both USB and RJ45, I have tested both ways, no problems either way, upload and download speed was same regardless (is connected RJ45)

 

Cowboy, Across the back, Fast Infra red port, PS/2 port, Parallel port LPT1, Serial port (9pin), Docking station port, Composite video out, Composite video in, Monitor port, S/PDIF digital audio output, Power connector.

Right side Speaker out/Headphone Jack, Audio in, Microphone jack, Modem jack (RJ10--I think--is that the smaller one?), 2 x USB ports, IEEE 1394 High Performance Serial Bus I/O connector, PC Card slots (2 x Type II PC cards or 1 x Type III PC card).

Internal modem is Mini PCI Type 3B data fax modem by 3 Com Model 3CXMx56. Little x denotes model number but I can't find info without opening up laptop.

Gateway Solo 9300 laptop, W98SE, P2/400, 288mb RAM (maxed out) IE6, AOL UK V7.0, Internal V90 dialup modem, 30gig hard drive and 10 gig hard drive, DVD/CD player internal, optional 120mb and 1.44 mb floppies, plenty of room on hard drives.

Also an Optional MD-3 docking station with most of the same stuff, no modem RJ10? input though
That's about the lot. Bazza

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There generally won't be a speed difference as far as bandwidth is concerned, but USB uses more CPU than a NIC does because a NIC has its' own processor. USB has to offload all the IP functions to the CPU for processing.

 

I made a mistake in my earlier reply to Kodo. I have the smaller (RJ10?) modem connection, not the RJ45. Sorry. Connector is the same size as modern desk telephones. Got confused. Bazza

 

RJ11 modular . no problem man, they look smimilar

 

Kodo, with a laptop with a dialup internal modem, can I use Broadband with an external "doohickey" that plugs into my RJ11 telephone connection. I assume not and that I will have to use a USB or PC Card Broadband modem or some other connection. Does plugging in a broadband connection automatically disconnect the internal modem (not hooked up to phone line, of course). Do I simply deselect the dialup modem in software settings and select the broadband one to achieve the same result? How much more resources does a USB modem use when compared to a non-USB modem. Sorry for this set of questions but google isn't much help. Maybe I am using the wrong search criteria. Bazza

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you could get a PCMCIA ethernet adapter, it would provide you with an RJ45 port and should still work better than USB i believe.

 

Basically, no. I would get a moden that has an ethernet port on it, and then get a PCMCIA network card with an RJ45 socket on it.

hahaha, double post! Great minds think alike eh? (except one cant spell, oops)

 

Thanks Goldy and IYTC for the double posted advice. Guess I will have to do more research on what is available here in OZ and what providers will provide/accept in the way of a modem.

Quite a project for me to follow up on. I hope to get it going by July 1st. If not, then by August 1st. Have to give AOL notice and time it with the new provider, whoever that will be. Bazza

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Hi Kodo
Can u expand on that please as I am thinking of doing the switch also.
Robert