Well, for those of you who may not have heard, One Seniors, a national telecommunications company dedicated to providing affordable phone and internet solutions for the over 55’s, has been put into administration.
It’s such a shame to see a company who provide such a great service for seniors, have to shut their doors. Just like moving house, changing Internet providers can be a painful experience, from navigating the various Internet plans, to changing your email address and then having to notify all your friends.
In my experience, living in the city, you have a vast array of service providers offering great cheap deals. Unfortunately, when you start going out to the regional areas, it is a different story, many service providers cannot offer the technical support or the speed that they can in the cities. Cheap doesn’t necessarily mean it’s reliable and fast, especially if you’re spending most of your time on the phone asking why your Internet keeps dropping out.
I suggest you talk to your phone company about bundling your phone and Internet together so you can get a better deal. Consider what you need the Internet for, is it just to check email, or do you have many devices like a laptop, a smart phone and a tablet. If you get good mobile phone reception at home and only use the Internet to check your email then you may want to consider a mobile Internet dongle. If you use the Internet at least an hour a day you will find it cheaper to use a phone line ADSL Internet. Whichever service provider, when you decide to change over to, be aware that you may be without Internet for between 5-14 days.
I also suggest you sign up for a free email account that is not linked to your new service provider. Companies like Google, Yahoo or Live.com offer free email accounts. The advantage of this is that you can take this email wherever you go, even if you decide to switch provider you can still keep using the same free email service, so there is no need to contact all your friends and colleagues again with yet another change of email address.
Another tip, when setting up your home internet, it can be difficult to understand the connections, and wireless signals, so if your unsure, make sure you get all the username and password details from your new service provider then talk to a technician (like me), who can set/up your email and internet in one go, and get you back up and surfing as soon as possible.
Finally, make sure you buy a good Internet security package with a Firewall to protect you from any nasties that may want to infiltrate your computer when online.
I hope you have found this helpful.