UK ADSL Broadband Hardware

Hardware and additional options, In addition to the fundamental Home and Office services, there are some companies able to offer a number of value added options to improve the basic service and supply you with a complete end to end service and single point of contact for all your ADSL requirements and questions. The first requirements all Broadband ADSL users will have, after selecting which service best meets their needs, is communications hardware to connect their existing single PC to the Broadband ADSL service. The basic choice falls to either a Modem or Router.


Router

It is possible in most cases to re-grade Home Highway ISDN to Broadband ADSL but this will definitely involve a visit from a BT engineer, which is no longer required with the other Broadband ADSL services or options. It should also be noted that conversion would result in reverting the line back to what is effectively an analogue phone service with a single number. There are some advantages in upgrading to ADSL but the current usage requirements of the ISDN service must be considered before a conversion is done, it may be worth considering an additional analogue line for use with Broadband ADSL rather than to re-grade.

Broadband ADSL is not ideal for customers wishing to run servers, i.e. Web servers, or externally addressable applications that require a constant bit rate. However, the Real IP range of services can be used in combination with an SMTP mail feed. For either of the NAT or Real IP services, all you need is a 10baseT Network, or an Ethernet card if you have a single stand alone PC.