FAQ

HTC’s DSL service is available in the cities and rural areas of Columbia, Dupo, East Carondelet, Maeystown, Prairie du Rocher, Red Bud, Valmeyer and Waterloo areas. Remaining HTC areas will be served in the near future. To check on your location’s eligibility and service availability, contact an HTC customer service representative.

The customer-premise modem is only available through HTC. Customer-premise modem and circuit installation will be included in the initial setup charge and monthly service charge. An Ethernet card will also be required in the customer’s PC. Computer configuration and an Ethernet card installation are available for an additional charge.

You can share your DSL connection with multiple home or business computers using a network router. A router is a small electronic device that allows you to build a simple home or small-business network. The home router serves as the core of the network to which all other computers, printers and other devices are connected. Networking with a router helps with:

• File sharing
• Shared Internet connections
• Printer sharing
• Connecting game console or other home entertainment equipment to the Internet

Using a wireless router and corresponding wireless adapters on your computers will allow you to access your DSL connection anywhere in range of the wireless router’s signal without the hassle of running additional cable throughout your home. Homes with more than two desktop computers or laptop computers connect wirelessly via a built-in wireless adapter, an installed PC-card adapter or a USB adapter. The adapter will locate the DSL signal broadcasted by the router.

HTC ADSL service is a dedicated connection to the Internet. The ADSL connection uses a common protocol, TCP/IP, to communicate over the Internet. TCP/IP is the protocol required for computers to successfully exchange and share information over the Internet. Security issues can arise when an ADSL user begins using other protocols, such as: Net Beui, IPX /SPX, or other protocols commonly used to communicate over Local Area Networks (LANs). Since ADSL is a dedicated connection to the Internet, it is or can be a dedicated connection between ADSL users. If customers use only TCP/IP on their computer, security issues will be minimal. If a customer begins to use protocols commonly used with LANs, their system may become exposed to some or all ADSL users, opening up security issues. Please review your proper computer configuration.

ADSL provides a dedicated service over a single telephone line; cable modems offer a dedicated service over a shared media. While cable modems have greater downstream bandwidth (up to 30 Mbps), that bandwidth is shared among all users on a line and will vary, perhaps dramatically, with traffic. Cable-modem upstream traffic will, in many cases, be slower than ADSL, either because the particular cable modem is inherently slower or because of rate reductions caused by contention for upstream bandwidth slots. The big difference between ADSL and cable modems, however, is the number of lines available to each. No more than 12 million homes currently can support cable modems. While this number is steadily growing, it will not catch up with telephone lines for many years. Additionally, many older cable networks are not capable of offering a return channel; consequently, such networks will need significant upgrading before they can offer high bandwidth services.