What is aDSL?
aDSL stands for "Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line" and is a type of broadband technology. The connection to your home or business is brought in on your normal copper phone line ie. both your existing phone number and the aDSL connection are brought in to your premises on the same pair of copper wire. There is no change or degradation to your original phone service as a result of this addition. This type of service is not available in all areas of Australia at this time, but is generally available in Metro and country areas as long as you are within 4km of your local telephone exchange.
The "asymmetric" means that the download speed (the speed you receive data) is different to the upload speed (the speed you send data). The services we offer are home grade (option 1 below) and business grade (option 2 below).

What do I need to connect to aDSL?
You require the following items:
- an aDSL modem router. The cost of these start at around $95 (depending on make/model)
- ADSL service must be activated on your phone line (equipment must be available in your phone district ie. at your local exchange and typically you must be within a distance of 4km of your local telephone exchange).
- fill in a Tech Info application form for aDSL service and send it to our office (by fax or post)
- the form is available by clicking here.
Normal installation/activation time is around 5-10 working days.

What are the costs and benefits of aDSL?
The 'once off' costs are as follows:
- there is an install charge to activate the service on your line.
- you will need to purchase a digital modem or router.
The 'ongoing' costs are:
- the monthly access to adsl broadband (plan selected by you) billed by Tech Info 6 monthly.
The broadband access is billed by printed paper tax invoice mailed to your postal address. This is a 14 day payment account.

The likely savings to you over an existing dial-up modem account are:
- based on a normal 50 hour/month account making 2 calls to the internet per day;
savings on the Tech Info 50 hour/month dial-up account fee is $13.75/month
savings on calls are $12.00/month based on 2 calls/day at 20c/call and 30 days/month.
This totals $25.75/month.

If you have a separate line used by your modem, you will save the line rental on this line as it is no longer required. This will save you an additional $29.95/month bringing the total savings to $55.70/month.

The benefits are:
- download speeds which will be around 5 times faster (this depends on the server loads of the site your are downloading from as well as many other factors - you should expect speeds about 5-10 times faster as the 'norm' when comparing a 56k modem with a 256k aDSL service)
- your phone line is available to make and receive calls at all times ie. the aDSL service does not tie up the phone line making it 'busy' when you are on the internet.
- no call dropouts as the system does not require you to dial in to the ISP and maintain a connection over a voice grade line.
- almost instant connection the moment your PC has finished booting.
- you can connect more than one PC to the internet through the aDSL router at the same time giving all PC's on your home or office network 24 hour/day internet access at high speed.
- our services can be furnished with a static IP address at no additional cost which allows you to access the PC connected to the service from anywhere on the Internet (obviously this can also be a security issue if proper firewalls and passwords are not in place)

Things to consider when comparing Tech Info offerings with that of other providers
1. Be wary that some other aDSL provider's plans on offer currently give you a 'data limit' included with the monthly fee.
This data limit tallies up all the data that your PC SENDS as well as receives ie. it is not just a download limit, it includes all upload as well.
Under normal use, your total uploaded data is about 1/3 of your total download, so you must add, say, 30% to your current download total to get the total amount of data transmitted back and forth. This is especially important if your PC has music downloading (sharing) software installed on it which will cause it to send copies of your music to other PC's around the world without your knowledge - this can lead to a VERY large excess use bill.
With Tech Info aDSL, we only keep an eye on the download total and the limits are set very, very high (in Gb) which effectively makes each of the accounts 'unlimited'
You may also expect that your data flow will increase by about two to three times what you have used through a dial up connection due to the 24 hour access and the increased speed of download. This has proven to be the case with our users who have already swapped over to aDSL broadband.

2. You do not need to bundle your home or business phones or mobiles to any internet offering we make.

3. Our contract is 6 months only. This means if the price drops, your next renewal invoice with Tech Info will be at the new (lower) rate. Most other providers sign you up for 24months at today's prices and charge the full contract price as a cancellation fee.

4. One of the major aDSL providers has had many well documented reliability issues with their broadband network from Day 1 and some of these issues are still largely unresolved today. This reliability issue also effects other ISP's reselling that same product under their own name.

5. Unlike some other ISP's offering broadband, we do offer support the networking of all your PC's connecting to the internet through the same modem/router/firewall device (ie. using the a single broadband internet account for all your PC's)

6. If you swap to another internet provider, you will lose your techinfo/gravity e-mail address.

7. We answer each and every telephone support call. You will not be met with an automated messaging system nor be put on hold for 30minutes! We cannot stress enough how important this should be in your decision making process for selecting a broadband provider.

What about if I already have an aDSL service with another provider (and want to change to Tech Info)?

We can swap you over from your existing aDSL broadband provider to our service (called a 'churn') by simply filling in the authorisation form which you can download here, fill it in and mail or fax it back to our office.
A churn of service from one provider to another can be programmed to happen on any day you nominate as long as it is at least 5 working days hence from application.
The fee to churn from another provider to our service is $50 inc GST.
Note: You need to discover if there is any exit fee you may have on your current contract which you may have signed with your current provider (which will be payable to them by you).

Option 1: Pricing for "unlimited" download 'residential grade' service

There are 'once off' costs (payable to Tech Info Pty Ltd) as follows:
- a fee of $130 inc GST to activate aDSL on your phone line.
- you need to purchase a digital modem, router and firewall device to connect the aDSL service to your PC or PC network.
We offer either the DLink DSL-504T or Linksys AG300 modem router which includes a 4 port 10/100 network switch to connect up to 4 PC's and/or Macs to the internet through the one broadband connection. The cost of either of these devices is currently $95 inc GST.
For a wireless network, we offer the either the DLink DSL-G604T or the Linksys WAG-54G 4 port switch + wireless modem router at $160.00 inc GST.
- you will receive a half yearly account based on the pricing below, for the service you select.
All accounts are to be paid within 14 days.
Note: all of our 'residential grade' adsl connections are supplied with a static IP address at no charge.

** if the volume limit is exceeded, the connection speed is automatically slowed to 64 / 64kbps until the start of the next month.
*&!* This speed is dependent on distance from the local exchange - most users achieve speeds around 4M / 384k

As a guide, a 256/64k service is adequate for between 1 to 3 PC's, the 512/128k is suited for 3 to 10 PC's and small office networks, and the 1.5M/256k service is suited to medium to large office networks and heavy download requirements.

Notes:
1. With this plan there is a 6 month minimum term of agreement. If you choose to disconnect prior to the expiration of 6 months you will be charged a disconnection fee of $75 inc GST. No fee is payable for disconnection after 6 months elapsed time.
2. If you want to change the speed of aDSL service either up or down, a provisioning fee of $45 inc GST is payable.

Option 2: Pricing for 'high speed business grade' service
This service is provided on the Nextep (NEC Australia) backbone (separated from Telstra) and is only available as either a 1.5M/256kbps or 512k/512k adsl services with a maximum contention ratio of 80:1 (80 connections per node point). This service features a static IP address included in the fee. The service has a Service Level Agreement to guarantee high availability and rapid repair if a fault develops.
The costs for this higher quality service are as follows:
- there is a 'once off' install charge of $130 inc GST to purchase the copper line from Telstra, test and activate the service on your line.
- you will need to purchase a digital modem or router - we offer the DLink DSL-504T modem/router for sale at $95 inc GST and can be pre-configured for your account.
- the monthly line rental is $88 inc GST billed monthly
- you pay for all download to your PC at the rate of 2.5c/Mb inc GST also billed in the monthly account (you can check your current download at this page)
The line rental and download charges are billed monthly by printed paper tax invoice mailed to your postal address. This is a 14 day payment account.