Connectivity

In the age of smartphones, internet-enabled televisions and readily available tablets, keeping our children safe online has once again come sharply into focus.

While many of us have passcodes or controls on the main house computer, how many can say the same for every device in the house that can get on the web? Not to mention televisions, which also contain plenty of content that is not suitable for children, particularly younger ones.

Children are increasingly more internet-savvy than their parents, leaving us flailing to keep up.

While there will always be a chance that your child catches sight of something that you would rather they didn’t, either a programme or a website, there are a raft of measures that you can take easily and cheaply that should make this absolutely minimal.

1) Communication will always play a part in keeping your children safe, both through you having knowledge of the sites they like and use, and them being aware that there is content out there they should keep away from. Be aware of changes in internet use, such as longer spent online, and stress that they should talk to a trusted adult if they have any worries whatsoever about anything.

2) Make sure they know how to stay safe – they should never give out personal details including name, address, school or telephone numbers to someone they do not know. Attachments from unknown senders should also be treated with caution in case they contain viruses. Depending on the age of your child, consider insisting on knowing any email account passwords so that you can check on sent and received mail if needed.

3) With the websites they use, check what safety and privacy protection tools are in place on each, what can be restricted and how to report if there is a problem. You might want the homepage to be something like CBeebies rather than a search engine.

4) See what tools your internet browser offers, such as safe browsing or parental controls, and enable those that work best for you. Consider checking the History tab or button regularly, as this gives you a full list of the sites that have been visited. Buy or download additional parental control software if desired.

5) Be aware that public WiFi will often not have parental controls on, so be alert if your child is browsing on your phone or tablet while out and about, as they will find it easier to find unsuitable content, even if that is only aggressive marketing or pop-ups.

6) For smartphones, having a passcode on start-up is the best way to ensure the internet is only accessed in ways you are happy with, in your presence. Set your screen to lock within a minute of not being used to minimise the chances of someone else coming along and starting to play with it. Do this even with young children – they’re often a lot quicker at sussing these things out than you would like!

7) Staying with smartphones, ensure in-app purchases are turned off (in settings), to ensure there are no nasty surprises if one of your children has been playing games. Even free games often have a tempting array of things you can buy, and these are irresistible to little fingers with no money sense.

8) Also consider the nature of any push notifications you get, as these can often be viewed even with the screen locked. Breaking news of disasters, for example, can often contain quite distressing details that may be upsetting for little sensitive minds. Consider turning these off if your children regularly play with your phone.

9) For televisions, you can often restrict access to certain channels or programmes – consult your manual or the manufacturer on how best to do this. Most on-demand services such as BBC iPlayer, 4OD, ITV Player and Sky Go offer variations on pin-protected parental controls, so set these up if needed or wanted. These pop-up on programmes flagged as having strong language, for example, and the pin is needed to allow the programme to play.

10) For games consoles, use family settings to set both content restrictions and time limits.

Finally, of course, there is some general sensible advice to follow, such as setting time limits on all devices, to allow time for homework and family time, as well as putting tablets and computers away when they are not in use, so that they are out of sight and out of mind.

As ever with technology, it can be an amazing and useful resource, as long as it has limits which restrict its use to that which is appropriate to your household.

Dipping your toe in the world of broadband providers can often feel like going into a shop to find everyone but you suddenly speaks a foreign language.

Littered with technical speak for every stage of the investigation and purchase process, even choosing what package you need can be tricky.

But fear not our jargon-buster will mean you can hold your own, while ensuring you get the package you need because you have the right knowledge at your fingertips.

So, without further ado, here are our explanations of the most common broadband terms you are likely to come across…..

ADSL Broadband – The UK’s most popular form of internet connection and is provided over telephone lines.  Quality varies depending on how far your connection is from the telephone exchange.

Bandwidth – refers to the rate data can be transferred between two points in a given time.

Broadband – A high bandwidth connection to the internet.

Cloud-Based – A programme that functions in the cloud, otherwise known as large groups of networked remote servers. Often hosted in a data centre, these allow a user to access the cloud from an internet-enabled device. Dropbox is a well-known example of a cloud-based service.

Connection – This refers to the path between at least two places and can refer to either a telephone or an internet connection.

Contention Ratio – Refers to the maximum number of users or businesses sharing a bandwidth connection, each of whom will have an equal proportion of the total speed. The lower the contention ratio, the better the service.

Download Limits – The amount of data that your ISP will allow you to download each month before you are charged extra or have your account restricted.

Download Speed – The rate or speed at which your computer can receive data from the internet.

Ethernet – connects a number of computer systems to form a very fast, private local area network. It is even faster over fibre cabling and can handle a huge amount of online activity, such as downloading large files or using real-time applications such as video-conferencing.

Fibre – use glass or plastic threads or fibres to transmit and deliver data, but are only available in fibre-enabled areas of the UK.

Firewall – accesses traffic from the internet and stops unwanted traffic arriving at your computer.

Fixed-Line – Internet connections that come into homes or businesses via either cables or a telephone line.  Distinct from mobile broadband, which uses
the mobile network.

FTTC & FTTP – Fibre to the cabinet (FTTC), has fibre-optic cable running between the telephone exchange and your nearest street cabinet, but copper wire on the final stretch to your home or business.  Fibre to the home/premises (FTTH or FTTP) is a superior version where the fibre-optic cable runs all the way, which is both faster and more reliable.

IP Address – Your Internet Protocol address is a string of numbers unique to a device that identifies you on the internet, facilitating communication between your computer and the rest of the internet.

ISP – An Internet Service Provider can provide the internet access, domain registration and web hosting, and will be the company that bills you for your internet, regardless of how the internet enters your home or business.

LAN – A Local Area Network is the data network connecting all computers, servers and printers in one physical location.

Latency – The speed of your network, and whether it has small delays and processes information quickly (low latency), or longer delays and slower processing (high latency).

MAC – A Migration Authorisation Code aids the process of changing ISPs. Your existing company is supposed to supply this for free within five days. It should be passed to the new ISP within 30 days. Downtime when using this method of switchover is not supposed to be more than a few hours.

Managed Internet Access (MIA) – refers to a dedicated internet connection that is fully and pro-actively managed by a provider, meaning problems should be spotted and fixed as soon as they occur, instead of having to be reported.

Mobile Broadband – Broadband for a laptop or tablet, requires a 3 or 4G-enabled device or a plug-in adaptor, typically USB.

Network – All the internet-related services you invest in, be they broadband or VoIP, are all connected and provided to you through a network.

Point-to-Point Leased Lines – A point-to-point leased line is a private circuit linking two premises so data, voice and internet traffic can be transferred securely.

Streaming – A way of transferring data at a steady speed, most often used for watching media without having to download it.

Unlimited Broadband – A broadband package that has no limits on how much you can download each month, although some do stipulate a fair use policy so check before signing a contract.

Upload Speed: How fast your broadband connection can send data from your computer, such as sending your photos to an online website or portal, or sending emails.

VoIP – Voice over Internet Protocol translates words into data packets for transmitting across the internet like any other file, transforming it back to its usual form on arrival. Much cheaper than
traditional calls, communication can be carried out through any computer or phone that can connect to the internet.

Wide Area Network (WAN) or Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) – WANs or MPLS technology are used by businesses that want to link and exchange data between computers at two or more sites that may be far apart, such as disaster recovery sites. Usually private, they can be accessed remotely and are often formed of two LANs (see above).

We hope this helps break down those language barriers, if there is anything we haven’t covered, please do get in touch and we’ll be happy to clarify for you.