Fourteenth Post: MIS : Assignment 6_ Improve Internet Connection

It is really a great privilege if ever I would be hired as an IT consultant by the university president. But before I go on answering the question, let me define first what an IT consultant is and what typical work activities of an IT consultant are.

IT Consultant: Job description

• IT consultant works in partnership with clients, advising them how to use information technology in order to meet their business objectives or overcome problems. Consultants work to improve the structure and efficiency and of an organization’s IT systems.
• IT consultants may be involved in a variety of activities, including marketing, project management, client relationship management and systems development.
• They may also be responsible for user training and feedback. In many companies, these tasks will be carried out by an IT project team. IT consultants are increasingly involved in sales and business development, as well as technical duties.

As what I’ve read, the usual activities that an IT consultant does are the following: meeting with clients to determine requirements, working with clients to define the scope of project, planning timescales and the resources needed, clarifying a client's system specifications, understanding their work practices and the nature of their business, travelling to customer sites, liaising with staff at all levels of a client organization, defining software, hardware and network requirements, analyzing IT requirements within companies and giving independent and objective advice on the use of IT, developing agreed solutions and implementing new systems, presenting solutions in written or oral reports, helping clients with change-management activities, project managing the design and implementation of preferred solutions, purchasing systems where appropriate, designing, testing, installing and monitoring new systems, preparing documentation and presenting progress reports to customers, organizing training for users and other consultants, being involved in sales and support and, where appropriate, maintaining contact with client organizations, identifying potential clients and building and maintaining contacts. Knowing the typical task of an IT consultant is like knowing how tough their duties and responsibilities in an organization or company. Information Technology consulting is a field that focuses on giving advices on businesses on how to use information technology for them to meet their expected objectives for their businesses.

I know everyone of us were familiar with the internet. With the fast evolving technology, almost all of us know the use of the internet not only for business but also in school and for entertainment. A concrete definition of internet that was given by the Wikipedia is that, “internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP). It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by copper wires, fiber optic cables, wireless connections, and other technologies. The internet carries a vast array of information resources and services, most notably the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail, in addition to popular services such as online chat, file transfer and file sharing, online gaming, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) person-to-person communication via voice and video.”

In the modern human life, internet played a big role for an easier way of communication. Companies, schools and universities and almost all the establishment has an internet connection so , therefore, we need to consider some things in order to make our internet connectivity be improved. Some of those things are the infrastructure, the technologies (be updated with the latest trends of technology) and the innovations. And the different steps and processes in improving your internet connection should also be considered.

Suggestions…

In a university, an internet connection is very important for the student and the faculty as well. But sometimes, we encounter some errors in the connection. Some of the problems that we often encounter are the frustrating low speed of connection and download, the computer is running slow and error in connection .Having a slow internet connection is a frustration for any user while having a fast high-speed internet connection puts the user at an obvious huge advantage. With all the high technology available today, dialup access remains the slowest of all the internet services available. And on the other hand, cable internet tends to be one of the fastest options in internet services. As a student of the said university and as an IT consultant, there are some tips that I could suggest to improve the internet connectivity of our university.

• Improving the Internet connection

The first tip that I guess would help the university is to get rid of the modem that they used and move to ADSL. Broadband is now available at low cost in most areas. “Always-on” cable and ADSL connections are becoming more widely available nowadays. According to what I have read, these will give you a permanent connection and much faster data speed. When using an ADSL you will need a standardBT telephone line, and pay for a connection through an ISP which provides an ADSL “modem” as part of the installation cost. In a university, there are a lot of computers that share a single modem. This can potentially slow down your computer a bit but usually doesn’t make that much of an impact on the speed of your system.

The next tip focuses on the system security. System security is very important for any computer. All the computers should have anti-virus software and firewalls to help with system security. Examples are: Symantec-Norton AntiVirus, McAfee-Antivirus, and Spyware Doctor AntiVirus 6. Some choose to disable their system security programs in order to speed up the computers but this is never a good idea because the computer won’t run fast for long once you get virus or some spyware on the system. So it is really advisable to install antivirus or antispyware on the computers. It would be better if you would back up your critical data regularly. No matter what type of high speed internet connection the university will use, it’s a good thing to remember to install system security to protect the computers and all its personal and confidential information.

My third suggestion is to test the internet speed. One of the most common issues with the slow internet service is that your provider is not giving you what they have said or advertised. The university is paying for it, so you might as well make sure it’s being used as effectively as possible. In checking the connection speed, there are many sites online where you are able to check your connection for free. You can also use the Network Diagnostic Tool to test the network connection speed.

Another suggestion would be, if a computer is not in use turn it off. Since many computers are sharing the same modem and internet connection, when you turn off those unused computers the competition for limited bandwidth resources decreases and it will usually boost those used computers performance.
Fifth thing to be aware with is that you have to make sure you are not connected to a weak access point signal. There are many ways that an access point can slow down the connection a bit. For instance, the signal between you and the access point is weak, the access point will automatically downgrade its services to a slower speed and sometimes you may encounter n error in the connection. Always check and know what signal you are connected with.

For downloading, I would advice to use FTP download wherever possible. As what I have read, in downloading files you can often choose between FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and HTML download. But for me, File Transfer Protocol, which uses the well known port called “port 21”, is much faster for file transfer.




References:
http://www.high-speed-internet-access-guide.com/articles/increase-modem-speed.html
http://www.telecomsadvice.org.uk/infosheets/internet_connectivity2.htm
http://www.practicalpc.co.uk/computing/comms/speedup.htm
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/p/types_of_job/it_consultant_job_description.jsp)
http://netequalizernews.com/2009/03/07/7-tips-and-tricks-to-speed-up-your-internet-connection/
http://en.wikipedia.org/