Site Map Our Services User Tools News & Notices Software Downloads Support Forum Chat Rooms Links

FastNet Service Details

What is FastNet?

FASTNET Accelerated speeds up your Internet experience, by up to six times, using your existing dialup phone line and modem. You do not require any extra equipment. FASTNET allows you to surf at near DSL speed, making FASTNET the high-speed Internet solution with the convenience of dial-up. It is easy to install, runs seamlessly and doesn't alter any of your existing software. You can also control the amount of compression vs. speed gain yourself.

What gets accelerated?

FASTNET compresses the following elements of web pages in order to send the information to your computer faster:

  • Web pages - HTML markup and JavaScript
  • Graphics including JPEG and GIF images
  • Text
  • Web Based E-mail.

What will not be accelerated?

Although FASTNET is able to compress many different types of online data, there are a few which cannot be accelerated:

  • Streaming media, audio and video files
  • Secure pages, such as those used for online banking and credit card forms
  • Files and attachments such as music or digital photos.
  • Normal Email

Additional NOTE: In most cases, FastNet will accelerate most anything that runs through your web browser. Anything that does not work through the web browser will not be accelerated. So in short, FastNet is designed, and meant to speed up web browsing only. You will not notice any speed difference in non browser based online games, FTP file transfers, FrontPage publishing, Outlook Express Email or anything else that does not operate through the web browser.


How does it work?

With traditional dialup methods, the text and graphics that make up Web pages get sent from the server to you over your phone line. Because of the large amount of data required to be sent, this process can be painfully slow. FASTNET compresses this data using a proprietary technology, and sends it over your existing dialup phone line. This compression process allows a smaller amount data to be sent – up to six times less – making the download time of your web pages and your online experience that much faster. As an added download time reducer, FASTNET stores elements of the Web sites you visit frequently so you do not have to re-download them every time you visit these sites.

FASTNET System Requirements

  • Dialup Internet Connection
  • Supported Internet Browser:
    IE 5+ or Netscape Navigator 4.7 +.
    Opera or Mozilla require additional configuration.
  • Windows OS:
    Pentium PC 200MHz or better with Windows 98, ME, 2000, or XP
    (Mac and Linux are currently not supported).
  • Available Disk space: 5 MB
  • System Memory (RAM): 64 MB of RAM recommended

NOTE: The above requirements listed are the recommended minimum of the manufacture for the software. Megatron Data Systems has listed our recommend requirements below. We have found that the requirements listed above are the bare minimum, and in most cases result in unsatisfactory results.

Megatron Data Systems FASTNET Recommend System Requirements

  • Dialup Internet Connection 33.6K or better.
  • Supported Internet Browser:
    IE 5+ or Netscape Navigator 4.7 +.
    Opera or Mozilla require additional configuration.
  • Windows OS:
    Pentium PC 200MHz or better with Windows 98, ME, 2000, or XP
    (Mac and Linux are currently not supported).
  • Available Disk space: 10 MB
  • System Memory (RAM): 64 MB of RAM recommended
  • High End Graphics card: with 32 MB of video ram.
  • For Windows 2000 users: Recommend ram be at least 128MB and Processor speed at least 500MHz or better.
  • For Windows XP users: Recommended ram be at least 256 MB and a processor speed of 1GHz or better.

In short, the more modern the operating system, the more memory, and processor speed your computer must have.

We are not saying the FASTNET service will not run on slower computers, it does, but usage habits of the computer user effect the performance of the FASTNET software. Computers running a lot of background applications, infected with viruses, or have spy ware products installed will adversely effect the performance of the software. Newer computers** are far less likely to exhibit these problems because they have not been used as long.

** Definition of Newer Computer is a computer less than 1 year old running the latest operating system. In the fast changing world of computers, 1 year is obsolete.

 
© 2005 Megatron Data Systems, 6 Jacksonville Road, Colrain, MA 01340
Phone: 413-624-3002       Fax:  413-624-3486      Email:  customerservice@mtdata.net