Broadband recommendations?

[Trousers]

Well I'm a happy AOL subscriber!

I can just hear the cries of 'A satisfied customer. Have him stuffed'

hey ho a one way course to Taxidermy !!

[bigdjiver]

I thought all AOL customers were?

[Clive Long]

Originally Posted by Trousers

Well I'm a happy AOL subscriber!

I can just hear the cries of 'A satisfied customer. Have him stuffed'

hey ho a one way course to Taxidermy !!

(Another) Friend of mine (I have two !!) is an AOL dial-up customer

He wants to go wireless broadband.

I'm too lazy to do the research.

Are there any packages for 512k broadband at under £20/month that also sell a wireless router / modem with a PCMCIA card combination - rather than taking a USB ADSL modem ??

We are not going to mess around with MS Internet connection sharing to connect multiple devices to the broadband.

Ta

CRL

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by Clive Long

Are there any packages for 512k broadband at under £20/month that also sell a wireless router / modem with a PCMCIA card combination - rather than taking a USB ADSL modem ??

It's very hard to find anything as slow as 512K these days...

I'd recommend PlusNet (http://www.plus.net) (EDIT: as many others already have... )

They do 2Mbps for £14.99/month and will sell you the router and PC card stuff for £90.

Just don't be confused by their "wireless broadband" packages which are about mobile wireless...

[Clive Long]

Originally Posted by ducasi

<< snip >>
I'd recommend PlusNet (http://www.plus.net) (EDIT: as many others already have... )
<< snip >>

Funnily enough I did read the other posts in this thread that recommended PlusNet

I should have emphasised the ALSO i.e. a package that includes the router (horrible abuse of word, I prefer modem-hub, few do).

Plus Net looks good and if they don't do a wireless combo I will look at DS's favourite site - e-buyer for a good deal on that kit - something like my Netgear 824M and a D-Link printer server so he can put the printer in a cupboard.


Ta,
Clive

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by Clive Long

I will look at DS's favourite site - e-buyer for a good deal on that kit -

ebuyer r00lz

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by Clive Long

I should have emphasised the ALSO i.e. a package that includes the router (horrible abuse of word, I prefer modem-hub, few do).

Plus Net looks good and if they don't do a wireless combo ...

Like I maybe didn't say clearly enough, they have a package which does includes a wireless router + PC card. (There's nothing wrong with using the word "router" here, as that's usually what it's doing, unless it's configured as a bridge... )

Or are you meaning "includes" as in "part of the regular cost", rather than a one-off? Don't know if that exists...

If it were me I'd go buy a netgear whatever, go with whatever provider you prefer and throw away any "free" modem you get given...

[El Salsero Gringo]

Originally Posted by Clive Long

Funnily enough I did read the other posts in this thread that recommended PlusNet

I should have emphasised the ALSO i.e. a package that includes the router (horrible abuse of word, I prefer modem-hub, few do).

Plus Net looks good and if they don't do a wireless combo I will look at DS's favourite site - e-buyer for a good deal on that kit - something like my Netgear 824M and a D-Link printer server so he can put the printer in a cupboard.


Ta,
Clive

It's not a modem-hub. It is a modem-router-hub or possibly modem-router-switch, though; it's doing some specific IP stuff that only routers do and pure hubs don't.

A while ago all the packages that included routers were business packages marketed for small networks, in the £100's per month; I don't know if that's still the case.

[Clive Long]

Originally Posted by El Salsero Gringo

It's not a modem-hub. It is a modem-router-hub or possibly modem-router-switch, though; it's doing some specific IP stuff that only routers do and pure hubs don't.
<< snip >>

True true.

Hub is far to crude - although the device does implement a hub it is far more capable than that.

Where I am coming from, if anyone outside our little geek-fest is interested, is a router spans at least two IP (sub-) networks and makes routing decisions based on destination IP. For me, a router is also receiving some network topology information from other routers to dynamically change its decisions about where to send IP packets for the non-home network - although that capability is redundant if the "router" is spanning just two IP (sub-)network address ranges. It is the lack of this exchange of routing information and the restriction to spanning a private address range and a single public IP address that irks my sensitivity when this class of devices is called a router (funny singular/plural mix there Clive).

How about: modem-hub-switch-NAttingfirewall-leafnodesub-router? Catchy, don't you think?

CRL
Edit:

Originally Posted by ducasi

If it were me I'd go buy a netgear whatever, go with whatever provider you prefer and throw away any "free" modem you get given...

Yep, I have been happy with the Netgear plus some directional aerials in my wireless-hostile flat.

[Dreadful Scathe]

Ive not seen a package that includes a router anyway , but most do include a usb modem. If you spin it round by its cable they can be thrown for a good 40 feet ebuyer (woo) sell a ADSL-WIRELESS-802.11g-ROUTER-SWITCH-MODEM for a mere £50.

USB, at least in the context of modems, stands for "you-suck-bandwidth"

well not really but they are a drain a bit. Ethernet r00lz.

[Dreadful Scathe]

Clive : even I got bored then

[ducasi]

Clive...

Like DS, I got bored, but it was when I was trying to come up with a good way of saying simply

[jivecat]

What a fascinating and useful thread this would be if only I could understand more than one word in five.
I'm just about to sign up for the Tiscali £14.99 unlimited deal, following the line of least resistance as I'm already a Tiscali customer. I notice that I will be tied in to that price for 12 months. Is this reasonable, or does Tiscali know that the going rate for other providers will plummet in 3 months time? I've noticed that each successive Tiscali offer has got cheaper and mre favourable.
Please make a decision for me, preferably using words at a Janet & John level.

[philsmove]

[quote=Icey]I'm not looking for heavy downloads such as games etc just swift update downloads and of course website surfing.

[quote]

Beware once you have broadband you will use it more and more
So go for unlimited access
I’m with Telewest and am very impressed with their service
Don’t even think of BT openworld - they are crooks

[Seahorse]

Someone mentioned a company called freedom to surf who were offering 2mb for £20 per month with unlimited downloads.

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by Seahorse

Someone mentioned a company called freedom to surf who were offering 2mb for £20 per month with unlimited downloads.

There may be companies that offer genuinely unlimited downloads. But it won't be long before they do what many of them are already doing, which is, rather than imposing an actual cap, have a "Sustainable" or "Fair" Use Policy, which means that extremely heavy users get restricted if they go over a specified amount, x times in y months.

In practice, however, these amounts are very, very large, compared with what "normal" people download. For instance, PlusNet sets two levels, 30 Gb per month of peak time usage (4pm to midnight IIRC) and 100 Gb per month offpeak. If you exceed this more than twice in three months, they start to warn you, and then restrict your connection.

But for comparison, given a few hours of web surfing, email downloading, and some music downloading per day, and you'd be hard pushed to exceed 1 or 2 Gb per month. It really is very hard to come anywhere near these limits without spending most of your time downloading bootlegged movies.

So, when you're looking at different ISPs, bear in mind that "unlimited" probably isn't (read the small print) but that any fair use policies probably won't affect you.

[Magic Hans]

Have a look at www.uswitch.com

It seems to give all the different competitors packages for a particular area in an easily comparable format!

[jivecat]

Thanks, Magic Hans, that website seems clear and easy to use. It seems to suggest, however, that Toucan offers the best product for my purposes. Anyone know anything about this? It doesn't even feature on the ADSL site.
Chris A - thanks for all your help. Plusnet is looking very good, so far!

[jivecat]

I'm coming to the conclusion that £14.99 is the going rate for the kind of product I'm after. If it's advertised as cheaper than that there's a hidden catch, like a big setup cost, or VAT not included. So the main consideration is tie-in time and quality of service.
Oh dear, still, hopelessly confused!

[LMC]

Pathetic excuse for a rant

NTL, grrrrrrrrr

I cancelled the NTL phone service earlier this year as my lodger needed a BT line for work. But I told NTL I would keep the broadband. Fine, they said. Then cut me off two months later because they got confused. Of course, I thought it was a fault, so spent about an hour on the phone to the technical department before we discovered this. Reconnected within 5 minutes and all sorted. One month later: same thing happened - except this time I was a bit crosser and told them to check it a bit sooner.... Day before yesterday: same again. EXCEPT that this time I was told I have to open a new account and it will take a week to send an engineer out. The box is there. The line is there. There is NO NEED to send out an engineer. So they won't be sending out an engineer, as I have cancelled my account and demanded a refund (oh yeah, they cut me off, but still took the direct debit for next month - my account was in credit).

To be scrupulously fair, the broadband itself was fine (until they cut me off) - rarely any problems with speed and only once had any downtime owing to server switches - not bad in nearly two years. But NTL's 'aftercare' is rubbish - and they aren't the cheapest out there.

So my home internet connection won't be restored until I get the box from BT next week (no, they aren't the cheapest either, nor are they the best probably, but it's the easy option). Maybe I'll get some housework done...