blp

Hi all. At last the magic email saying I can get NTL broadband has arrived. Is it as good as it makes out? Is it reliable? Anyone found any issues? Anyone got any other thoughts for providers?
Thanks in advance.
Brett

alistair

I've got NTL broadband and it's excellent.

In my area you need to have digital TV, then you run ethernet from the set top box to your PC. I know some other areas do cable modems though.

My advice is find out how it works and get the stuff before you sign up for it as they switch it on within an hour or so,

alistair

Look here

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

Really good when it works, it is just a matter of hoping it never breaks down as the customer service is

That said I've only had one major problem with it in about 8 months, so it does seem to be reliable.

P1Fanatic

Ditto what Robertio says. NTL cable is fine when its up and running but when you want something changed or something goes wrong they are impossible to get hold of.

However Ive just moved house and they cocked up the transfer (long story). I called and complained and had not one but two managers call me back within 2 hours - now that must surely be a record!!!

I was one of the first users in Cambridge and have one of the original 3com CMX cable modems which seems to be the best one by far. I run a 3com 10/100 8 port switch off this and when we have LAN partys 6+ peeps connect over this and play online Counterstrike etc all with the same ping as one player. Download speeds exceed the theoretical max of 64k/sec and hit around 80k/sec sometimes - most of the time your limited by the far end server though.

[Edited by P1Fanatic - 3/3/2002 1:36:22 AM]

Sheepsplitter

NTL cable modem is excellent.
I've not had as many problems as most (apparently), but then I'm used to sorting out things myself ;-)
They are much easier to get hold of now.
Here's the numbers I use:-

If there is a problem and you suspect it's on their side use this number first 0800-0524315 (Service Outage). It's a recorded message of all known outages. Saves you swamping their help desk when a local hub goes down, and there is no 'phone queue'.

Cable modem support are on 0845-6500121. I have ALWAYS had them answer after 3-4 rings, and whilst the first person you speak to may not know the exact problem, they are quick to escalate to their backline support.

This is of course just personal experience for my area.

super_si

How can i share the NTl connection?? Ive got 2 ethernet cards, in one PC, 1 takes the NTL line in, the other connecting to another ethernet card in other PC, is it that simple?

Si

druddle

I have had a cable modem for over a year now. In the current house i have NTL phone and cable modem and sky TV. In the last house i had NTL digital and it was not a cable from the box to my cable modem, but that might be the new case on the new boxes.

Overall the cable modem has been excellent.

Dave

P1Fanatic

SuperSi it is that simple. If you want two PC's to use the cable connection you just need 2 nics on one machine (the gateway) and one on your other PC and a crossover cable to connect them. If you want more than two you need a hub/switch and straight patch cables.

The main gateway PC needs one NIC to connect to the modem and one to connect to the other PC or the hub/switch. You set the NIC using the cable modem to internet share and thats about it.

This is the cheapest method but means the gateway/proxy server needs to be on for the other machines to use the connection. A way around this is to use a specially adapted Cable/DSL router which plugs straight into the cable modem and allows you to hang the PCs straight off it. Last time I checked these were around £100 for a 4 port Netgear router with integrated 4 port switch.

Do a search at http://www.dabs.com for cable router and it will show you a few examples.

Simon.

super_si

Sent you an email about it

Si

Sheepsplitter

super_si
I use a Netgear RT311 router into a Linksys 5 port hub.
Works a treat.

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

We've got Ntl broadband, phone line and digital tv through cable and it's been great. We've only had one problem so far when something went wrong in the box down the road, we had to wait a few days for an engineer to call and fix it but that was due to the help desk girl getting a bit confused

The cable modem help desk have always answered after a couple of rings and have been very helpful and knowledgeable

All in all we're very pleased with the service and there's no doubt about it, it does offer very good value for money

Sal

super_si

I dont wanna spend loads n loads ive got what ive got, so nee dto utilize that

mparsonage

Try Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) which is built into later versions of Windows.

P1Fanatic

Super_Si - did u read my earlier post? Im assuming you have one machine already hooked up to the Cable modem and working fine? If so you need to sort the lan out between that PC and the 2nd one. You can go the simple way of adding the 2nd NIC to the main PC and then assigning it to automatically get an IP address and the same for the 2nd pc. The first PC needs to have the first nic set to use ICS (Internet Connection Sharing). Once this is done the 2nd PC should have access to the web.

If not you may want to try manually assigning IP addresses to the LAN NICs i.e 192.168.0.1 for PC1 and 192.168.0.2 for the other both using a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. The 2nd PC should use th first PCs IP of 192.168.0.1 as a default gateway and u can assign it DNS servers primary & secondary by copying the settings of the first NIC by typing 'ipconfig /all' in a dos window. But you still need ICS enabled on the first comps NIC that connects to the CModem.

Sorry for the wording but Im in a hurry.

Simon.

mparsonage

P1Fanatic,

I thought that ICS only worked when it is the only DHCP server on the network, allocating IP addresses etc. itself. AFAIK this is the case for Win2k Pro. Do newer versions of Windows allow you to use static IPs? Would be a reason for me to upgrade if they do...

StuntMonkey

I'm glad it's not just me that find ntl's customer service (or lack of it!) annoying.
However the cable modem service is excellent and to be fair to ntl I have used the cable modem support desk once and spoke to a guy who knew the products/services inside out. Tried for 45mins on the freephone number before this and got nowhere!!!
Can't fault the speed of the connections though!


[Edited by StuntMonkey - 3/4/2002 12:52:50 PM]