polarbearit

Right, I'm a little wound up with my current telephone/internet/TV service provider (Telewest), but I was about to go for 'Broadband' internet access. Anyway as I only get broadband for a sensible price if I have other telewest services it ties me to keeping a telewest phone line (rather than going to BT).

Anyway I've just seen that ADSL has got a whole lot cheaper now @ only £23.44/month from Pipex... So the question is, which is the better service? Cable suits the fact I have 4 pcs networked, can I use a home account of ADSL and share the network connection? Which is more reliable?

Also the start up costs for Pipex is very high (circa £130+) whereas the the connection cost for cable is about £25. This does swing it towards telewest, is there anything I can do to reduce the ADSL start up cost?

Thanks,

Jon

Fosters

wires only option?

They set everything up from the exchange to your house, but everything inside your house you have to do - split the master socket, buy a modem, cable (cat5?) from the socket to your modem, etc.

www.adslguide.org would have more info.

gregh

Err, I thought Broadband was ADSL and vice versa???

Fosters

He meant Cable vs DSL

suba

if you got telewest, you might as well stick with them for broadband. i think they do a deal for internet, fone and TV, so maybe it's a cheaper option(?).

you can use the braodband connection and network up a few PCs. you got 2 options...

1st option
broadband connection goto a host PC running windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP. you can use microsoft Internet Connection Share (ICS) to share out the broadband connection (using a hub).

2nd option
get a broadband router. the broadband connection will goto the router and share out the connection from there. no need to have a host PC.

babber

Jon,

It's got to be Telewest Broadband, I'm biased as I work for them mate. Why are we winding you up mate ?? Email me off line if you like and I will resolve your problem for you, if I can!!

Get a cable modem and a Netgear RP114 router mate, will run the four PCs nice and easy. I may even have a spare one could also arrange for a couple of good installers to install the services

Cheers Phill C

rik1471

ADSL is 512K download 256K upload

Cable (eg. Telewest) is 512K download 128K upload

[Edited by rik1471 - 4/25/2002 4:32:38 PM]

WillieF

I am a little biased as I am a beta tester for Blueyonder [and was for ADSL as well] however blueyonder have a lower contention ratio than ADSL and aren't reliant on BT who seem to spend quite a lot of time mucking around with the network.

Blueyonder broadband is very very expandable I am playing with a 2Mbit version at the mo and there is nothing to _in theory_ stop them taking it to a lot more where as IMO ADSL is limited.

ozzy

TW are looking for more testers for their 1Mb link. Have I put my name forward .... you'd better believe it

Stefan

ozzy

Oh and another thing, since I had broadband install in Feb 2001, the connection's only ever been done once

There have been some probs with certain things, like e-mail or personal web space, but other than a 20min call to tech support to reset my cable modem I've never had a problem getting online.

Stefan

babber

Stefan,

The WAN Infrustructure is being upgraded in one part of the country or another on a nightly basis. I know as I agree or disagree the change requests for the consumer division. Luckily most of the work is transparent to the customer. Were building an IP flagship, that will wipe the floor with our competitors

The 1 Mb trial is only available in Scotland, for the beta testers. We're looking for 1,500 of them. I live in Bristol, and we have three on test (including mine ) at the moment.

As for speed, the Cable modem will work upto 10 mb /sec and 5 mb /sec upstream, hello that is very very fast.

Cheers Phill C

polarbearit

Phill,

Glad to hear Telewest are investing lots at the moment, I guess that's why the prices have risen on most things

I've been less than impressed with the Telewest customer service of late, and the internet support line is going premium rate too so I had been looking to leave telewest, I'm also sick of not being able to 'press the red button' or have any useable interactive functions. So I may head to sky soon, but only if I can sort out a decent/sensible price ADSL service.

ozzy

10Mb/s

Jeez, can you imagine just how fast that would be that would be awesome.

Hopefully, I'll be one of the luck 1,500 scots to give the 1MB a try.

Stefan

suba

10Mbit!!! you can share it for the whole street!

can i piggy back on your connection using WiFi?????

babber

polarbearit,

I understand and appreciate your comments about customer services, they have recently closed the call centre at Aztec West and moved half of it to Dudley and the other half to Sheffield. Obviously this has had a huge impact on the call centres ability to answer call quickly and effeciently. We are recruiting and training call centre staff as we speak, to try and reduce the call waiting times.

As for the red interactive button, we are starting to test this functionality on Tuesday next week. Before we can launch this we need to spool out a new code to all the DHT, which is completely different look and feel to the current version. I'm a triallist as always

Hope this helps, Phill C

polarbearit

I'll tell you what I could do with a new set top box I think, mine's always freezing... Anyway I guess I'll have to stick with telewest as the BT sharing connection is a small fortune and I can't see how to make the hardware more sensibly prices...

ChrisB

Some interesting reading there Phil - top info, cheers

babber

No problem.

Polar, phone me on Monday after 10 am (01179097044) and I get someone to test the signal and change the box

May even do it myself mate.

Cheers Phill C