Going shopping

Time to get broadband. Thanks to all those contributing to discussions
recently, any comments on my thoughts to date ?

ISP, Plusnet £15 for 1Gb @512k. I am only replacing dial-up which is 5Mb
a day to me at present. They seems well recommended and little derided.
The 250Mb webspace is a bit of a bonus, OK it is low use but I'm fine
with that, and they run DD payment, CC is not acceptable to me.
There is also the customer service bypass available via the newsgroup if
required.

For the hardware I have been put off USB by all your postings, so I'll
head towards a network card and a modem/router/firewall. Bit of a
toss-up between Draytek 2500 at £85 and Netgear 834 at £67, play safe
with the Draytek or is that OTT, and the Netgear nightmares overstated ?
Perhaps a 4 way router is overkill, but I might have something else to
plug in soon. I have no experience of networking things, so I am hoping
for a smooth ride here.

Likely supplier is broadbandbuyer.co.uk, anyone dealt with them, are
they OK ?

TIA for input

Bill

On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 00:03:41 +0100, Bill
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Likely supplier is broadbandbuyer.co.uk, anyone dealt with them, are
>they OK ?

They promised me a discount for pointing a fraud out to them once. The
discount never actually happened and they ignored my emails asking
why.




--
To email me remove ".lartsspammers"
http://www.kingqueen.org.uk

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill" <(E-Mail Removed)>
Newsgroups: uk.telecom.broadband
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 12:03 AM
Subject: Going shopping


> Time to get broadband. Thanks to all those contributing to discussions
> recently, any comments on my thoughts to date ?

> For the hardware I have been put off USB by all your postings, so I'll
> head towards a network card and a modem/router/firewall. Bit of a
> toss-up between Draytek 2500 at £85 and Netgear 834 at £67, play safe
> with the Draytek or is that OTT, and the Netgear nightmares overstated ?
> Perhaps a 4 way router is overkill, but I might have something else to
> plug in soon. I have no experience of networking things, so I am hoping
> for a smooth ride here.


Bill, I have two Netgear DG834G wireless modem/router units (one at work,
and one at home) and they have run 100 percent reliably since I fitted them
both in January this year. Both run 24/7 and both have been upgraded to the
latest firmware (not that the old firmware was giving any problems). They
are excellent and don't let anyone put you off the 834 if you fancy going
for one. I really cannot fault them... I use both wired 100mbps and
wireless 54g to a laptop and the connections are extremely reliable at both
my locations.

The Netgear DG834G is so easy to set up. All you do is plug it into a
network adapter (CAT5) and you are away.... tap in the IP address to access
its built in setup menu and thats it! Any wireless devices are assigned IP
addresses automatically by DHCP from the DG834.

Tony

"Bill" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:cfoq5j$207$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Time to get broadband. Thanks to all those contributing to discussions
> recently, any comments on my thoughts to date ?
>
> Likely supplier is broadbandbuyer.co.uk, anyone dealt with them, are
> they OK ?
>
> TIA for input
>
> Bill
>


Bill if you go for the Netgear DG834G, you`ll get the best deal right now at
Simply Computers.

Heres the link http://tinyurl.com/5hk6o

The total price including free delivery (in August only) is £93.99

The same deal will cost you £104.19 from broadbandbuyer.

I bought both mine from Simply Computers.

Regards

Tony

Bill wrote:
> Time to get broadband. Thanks to all those contributing to discussions
> recently, any comments on my thoughts to date ?
>
> ISP, Plusnet £15 for 1Gb @512k. I am only replacing dial-up which is 5Mb
> a day to me at present. They seems well recommended and little derided.
> The 250Mb webspace is a bit of a bonus, OK it is low use but I'm fine
> with that, and they run DD payment, CC is not acceptable to me.
> There is also the customer service bypass available via the newsgroup if
> required.

Have you looked at Metronet? www.metronet.co.uk

>
> For the hardware I have been put off USB by all your postings, so I'll
> head towards a network card and a modem/router/firewall. Bit of a
> toss-up between Draytek 2500 at £85 and Netgear 834 at £67, play safe
> with the Draytek or is that OTT, and the Netgear nightmares overstated ?
> Perhaps a 4 way router is overkill, but I might have something else to
> plug in soon. I have no experience of networking things, so I am hoping
> for a smooth ride here.

These 3com's seem quite highly rated but I've not tried one mysekf:
http://www.misco.co.uk/productinform...UTER/index.htm
or http://tinyurl.com/6lhsx

The SpeedTouch 510v4 from www.dslsource.co.uk is easy to set up and
cheap too.

* alex goes back to wanting a Cisco 837

>
> Likely supplier is broadbandbuyer.co.uk, anyone dealt with them, are
> they OK ?
>
> TIA for input
>
> Bill
>
>
>


--
(E-Mail Removed)
(valid email address)

"Bill" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:cfoq5j$207$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Time to get broadband. Thanks to all those contributing to discussions
> recently, any comments on my thoughts to date ?
>
> ISP, Plusnet £15 for 1Gb @512k. I am only replacing dial-up which is 5Mb
> a day to me at present. They seems well recommended and little derided.
> The 250Mb webspace is a bit of a bonus, OK it is low use but I'm fine
> with that, and they run DD payment, CC is not acceptable to me.
> There is also the customer service bypass available via the newsgroup if
> required.

Are you sure that 1GB/month is enough? I mean, one ISO download a month
would eat 65% of your allowance. For pure browsing, email and NG usage you
would probably be ok, but you can forget streaming video/radio and any
serious downloading. You would be better to go for the unlimited option for
£6 (IIRC) on the top of the base fee.
>
> For the hardware I have been put off USB by all your postings, so I'll
> head towards a network card and a modem/router/firewall. Bit of a
> toss-up between Draytek 2500 at £85 and Netgear 834 at £67, play safe
> with the Draytek or is that OTT, and the Netgear nightmares overstated ?

Personally I use a Solwise SAR-715 so I can't comment personally on either
of your choices but from what I've read the Vigor is the better of the two.

> Perhaps a 4 way router is overkill, but I might have something else to
> plug in soon. I have no experience of networking things, so I am hoping
> for a smooth ride here.

<If you have more then one PC, I'd choose the multiple port router. You
have the advantage of not needing your main PC to be running whenever you
want to go on the internet with you other pc(s.)

> Likely supplier is broadbandbuyer.co.uk, anyone dealt with them, are
> they OK ?

Can't comment. I have used solwise.co.uk and they are good but they don't
sell either of the routers you wish to buy.

>
> TIA for input
>
> Bill

No probs, have fun with your DSL

> For the hardware I have been put off USB by all your postings, so I'll
> head towards a network card and a modem/router/firewall. Bit of a
> toss-up between Draytek 2500 at £85 and Netgear 834 at £67, play safe
> with the Draytek or is that OTT, and the Netgear nightmares overstated ?

I've been using the Netgear DG834 for months and it has always worked well
for me. I know from reading posts in this group that people have had
problems with this model but I've never experienced any problems at all.

Darran West

On 16 Aug 2004, in uk.telecom.broadband, "boo_star" wrote:

>Are you sure that 1GB/month is enough? I mean, one ISO download a month
>would eat 65% of your allowance.

Some might ask "what the heck is an ISO download" as we have different uses
for our connections. Someone else mentioned MetroNet which starts at lower
level, offers an ISP-provided firewall to block incoming traffic, but has a
few less features (and charges for additional MB, not in 1 GB lumps).

>For pure browsing, email and NG usage you would probably be ok, but you
>can forget streaming video/radio and any serious downloading. You would
>be better to go for the unlimited option for £6 (IIRC) on the top

I think the PlusNet website does mention a couple of hours radio a week in
one of their examples, but it all depends on what Bill wants and if he has
a full and varied set of other leisure time activities and computing is a
small part, there's little need to go for an uncapped service...

>"Bill" wrote
>> Bit of a toss-up between Draytek 2500 at £85 ...

The bulk of my friends/clients have used cheaper 4-port routers from Dabs
or Ebuyer, while the only one that had a Netgear (814) had it die within
7 days. I'm not convinced paying double the money is necessary, and I'd
sugggest a software firewall, to protect this PC from any others that in
time might be connected on the same LAN. Peter M.


--
PlusNet <http://tinyurl.com/24ymz> - I recommend them and save some cash.

poster wrote:

> On 16 Aug 2004, in uk.telecom.broadband, "boo_star" wrote:
>
>
>>Are you sure that 1GB/month is enough? I mean, one ISO download a month
>>would eat 65% of your allowance.
>
>
> Some might ask "what the heck is an ISO download" as we have different uses
> for our connections. Someone else mentioned MetroNet which starts at lower
> level, offers an ISP-provided firewall to block incoming traffic, but has a
> few less features (and charges for additional MB, not in 1 GB lumps).

As long as people know that the MetroNet firewall doesn't block probes
from other MetroNet users... A local firewall is still needed.

>
>
>>For pure browsing, email and NG usage you would probably be ok, but you
>>can forget streaming video/radio and any serious downloading. You would
>>be better to go for the unlimited option for £6 (IIRC) on the top
>
>
> I think the PlusNet website does mention a couple of hours radio a week in
> one of their examples, but it all depends on what Bill wants and if he has
> a full and varied set of other leisure time activities and computing is a
> small part, there's little need to go for an uncapped service...
>
>
>>"Bill" wrote
>>
>>>Bit of a toss-up between Draytek 2500 at £85 ...
>
>
> The bulk of my friends/clients have used cheaper 4-port routers from Dabs
> or Ebuyer, while the only one that had a Netgear (814) had it die within

meh - conexant based routers :-/

> 7 days. I'm not convinced paying double the money is necessary, and I'd
> sugggest a software firewall, to protect this PC from any others that in
> time might be connected on the same LAN. Peter M.

I'd go for something like a SpeedTouch 510v4 - quite good value and the
NAT feature provides sufficient protection for most people. *Very* easy
to setup and stable, too.

alex
>
>



--

Tony wrote:
> "Bill" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:cfoq5j$207$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>>Time to get broadband. Thanks to all those contributing to discussions
>>recently, any comments on my thoughts to date ?
>>
>>Likely supplier is broadbandbuyer.co.uk, anyone dealt with them, are
>>they OK ?
>>
>>TIA for input
>>
>>Bill
>>
>
>
>
> Bill if you go for the Netgear DG834G, you`ll get the best deal right now at
> Simply Computers.
>
> Heres the link http://tinyurl.com/5hk6o
>
> The total price including free delivery (in August only) is £93.99
>
> The same deal will cost you £104.19 from broadbandbuyer.
>
> I bought both mine from Simply Computers.
>
> Regards
>
> Tony
>
>

Thanks for the input, but I will definitely be wired, not wireless. (834
not 834G) If I don't go for the Draytek there is more choice of
suppliers it is true.

Bill