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going wireless

22 replies

misdee · 20/05/2007 08:31

as part of the revamping our home, i want to look at going wireless for the pc, so i can move it into abetter spot in the living room and not have wires pinned up anywhere. we are on ntl/virgin media with that big thick cable, rather than a phone socket modem. do i need a certain type of wireless set up for this? virgin media are selling a set up for £40, good price or not?

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sparklygothkat · 20/05/2007 13:10

I would look into sky broadband as its cheap

fryalot · 20/05/2007 13:11

(don't go with BT - they're awful and it takes you two weeks of hanging on the phone listening to their automated message telling you how important you are - I'm whispering this, because if they hear me telling you how crap they are they will "lose" my wireless connection for half an hour to punish me )

MellowMa · 20/05/2007 13:11

Message withdrawn

MellowMa · 20/05/2007 13:12

Message withdrawn

sparklygothkat · 20/05/2007 13:21

I have BT and I hate it, will be moving to sky as soon as my contract is up

misdee · 20/05/2007 13:26

cant move to sky yet, still got 2months of tie-in with virgin media.

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CODalmighty · 20/05/2007 14:07

do you not have a phone?

misdee · 20/05/2007 14:23

yes, but the modem for virgin uses their big multi purpose cable, which they also use to run the tv box off. it isnt plugged into the phone socket at all.

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CODalmighty · 20/05/2007 14:24

ah

sniff · 20/05/2007 14:28

I have virgin where the wire for broadband comes in to the house you have to ttach a wireless router.

I think we can only use ADL ones not ADSL netgear is good but cost £60+ but its really easy to secure.
I have a phillips one which is good but not as easy to secure but covers all three floors with good overall reception it also came with a dongle which you plug into PC to make it wireless I hard wire my main pc and run laptop off wireless

HTH

misdee · 20/05/2007 14:35

i was looking at this

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sniff · 20/05/2007 14:40

is that for virgin broadband that comes through a telephone line because you dont need a filter on a hard wired modem

good price though

misdee · 20/05/2007 14:45

seee, i dont know thw difference. can someone help me with what i need?

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MaryHinge · 20/05/2007 14:56

Do you have a BT line misdee? Or did you get disconnected when you went on cable?

sniff · 20/05/2007 15:07

are you in a cable are where yourhave a virgin phone virgin BB and only pay them nothing to BT

misdee · 20/05/2007 15:16

i get broadband and phone through virgin. can i just plug in through the phone then?

bt box is disconnected.

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misdee · 20/05/2007 15:16

dont pay a thing to bt

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sniff · 20/05/2007 15:17

no you plug the wireless router into the moden you already have if you ring them on 150 they will tell you what equipment you will need and might sell it you at a better price

JARM · 20/05/2007 15:38

try this

DominiConnor · 20/05/2007 16:07

Forgive me if for the sake of clarity assume you know nothing about IT.
The NTL deal doesn't look bad, though their customer support is so dreadful, I wouldn't buy anything from them.
Actiontec is a cheapo brand. If you are having the router and PC pretty close, then it should be OK.
The range advertised for wireless is what we geeks call a "lie". But for an average house you should be OK.
In particular the assertion that you can use it in the garden is only true if you have a small garden and the router is near the back window.
I'd go for the NetGear router, I've bought quite literally hundreds of items from them, over the years and not one has let me down.Some have survived treatment that not only would void a warranty, but borders upon criminal damage. One item was kicked several times a day for a couple of years.

I have a close variant of the NetGear NTL is offering (at a good price), so would recommend it.
But you must do exactly what the manual says. I tried being clever, and it flatly ignored me until I followed the easy instructions.

Unless your PC has a wireless network card, you'll need one of these as well. Which does I must say make the cheapo Actiontec a bit more attractive because it includes one.

What you plug into your PC is a function of
your courage and desire for speed.
The fastest is an internal card. These aren't that hard to install, but you have to want to.
Easier is the USB type. They just require you run a disk, and plug it in in that order.
They are a bit slower, since USB is not the fastest way to pump data. Thus you may have a 10 megabit NTL connection, a 54 megabit per second network, but you may find the USB link running at 2.

If your PC doesn't have wireless you need something to connect it.

misdee · 20/05/2007 16:22

right, i live i na bungalow, thin walls and not much floor space. does that a difference?

OP posts:
DominiConnor · 21/05/2007 15:08

Thin walls are good
Do you want connectivity throughout the house or just in one room ?

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