On Mon, Jan 06, 2003 at 10:09:37PM +0000, BenEBoy wrote:

OK, apparantly I can get broadband in Norwich with NTL now, has anyone had any experience with them? I'm thinking more of the technical side of things. I've been informed that NTL uses some gizmo on the phone line so you just plug it straight into a NIC and not a modem, so I'm *guessing* that there wouldn't be any problem.

The set top box has an ethernet port on the back, so you just use a normal NIC in your PC and plug into that and do DHCP stuff. However be warned that there's a month wait for installation slots at present.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d.h.walker/cmtips/index.html

is a very useful site about the various setup bits; the Pace STB is what's used in Norwich (or at least, what I have).

J.

Hi,

On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, BenEBoy wrote:

OK, apparantly I can get broadband in Norwich with NTL now, has anyone had any experience with them?

Yes, I have the 1mb broadband service.

When you buy the service from NTL, assuming you already have a digital set-top box, you have the choice of an engineer visiting to set the service up or a "DIY" service where NTL post you the bits you need.

Anyone with a fair grasp of computers will be able to do the DIY option. It takes 1-2 weeks for the kit to arrive in the post.

In the DIY kit you get a long (I mean *long*, probably 10+ metres) CAT5 cable, a crossover adapter, a USB ethernet adapter, a CD and installation guide, and a letter confirming your username, password and access code.

I'm thinking more of the technical side of things. I've been informed that NTL uses some gizmo on the phone line so you just plug it straight into a NIC and not a modem, so I'm *guessing* that there wouldn't be any problem.

Probably depends on your setup, but here I have the Pace set-top box, which has a "live" ethernet port on the back which gives me connections via DHCP.

There are two types of set-top box out there: one requires the crossover adapter to be plugged into the back (into which you then plug regular CAT5 cables) and the other has crossover built-in (which I have). It's easy to identify which you have: it'll say "crossover" beside the port on the back of the box if you've got the former.

Configuration is easy: plug a regular cat5 cable into the set-top box (or into set-top box with adapter) and into your computer network interface card (NIC), go through the Windows software install and registration procedure, and you're away.

Interestingly, NTL recommend you use the USB Ethernet dongle with your computer rather than a regular NIC. I guess this is because it saves having to add the hardware to your machine. If you already have a NIC, you'd do well to use it though: USB ethernet carries a performance and CPU overhead.

There's probably a way to do the registration without the Windows software, as it is all web-based, but I'm not sure how you'd get the initial DHCP lease.

The registration associates your NIC's MAC address (the HWaddr in 'ifconfig') with your username/password, and I believe you can register any number of computers this way.

For added coolness, if you have a linksys wireless access point/cable router, you can plug this into the set-top box too. The linksys WAP [1] does MAC address spoofing, so if you set it to the address of the computer you registered with, it will cheerfully renew your DHCP lease for you, acting as a gateway onto the NTL network. I can't praise this piece of kit high enough: it truly rocks! Combine it with a Linksys wireless card for your computer, and throw out the extra cables.

[1] http://www.linksys.com/Products/product.asp?grid=23&prid=415

All in all: thoroughly recommend it. Easy to set up, fast and (so far) stable service. I was impressed with the speed of the connection. I get around 120kb/s on average, which after 56k modems seems heavenly.

Andrew.