Joss Winn joss@josswinn.org writes:
The University accomodation doesn't look that attractive after living in my own house for the last few years, although I don't mind the sound of some of the networked rooms available. However it is unlikely I will be offered one.
I've been told all campus rooms will be networked by Christmas at a university committee meeting yesterday. I'll leave it to others to remark about when they originally planned to have it done by. ;-)
Assuming I will look for shared accomodation or a studio flat, can anybody tell me about the availability of cable or DSL in the area?
ADSL is supposed to arrive early next year, first to Norwich City exchange, then to Norwich West a couple of weeks later, so I think that means almost all student accommodation will be covered. Clearly BT aren't quite as stupid as I give them credit for.
If anyone has _any_ advice at all regarding accomodation and computing for a post-grad student, I'd be very grateful.
Oh, beware. Many departments at the university are still what I consider "Linux-hostile". Very few (eg MTH) are Linux-friendly and most are neutral.
MJ Ray wrote:
ADSL is supposed to arrive early next year, first to Norwich City exchange, then to Norwich West a couple of weeks later, so I think that means almost all student accommodation will be covered. Clearly BT aren't quite as stupid as I give them credit for.
Really? Where'd you get that gem of info from? I've been squeezing BT's 'no idea sir' telestaff about every 2 months for the last year...
the only thing I noticed was a lovely blue blob over Norwich on their 'rollout by October 2001' map... Although I then spoke to BTOpenworld, the ISP that uses ADSL. They seemed to think they were completely seperate from the 'BT' that is doing the work in exchanges. i.e. even though we have the physical hardware to support ADSL to our homes (for I am 'Norwich City') there may not be an ISP supplying IP down it to us for a while after...??
And if NTL can't provide us with their NTLWorld unmetered dialup, because 'the old mercury exchange cant handle it' then how can we hope that that aged exchange can support cable modems?
As an aside, what would happen if me and my mate down the road bought cable modems that NTL (in other areas of the country) use and plugged them into the coax TV outlet in the wall? Would be be able to 'see' each other via IP? (this given that they don't have DHCP servers or whatever on our 'bit of coax' just yet)?
Neil
On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, Neil Sedger wrote:
As an aside, what would happen if me and my mate down the road bought cable modems that NTL (in other areas of the country) use and plugged them into the coax TV outlet in the wall? Would be be able to 'see' each other via IP? (this given that they don't have DHCP servers or whatever on our 'bit of coax' just yet)?
It probably wouldn't work, although what is interesting is that the NTL digital TV service uses IP for some (all?) of the interactive services.
Now I never had time to check this out as my PCMCIA card died before just before I moved away from Cambridge but the new Digital boxes manufactured by Pace have an ethernet port on the back that does work. If you plug a machine into it you do get a link light but alas I never had time to see if I could actually use it for anything useful :( or if it had a TCP stack sitting on the other side of it, but the upside of this is my brother in Norwich now has one of these boxen and I may have to go visit him soon with my laptop and network diagnostics kit and do some 'experiments' to see if I can get the pace box to talk.
Adam
-
Adam Bower -
MJ Ray -
Neil Sedger