Blueyonder Broadband

[Oddbodd]

Hi Guys, I'm getting Blueyonder installed next friday for xbox live and pc gaming and any advice you could give would be appreciated. I live in a bungalow which I hope will make things a bit simpler, the idea is to get it fed into the study\spare bedroom and then pipe it around myself? There is a loft coversion(my den) where the pc, xbox & cube will live but I would also like it fed into the living room for large screen gaming\surfing(when my better half is out :smashin: ), thats when I get a large screen :rolleyes: . The study will also be used for temporary internet connection with a laptop. So guys do I hard wire it or use some of these wireless connectors? Any tips on what to use and what not to use would be most welcome. Cheers Oddbodd................

[Vection]

I'm not sure how blue younder broadband works but when I had bt broadband (alas no longer), it was supplied to my bt line and was piped all over the house to every phone socket. I had to fit filters on each socket in order to use the phone and the net at the same time. The upside of this was that every phone socket in my house was broadband enabled. If blue younder works in the same way then assuming you have the same lin in your den as in your lounge then it sould be broadband enabled!

HTH

[nathan_silly]

I would recommend you use a DSL router- you don't need a host PC to be on, and you won't need any drivers (you just to the routers DHCP server)

With USB modem, you'll need firewall protection- with a router because of NAT/VPN you're better protected.

I have a Netgear DG814- no problems- four computers connected to Pipex DSL.

Check if the Netgear DG814 works with your ISP- alot of people of slamming it for being ****, and they can't get FTP to work (not bothered about this feature anyway)

Also with USB mode if the host PC crashes- all the other PC's on the internet will disconnect. With the router everything is oblivous to any machine that crashes or switches off.

I would stick with hard wired, some guys are having problems with wireless network.

The price difference between a Modem (ie Alcatel frog) and a router (Netget DG814) is only a few quid.

Then you just use 10/100 RJ45 network cable from the router to each room/PC.

Nathan

[Sinzer]

No offense to the above posters, but please ignore those comments. Nathan_Silly + Vection you are discussing a DSL based connection, this technology runs through existing telephone connections. Oddbodd is discussing a cable connection which runs on a seperate line provided by a cable company.

Oddbodd you have two basic choices, Ethernet Cat5 router or wireless router :-

Ethernet Cat5 Router

Essentially you are looking at a 4 port router, this box will allow you to connect your cable modem to the router then share up to 4 devices on it.

Pros

Cheap to buy and install, Cat5 cabling is easily available and can be cut to specific lengths for around 50p/meter.

Easy to configure, most routers you simply plug in the cable and away you go.

Cons

Laying cable can be a ballache! It can take a little while to feed the cable through, and you have to carefully plan where you want it.



Wireless Router

Pros

You can have a connection anywhere, no need to bother with planning cabling routes etc.

Cons

Routers are expensive, usually around an extra 50 quid, then the wireless cards are expensive. Usually looking at an extra outlay of about 150 quid.

You have to ensure that you encrypt your datastream, I am not sure this is possible with consoles? You may end up sharing your bandwidth with everyone else in the street.

Signal strength can vary depending on how many walls are between the router and wireless card.

Bandwidth is much lower than cable, if you wanted to stream music or movies through the wireless router it would likely be impossible. Also, if you have 4 devices attempting to connect you may end up with contention problems. The current bandwidth is 11 megabits, however in real terms you usually acheive 5megabits. This up to 10 times more than your cable connection, however significantly less than Ethernet, which will usually be 100megabits. This will mostly affect any transfers between systems, such as copying files across.



Overall, if you are ok with cabling I would recommend it over wireless. Wireless is a nice thought, but it does require quite a bit of sorting out, and is significantly more expensive. If money is no object, and you need flexibility in connections (very handy with a laptop) then look at wireless.

For a look at some routers here are some recommended ones :-

Wired

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=255

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=340

Wireless

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=248

And yes, I am a big Netgear fan :)

Bear in mind, that if you buy a wireless router to buy the associated number of wireless cards.

[Oddbodd]

Thanks for the advice guys, I should have explained that the telephone line is from B.T. at the moment and its a right mess. There are loose sockets and wires all over the place and I can't wait to rip it all out. I am getting cable broadband and telephone from telewest. The plan is to just have one telephone socket in the study and use portable dect phone system to save leading wires all over the place. Sinzer, I think your advice is just what I was looking for. I will at some point want to download music/movies etc. so I think your right it will have to be hard wired. As I mentioned though I live in a bungalow and loft access is very easy so it shouldn't cause too many problems. There is a small desk in the study where I hope to position the surf-board, routers etc.(possibly tucked to one side on some sort of custom built stand in the interests of aesthetics you know :grin: ) Then I think rather than lifting floor boards(which have been sanded and varnished buy the way) it would be just as easy to drop a cable down the corner of a wall? Any more input would be welcome and thanks again to those who already have and especially to Sinzer, the links you posted are just the horses *** ;) . Cheers Oddbodd................

[Sinzer]

http://www.cbcableclips.com/openarm.htm

These are quite cool, very handy for threading round walls.

http://www.lanshop.co.uk/st3.htm

Or this for a more permanent approach.

Of course the ultimate is to get the drill out and make some nice ethernet ports in the wall, you can get the plugs for them like a telephone socket.

[Garbo]

I've been using Blueyonder broadband for over a year now and I think it's great. I've never had any major troubles with it and it's been fast and reliable. I live in a 4th floor flat, so to get it up they put the wire up the back beside the drainpipe, in through, a bedroom window, and through 2 walls along to here. :D

[Oddbodd]

Hi guys, I now have my blueyonder up and running and it's like :eek: fast!!
I have been using a 56k modem for years and it's :boring: so slow........
I've only got the computer fixed up at the minute and while I'm waiting for the xbox live kits to be released I'll sort my network out. I'm going to follow Sinzer's advice and get a Netgear 4way router and hard wire it, so I'll let you all know how I get on.
That's it for now off to do a bit more HI SPEED surfing :grin:
Cheers Oddbodd...................

[badger95]

Just reading
this thread; I need to know to help out my dad who has a BlueYonder Internet conenction; how is the service deliverd into the property? And then how is it delivered to his PC? I have asked him but he cant explain! He wants me to replace the long and untidy wires with wireless AP and wirelss network card in the PC. How can I do this? Is there some kind of box between the cable input to the building and the PC; like a cable modem of some kind? What is the output of such a unit? Is is Cat 5 ethernet or USB or some kind of bespoke conenction? Cant find any info on the BY NTL site and if ring them they wont give out technical information.

many thanks

:thumbsup:

[unique]

Just reading
this thread; I need to know to help out my dad who has a BlueYonder Internet conenction; how is the service deliverd into the property? And then how is it delivered to his PC? I have asked him but he cant explain! He wants me to replace the long and untidy wires with wireless AP and wirelss network card in the PC. How can I do this? Is there some kind of box between the cable input to the building and the PC; like a cable modem of some kind? What is the output of such a unit? Is is Cat 5 ethernet or USB or some kind of bespoke conenction? Cant find any info on the BY NTL site and if ring them they wont give out technical information.

many thanks

:thumbsup:

when blueyonder install, they have 1 connection going into your house, they won't put more than 1 in. thats like the BT entrypoint. from there they will wire up the connections round the rest of your house, such as cables to phone points in other rooms, etc. if you already have an entry point in your house for cable tv, they will put in another cable to connect your broadband (even if it goes from the living room all the way upstairs). if you move into a new house and the previous owners had broadband, they will wire from the point already in the house, regardless of what you want

from the entry point, a cable will run to where you want your pc setup to access the internet (or a broadband router - different from a DSL router - with DSL you connect from the phoneline, so if you have phone sockets around the house you can plug your DSL modem or router anywhere and move to another socket if you want, but with cable you have to make up your mind at install). at the end of the cable they will give you a cable modem, usually a motorola surfboard. this can be connected to your pc by either ethernet/cat5 or usb. the guy from blueyonder probably won't even touch your pc, you will need to install and setup yourself from a disc they give you (but its pretty easy). the disc does prompt to install to ethernet/cat5 if you have that on your pc, whether or not you prefer to use USB. personally, i have mine connected via USB so i can connect two pcs with a crossover cat5 cable without needing to use a router or switch. the pcs are next to each other, so no need to pay another £40/£50 for router and more cable

BY used to install wireless for customers, but i don't think they do this. when you call them to book your install, ask if you can do this. they will of course charge a fair bit extra tho

ive setup BY on a few pcs at friends houses, including wireless and it was fairly easy, and the helpline folks i spoke to knew thier stuff, which i didn't expect, i'm used to dealing with the braindead on tech support lines in india with people who can bearly speak english, and probably have never seen a pc in thier life. the BY helpline is also either freephone or local rate, so it's not a rip off

[unique]

I've been using Blueyonder broadband for over a year now and I think it's great. I've never had any major troubles with it and it's been fast and reliable. I live in a 4th floor flat, so to get it up they put the wire up the back beside the drainpipe, in through, a bedroom window, and through 2 walls along to here. :D

thats fairly standard, i'm way up high too. BT do the same, they throw the cable out the window and connect at the bottom. in my new flat they wired from the living room, along the hall and all around the bedroom, but the guy was really fast and neat. if you ask they will leave a spare metre or two of cable lenght at the end in case you want to move your cable modem a bit

oh, the speeds are really good, a year ago it was a half meg connection for £25 a month (if you don't have tv or phone etc), and now its 4 megs, 8 times faster, for the same price. they increased to 1mb about 1 year ago, and to 4 meg a couple of months ago, and very rarely is the connection lost, unlike DSL which used to D/C a lot, and wouldn't reconnect properly. if you did lose connection with cable your connection is resolved automatically without having to reboot etc