Thinking of getting Broadband
 

I am thinking of having ntl broadband installed and wanted to know what the installation involves?

I am looking to have broadband installed in the front room about 2 metres away from where the ntl settop box is located, when the engineer comes does he need to drill even more holes in the wall or is it just a case of attaching one end of the cable to the little white box behind the tv (marked tv & fm) and the other end into the back of the cable modem or does he need to screw another box to the wall

Re: Thinking of getting Broadband
 

It depends on which area you are in, whether you use the Set Top Box (STB) for the broadband, or have an additional Cable Modem (CM).

If you use the STB, for speeds over 1Mbps, you will have to have the Samsung. The PACE STBs aren't up to the faster speeds. However "installation" is simply a bit of ethernet cable to run from you STB to wherever your computer is. When mine was provided a couple of years ago, ntl just sent me the cables (and a CD) in a box for me to get on with. So no holes drilled by engineer, 'cos no engineer!

If you need a CM, then there would be a new cable run from the external ntl bos, to your new CM location. That will mean new holes in walls, unless you are mounting your CM outside!

Re: Thinking of getting Broadband
 

My BB installation was even more minimalist, called CS on a Friday morning to arrange it, they said they could activate it immediately and it would simply be a case of my plugging my laptop into the STB (it was a PACE 1000) via an ethernet cable. One thing they did get wrong though was that they said I would need a straight-through cable which I got, took home from work with me and plugged it all up that evening.

Didn't work!

Quick check on the back of the box indicated that I needed a cross-over cable. Went out on saturday morning, bought a cable, plugged it in and was all working fine and had been for the past three years. Last week got the speed upgraded so needed a Samsung box instead which DO need a straight-through cable but luckily I had already checked this out and was pre-armed.

Now some of this depends on what are you live in. As I understand it if you are in the 'Langley' area then the TV set-top boxes don't work for broadband and hence you will need a separate cable modem and an engineer visit. If like me you are in the 'Bromley' area then you should be able to use your existing set-top box. If this is a Pace model then you are limited to 1Meg, if you want 2 or 3 Meg then this needs to be swopped for the Samsung model and again would need an engineer visit.

If you have the option try to connect your PC up via ethernet and not USB. Ethernet is far more reliable and in addition if the ethernet port on your PC is working then there is no need to load any drivers or install any other software. All you would need to do is 'provision' the box, that is register the MAC address of your network card with NTL so the box recognises it. This only has to be done once.

Good luck

John