[General Maximus]

Think of your internet connection like our road network. You have little residential streets which feed into main streets which feed into dual carriageways and motorways which then go into those massive overpasses and intersections if you think of America. The problem you have got is that in your area you have got over 200 houses using the same connection as you. I talked about congestion in one of my previous posts and the way cable works as a technology and how VM try to relieve congestion is to allow you to use multiple channels (think of them as lanes on a motorway). The problem you have got is that your modem is a single channel modem which means it will only use 1 channel. Think of an 8 lane motorway, you are in lane 1 along with lots of other people and the traffic is crawling to a halt, yet lanes 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 are all free and you could jump into one of those. The reason why you need a shub is because it is an 8 channel modem which means you will use all 8 channels at the same time and if one of them is congested then you will send more traffic over the less channels. At the moment your internet connection is an all or nothing scenario and you need more flexibility and redundancy. There are various factors which can impede the performance of individual channels (never mind how many people are using it) and if something more technical is going on which screws the channel up then that makes you screwed if it is the only channel you can use. Each channel physically provide a maximum speed (I think it is about 55mbits) and the problem you have got is that more and more people are using faster and faster connections and trying to squeeze more and more speed out of every channel. Think about 100 people in your housing estate all on 100mbits trying to use those 8 channels at the same time and there you are trying to take up half a channel just by yourself. That is your problem. You haven't noticed it in the past because maybe the demand wasn't there in your area or the tiers were still sufficiently low but atm VM is upgrading everyone again and the lowest speed is 60mbits which is 3x what you have got.

You need a shub to improve your connection to the internet and as an aside you will also receive a speed upgrade. Your Linksys router can't handle anything over 25mbits like I said earlier so you will also use the shub as your new router and your pc will go straight into the back.

Pretty much everyone is on some sort of package these days, it is what VM live for. Regardless of how old your package is, you should be upgraded to the current cost equivalent. As an example, many moons ago I started out paying £35/month for 512k but that doesn't mean I need to stay on it now. £35/month now gets me 152mbits. Some people are happy to essentially pay more for less (like you atm) but if you ring up they'll discuss the new and updated packages available and you'll find you can get more tv channels, unlimited talk time and fast internet all for your current monthly price.