JohnHorb

As I understand it, if you have a stand-alone modem, you have to reboot each time you connect a different device. If you have an STB, you also have to (or at least you used to have to) register each device (which means you need your original details from the Welcome letter). You only have to register each device once, and, with an STB, I'n not sure whether you need to reboot each time you swap over. With a router, you can avoid all this by 'cloning' the MAC address of your desktop (which is already registered) into the router, so the STB doesn't know the difference. (Sounds a bit technical, but 'cloning' the MAC address was an easy menu option on my router, and probably will be on yours. In actual fact, you can probably clone the desktop's MAC address on the laptop, but that is a) getting a bit deep, b) MAY cause problems back at work and c) WILL cause problems when you have both PCs connected to the router.

The other thing to check, as Paul has already suggested, is that the laptop is not set to use a proxy server at work (IE tools,options,connections, LAN setting). If it is, the easiest solution is to set up a new account on the laptop for BB access, as the IE settings are account-specific.