[Norman]

I have been a Telewest Blueyonder customer for several years and so it made sense that I would use them for my Broadband connection. My O/S is Windows XP Home and my wirless connection is a rather out of date one using Netgear MA101 adapter and ME102 Access Point plugged into my set top box. This set up always has, and still does work fine.

My wife, also a pensioner, said that she would like to learn how to use the internet. So, for christmas, I bought her a laptop with a view to having it share my wireless connection. That is when my problems started.

I purchased a Netgear WGR614 Router and a Belkin Wireless G Notebook Network Card. Although I followed all the instructions I could not get a shared internet connection. So I called Telewest who, after failing to get me a shared connection, told me that the Router was faulty and I should get it replaced. I contacted Netgear who tested the Router and told me it was fine and they then tried various things to get me a shared connection. After some time I was told to contact Telewest again to get the MAC address of the set top box. I won't bore you with all of the passing me back and forth other than to say that it included twenty minutes on Telewest's more technical support line at a cost of £1 per minute.

After all of this which amounted to several days and many hours of frustration, I had to give in. Unfortunately, I have osteoarthritis of the spine, heart failure, and an exceedingly painful hernia, and all of the scrambling about trying to set up this shared connection had taken a huge toll on me.

The result?

My wife's laptop is back in its box still unused nearly three months after I bought it for her and I am now not in any condition to do anything about it. Hopefully, if I can get my hernia repaired (waiting on hospital appointment), then I will be free of the pain and will attempt once more to solve this shared connection problem. Meanwhile, having just found this forum, I felt that at least I could let off a little steam that has been simmering inside of me for the last few weeks.

Norman