STB versus Stand Alone Modem?

[Dougie]

With NTL's digital service finally exhausting my patience I am cuurently looking into switching my TV provider. However, I was planning on keeping my NTL phone line and my NTL broadband service (as I have no problems with these two NTL services) Obviously if I "dispose" of my STB box I will have to switch to a stand alone modem. Are there any issues that would affect my broadband service if I made this switch?

I'm currently on the 300kbps service and would be sticking with that speed. My PC is running Windows XP SP 2.

Thanks for any info.

[Chris W]

You will have to register the new SACM when it is installed.... but apart from that, no issues really

I would think NTL are unlikely to take your STB away as you get your broadband through it and therefore they dont have to visit you.

[Hans Gruber]

Originally Posted by gary_580

I would think NTL are unlikely to take your STB away as you get your broadband through it and therefore they dont have to visit you.

I got rid of my NTL tv service the other week and they gave me a SACM when they took away the STB. Not had any trouble with it. Was a bit confusing setting it up though as it's a different process than the STB, would have helped if I'd listened to what the engineer told me when he installed it

Originally Posted by Hans Gruber

I got rid of my NTL tv service the other week and they gave me a SACM when they took away the STB. Not had any trouble with it. Was a bit confusing setting it up though as it's a different process than the STB, would have helped if I'd listened to what the engineer told me when he installed it

thats pretty good then as the SACM is definately more reliable in my experience. Ive had both (still do )

[Dougie]

Thanks for the info. Will ring NTL tomorrow and see what they have to say.

[Dougie]

Ok. So some of the answers to my original post are already in this forum, but there seems to be some confusion about email addresses! Some posts talk about migrating your STB email addresses and some say that you can't keep them!!! What is the low down on email addresses? If I do switch to a SACM, will I lose my current email addresse?

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by Dougie

Ok. So some of the answers to my original post are already in this forum, but there seems to be some confusion about email addresses! Some posts talk about migrating your STB email addresses and some say that you can't keep them!!! What is the low down on email addresses? If I do switch to a SACM, will I lose my current email addresse?

They can be migrated, but this can only be done by technical support or customer service once you have registered your cable modem. Its a two minute job

[darren]

I had 1 stb that was fine for a year, then needed reboots all the time because it dropped my BB connection while I was out, then 1 stb that lasted all of a week before giving up and refusing to see any signals. After another stb that needed rebooting, I inally gave up and got sky+ and a CM, the CM has only gone down once for a few hours and has never needed rebooting in over a year that I've had it.

<rant>
My email addresses are still on my stb account and I've somehow got another email address with my CM account which I've never used, I've tried moving my accounts accounts accross but was sent from cm to stb support and back again, so I gave up. I've also never had an email bill, the account was setup in the wrong name and the surname was wrongly spelt. Even though I went through all the details with the person on the phone when I set up the transfer. Oh and the broadband CD wouldn't work because I had 2 network cards with the same subnet.
</rant>

Anyone feel like sorting that lot out

[Marge]

Originally Posted by darren

I had 1 stb that was fine for a year, then needed reboots all the time because it dropped my BB connection while I was out, then 1 stb that lasted all of a week before giving up and refusing to see any signals. After another stb that needed rebooting, I inally gave up and got sky+ and a CM, the CM has only gone down once for a few hours and has never needed rebooting in over a year that I've had it.

<rant>
My email addresses are still on my stb account and I've somehow got another email address with my CM account which I've never used, I've tried moving my accounts accounts accross but was sent from cm to stb support and back again, so I gave up. I've also never had an email bill, the account was setup in the wrong name and the surname was wrongly spelt. Even though I went through all the details with the person on the phone when I set up the transfer. Oh and the broadband CD wouldn't work because I had 2 network cards with the same subnet.
</rant>

Anyone feel like sorting that lot out

No




oh go on then if you're feeling brave

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by darren

<rant>Oh and the broadband CD wouldn't work because I had 2 network cards with the same subnet.
</rant>

Anyone feel like sorting that lot out

Hmm....

did you receive the error "2 network adaptors set to DHCP" or something like that??

[darren]

Originally Posted by Debsy42

No




oh go on then if you're feeling brave

You can see why I haven't got around to doing it in the year I've had the CM, the number of calls involved and the time spent waiting listening to the hold music....
__________________

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

Hmm....

did you receive the error "2 network adaptors set to DHCP" or something like that??

Nope it just mentioned the fact that 2 network cards were on the same subnet of 255.255.255.0, only at that point I had already moved to my wireless router so only one card had a static IP connected to the router and the other one may or maynot of being disabled and set to DHCP, I think I had to remove the old internet NIC so it would work via the router.

The CD also didn't like my account number so I had to ring up CS.

It was a while ago and I can't remember the exact details and I destroyed the CD afterwards