What to ask for?

[altafd]

Greetings to all Forumers,

I will be moving to the Cheshunt area hopefull soon and the house has a pre-existing non used NTL connection. I am seriously considering activating the connection again with Broadband, phone and TV. I have been a happy user of traditional ADSL on a 2Mb connection but the combined price from NTL looks appealing - now whether it is really worth it!

So for NTL, I am contemplating getting a 4Mb connection - for that I wanted to get some help on (already tried the SEARCH function) on:

- What type of cable modem (e.g. 250 or 120...) should I be requesting from NTL prior to the installation?
- Also will I be able to protect the modem with a password so as other people (e.g. stealing of MAC address) or even NTL support cannot get access to the modem (to eventually get access to my computer or home network)?
- Should I be asking the engineer to check the signal level for Broadband and TV as the existing cabling may be old?
- Are we forced to use NTL proxy or can we surf directly?
- Are we aware that NTL applies filtering to certain type of IP traffic (based on port number ...)?
- Is a contention ratio of 20:1 good for cable modem?
- NTL told me that the cable distance does not have an effect on the speed and I should be getting pure 4 Mb connection - any views on this statement?

Thanks for assisting me and may be others on this decisioning process.

Cheers
Taffy

[MovedGoalPosts]

to Cable Forum

Modem - you get what you are given, but that will normally be the 250.

Password protection of modem, not possible as far as I know. You should always have yoru own firewall and stuff. There is the free ntl netguard, but I prefer to rely on hardware and thus the firewall in my router.

Engineer should check everything is OK on installation, especially signal levels.

YOu have no choice but to go through proxys for port 80 web stuff.

Some ports on ntl are disabled - there's a list somewhere - mainly affects business type software such as M$ exchange

20:1 contention is the norm, and beats many ADSL services

Distance is less of a factor with cable than ADSL so speeds are more consistent, provided signal levels are in tolerance. Of course contention could be a factor (as it is on ADSL too) if there is a big leecher in your vicinity.

[deathtrap3000]

my modem (ntl 250) has an option to change the default username and password from root:root to something more desirable

and i dont go through a proxy

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by deathtrap3000

my modem (ntl 250) has an option to change the default username and password from root:root to something more desirable

You learn something every day - My BB is via STB so don;t get a chance to play with that sort of toy

Originally Posted by Deathtrap3000

and i dont go through a proxy

Aren't you lucky then Depends on the area you are in. If proxy's are enabled on the network, you don't get a choice.

[Rik]

NTL 250 modem

No port filtering/traffic shaping (YET)

You can change modem Login and Password as mentioned above.

Im in Hertfordshire and get the full speed even tho im on 10meg! 1.18MB/s (Love it I do!)

I highly recommend NTL

[iain_herts]

hi im also in herts im prob about a mile from cheshunt and my BB has been fine for the last 3-4 years only had 1 outage and get the full 4mb and that was caused by sky lol.

or if u decide to get sky u never know u may even get me to install it

[altafd]

Thanks you all for the responses.

I am also looking forward to better speed broadband as currently I am a bit far from the exchange office and thus cannot benefit the full 2Mb connection that Demon is offering me. I instead get about 1.2 Mb. It is also good to know that there is no traffic shaping and port filtering for the time being as I do use a lot of VoIP to talk to my folks back home.

The 10Mb is very tempting but I doubt the Financial Manager (my wife) will approve the added cost

Cheers
Taffy

[Noddy Ashmore]

Originally Posted by altafd

Thanks you all for the responses.

I am also looking forward to better speed broadband as currently I am a bit far from the exchange office and thus cannot benefit the full 2Mb connection that Demon is offering me. I instead get about 1.2 Mb. It is also good to know that there is no traffic shaping and port filtering for the time being as I do use a lot of VoIP to talk to my folks back home.

The 10Mb is very tempting but I doubt the Financial Manager (my wife) will approve the added cost

Cheers
Taffy

Sad, put yer foot down man.

Russ