Networks What ISP and what router?

Hey gang (thats everyone on the forum)

I'm moving into my house at the end of this week at uni for my final year! sharing it with 4 other mates (5 occupants including myself).

All the previous years we have been in university halls or uni hosues which have the internet sorted, we just plug in and play, as u do.

But now we have our own shag pad (i wish) and we need to sort our own net out.

Now my question is who should we go with? we are 5 fairly heavy users, two of us use bittorrent, not all the time though! I was thinking bulldog with their 8 meg but i Have heard nothing but bad things for them. At home we use AOL, all very nice n everything but still, there are other options.

I would say there is a maximum of £40 pm to spend but less is always prefferable, we also need the most bandwidth we can get but of course reliability of connection is equally important. Something with no download limit is a must!

The next question is the router, i know nothing about them but i know for 5 users we are gonna need one, and i guess one with the ADSL modem built in is prefferable, but don't some providers limit to which ones work with them? and the router of course has to support 5 users!

oh, i live in coventry, if u need a post code please ask. we dont have a phone line put in yet as we are not sure which ISP we are going for, some ISP's need a BT line, some there own! Cheers!!!

 

Other than not AOL, I don't have a lot to say on this. (we made that mistake...)

- H.

 

se we have AOL at home and its been the most stable thing ever!

 

Zen internet

Their tech support is top notch and customer service are also great. Go to adslguide.org and check there and you`ll see other peoples opinions.

Router wise I dont know of any 5 port adsl modem/routers. You could prolly run one Pc wirelessly.

I like the draytek 2600 personally. Its a top piece of kit but does cost more than other options.

 

If it's a student house and your only going to be there term time, be careful not to agree to a 12 month contract or you may get stung when you come to cancel. If need 5 ports probably the cheapest option is to get one of the cheap 1 port adsl modem routers like http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=48448 and then an 8 port 10/100 switch, then you just plug one into tother and your sorted (probably need to use a cross over or an uplink port through depending on your switch)

 

thats another good thing about Zen. Contract is montly so you need only give 30 days notice to cancel your connection at any time

 

cheers for the feedback so far!
my understanding of the switch is that only one computer can be on at a time?

and we know it will probably be a 12 month contract, just have to live with it! we may stay up there longer anyway, final year n all!, i'm looking into zen net, cheers!

 

A switch is a more intelligent network hub that only sends information to the ports that require it. but in short no you can use all the ports in the switch simultainiuosly and there's not any actual physical switch in it!!! (except sometime a power switch!)

 

Zen, if you've got the money, then they're definately worth it.

 

so running 5 comps of an 8 port switch isnt a problem? does it work on the round robin principal?

i think it may have to be AOL, we cant get anything more than 1mb in the road im living in unfortuneately, just found out! and i don't care what people say but AOL is a rock solid service!

although i heard people hav had troubles ending the contract?

 

Get one of these:

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Sate...832205&pagename=Linksys/Common/VisitorWrapper

Plug your modem in one socket and all the PCs in the others. Easy and works a treat.

 

Try samknows.com, they give you a list of available ISPs for your post code, you might be able to get 3meg cable from ntl. Don't get a super cheap computer if you want reliability, they may cut off with overloads. Linksys are just as bad in this, I certianly wouldn't reccomend linkysys. Go for a belkin or netgear router. Get a second hand one off ebay really.

 

Some ISPs tend to nanny you, with no access to some newsgroups, etc. BT are one, AOL may be another. Just a thought, I'm not suggesting you frequent alt.binaries.gardening_in_rubber_wellies.

 

Yeah, thats partly why I chose Zen. Various ISP's will do various things, some dont bother with newsgroups(usenet) at all, forcing you to pay for your own access if you want it. Some block certain ports relating to P2P, or anything else they dont like. Some traffic shape fairly heavily, meaning you only get maybe 1/10th of your proper download bandwidth when using certain services.

 

i use bittorrent at home and i know i can use that as im on AOL, i was thinking ebay for a netgear Zen does seem good but its pricey, and the problem with NTL is they have a 30gb monthly limit! its all very confusing isn't it! do you remember the days when you just chose your isp from a list of about 10 and connect and that was that?

 

Zen dont do any traffic shaping or throttling on any of the lines.

The newsgroups are also spot on with 7 day retention and very little corrupt files. They are constantly being upgraded as well to make them even more stable.

 

Freedom2 Surf are currently very popular, 2Mb for about £25 a month, fairly unlimited. I think they might limit usenet stuff abit, but if you dont use that alot, then they'd be great. Check them out. They're being toted as the option for people who can't/won't afford Zen.