[ubuntu-uk] NTL Cable installation

[Mike Preston]

Gary Kearley wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am moving very soon, into an area which has NTL Cable, now I've never
> had Cable before and need to know what I am dealing with.
>
> Would it be possible for someone who has NTL cable to describe, with
> pictures if at all possible, the install and kit.
>   
Basicly, it is a little blue (atm anyway, has been grey before) box that 
hooks up to a coax cable coming from the wall, and has a standard 
ethernet (rj45) socket on the back. As long as you have an ethernet 
connection on your computer you should be fine. Installation currently 
requires a windows box, but once setup it doesn't matter what OS you use.

One caveat, is that you can only change mac addresses once within a 24 
hours period.
> IE I'm going to order the 3 for £30 offer they have, so with the one
> cable entering the building, what connections will NTL supply (ie for
> telly and phone and Internet, and what do I need to buy to have a
> broadband wifi router with Ethernet switch?
>
> Is there anyway to use my current dsl router? (bt voyager 2100) (I doubt
> this)
>   
Nope, different protocols.
> sorry for the basic and silly question, but I just don't know.
>
> Thanks
>
> Gary
>
>   
So far, I've been with ntl for around 6 years with 1 year off while I 
was living abroad. In that time I have had no issues besides the 
changing on ip addresses in the middle of the night about 3 times.
(They changed the ip subnet I was on but the dhcp lease was still 
active. Required manual intervention to get back on (although a reboot 
would have also probably worked))
The speed they advertise is generally what you get and the usenet feeds 
on their server have a pretty good retention time (if you use that type 
of thing)

Put simply, I prefer NTL (soon Virgin Media) with its guarenteed bw to 
these ADSL things where you can't be sure if today you will be syncing 
at 8Mbit or 64kbit...

Mike

PS NTL are testing 50Mbit cable in the kent area according to the register