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Please can you help me start up

I have finally found this site and wondered if anyone would mind giving me a bit of advice on getting started. I really am ignorant when it comes to setting up broadband and have just found the likes of BT and NTL no help whatsoever.

I am living in a shared house in Headingley, Leeds with three other people. I have a mac and they have pcs and we want to get wireless broadband, is it possible with this mix?

Who should I go with and how much does it cost?

(this is going to be the most stupid question of all i'm sure but) I live in the basement bedroom, would this have any bearing on my reception?

I hope you don't mind me asking these questions but my friends aren't up on these things either.

Any advice gratefully received

Sam
 
If you have a BT landline, I'd recommend you go with V21 for an ADSL connection, if you have an NTL line, stick with NTL for broadband. I've used both companies (and use NTL currently) and have had no real problems - the occasional glitch, but you have to expect that anywhere. There are many ISPs out there, my old housemates use Plusnet and sing their praises, and I've heard good things about Pipex on the grapevine too.

If you use a BT based ISP (liek V21 or Plusnet), get yourself a Netgear DG834 and wirless cards for your PCs - your MAC should be able to use Airport to connect to this. If you go for NTL, use a cable router (D LINK do one I think).

Try and test a wireless router first though - if you're in the basement you may not get the best wireless signal...
 
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samsamsam said:
I am living in a shared house in Headingley, Leeds with three other people. I have a mac and they have pcs and we want to get wireless broadband, is it possible with this mix?

...

(this is going to be the most stupid question of all i'm sure but) I live in the basement bedroom, would this have any bearing on my reception?
...

You are right to ask about wireless reception/range. My experience is that signals do drop away disappointingly quickly after passing through a few brick walls - you may be luckier depending on the size of your premises. New MIMO wireless equipment apparently does better but I'm not sure about MIMO cards for the Mac. There are other useful networking products like HomePlug which can give you a network connection wherever you have a power point, or even a wireless access point.


Who should I go with and how much does it cost?

Many providers are fairly similar to one another but you might want to check the download limits if four PCs/users are going to be online. :)
 
Quick Plug

Hi Sam,

The others are correct about what they say you will have problems with wireless if you go for a standard one, go for a mimo router and it should be ok with the standard airport, as to the mimo card for a MAC they aint out yet as far as i know but i dont think it will be long till they are available, theres only one test that ive seen of a mimo wireless and that was done with the standard airport and it was ment to be a vast improvment in coverage.

One addded advantage with Zen is we have a dedicated Apple support team and we dont mind how much bandwidth you use.
 
Thanks very much for all of your help. I'll at least be better equipped when I go buy these things. It's nice that you people can take the time to give me a bit of advice and it is really appreciated. Any more tips keep em coming.

Sam
 
samsamsam said:
Thanks very much for all of your help. I'll at least be better equipped when I go buy these things. It's nice that you people can take the time to give me a bit of advice and it is really appreciated. Any more tips keep em coming.

Sam

My advice - don't suck the juice from a tractor... :drool:
 
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