student wireless access

diamond_dave

Help! Help! Help! My daughter has moved into student house in Exeter and needs broadband access for all 4 people.There is a connected bt phone, but I am totally ignorant of the equipment she would need. Do they have to have a wireless connection? I am told that the speed in Exeter is only 1Mbt, so do they need a faster speed if all 4 are using the bb at 1 time - I rang Aol for advice and they were pretty useless. The guy said that they would need the platignum package as thr download speed would be so slow. Can any one help with advice and suggest a 12 month package that would suit all 4 students? What about BT? I see that the "Hub" takes about 6 weeks to arrive.

advent1122

My BT hub took two weeks.
You can run it wired but I strongly recommend a wireless set up. The adapter for the computer must be 802.11b or 802.11g compatible.
Unless they have a new laptop which should already be wireless enabled.
Cost me £10 on Ebay.
It is so easy to set up.
Just switch on the hub, wait a hour, switch on the laptop, enter the Hub number and off you go.

diamond_dave

thanks for thaat Advent1122. What about the speed? Do they need 8mb if all 4 are using the system?

mrJ_5

they dont have to have a wireless network... but makes things easier than having a wired network

i use 512k broadband at home with 4 others, and speed isn't really an issue - but if all 4 of them in this household use 1Mb - that will be about 30kb/s each, if everyone downloads, which I would find acceptable... but then, will they all be downloading, and at the same time? tbh - i doubt they will, so 1Mb sould be perfectly adequate

advent1122

What mrJ said.
P.s.
This is the adapter you will need for wireless. It just plugs into a USB port.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140031708672&ssPageName=MERC_VIC_ReBay_Pr4_PcY_BIN_Stores_IT&refitem=140027230887&itemcount=4&refwidgetloc=closed_view_item&usedrule1=CategoryProximity&refwidgettype=cross_promot_widget

espresso

advent1122 wrote:

Just switch on the hub, wait a hour, switch on the laptop, enter the Hub number and off you go.

That is really sloooooooooooooow!

:rotfl:

greyster

Don't shoot me for suggesting AOL here but ... *puts on bullet proof vest*

AOL Broadband

You don't need to install AOL software if you use a router. Not even once as they suggest. I've set it up twice now for two poople, one migrating from BT broadband and another as a new connection.

£14.99 a month.
Free wireless netgear router.
Free first month.
AOL Refer a Friend deal (£25 for new customer and £25 for AOL referer)
NO LAME AOL SOFTWARE (if you are not on dialup or use a router).

No bandwidth limits or restrictions and takes two weeks to get including router delivery.

greyster

512k is perfectly acceptable between four people. In 2001 when I was a student in Plymouth, when ADSL first came out and only engineer assist installs were only available, we were sharing between 7 people on 512k broadband at £40 a month.

The thing is, 512k, 1Mb, 2Mb, 8Mb all have the same upload speed. This is the main limitation of UK broadband and you can't escape it.

What it means is, should one of the four people in house be utilising the upload speed i.e. sharing files with someone outside of the house then it will slow down the internet for everyone in the house ... to the point they will be wishing they were on steam powered dial up.

However most users barely upload anything as they just surf the odd few pages for research, fun etc and collect emails. I would expect well over triple the number of people in the house could use the net at the same time like this without any degrade in performance. It's all about the upload and don't let anyone try and sell you a faster package, because it won't evade this issue.

So feel free to get 1Mb broadband..... just be looking out for bandwidth limitd that most ISPs (except AOL) enforce now.

PS I am not AOL myself, I am inbetween accomodations as I move job and currently tolerating the hell of tiscali broadband at the girlfriend. She'll be moving to AOL broadband as soon as I grab her in a happy mood ... happy enough to withstand an hour or so in the tiscali support line to get the migration code to move to AOL.

mrJ_5

I think 8Mb (adslmax) broadband has an upload speed of 440kb, as opposed to 240kb with the other 3 speeds

diamond_dave

Thanks to all for your help.To sum up then: 1 Mb is sufficient for 4 sharing? and is the AOL package a good deal bearing in mind that these 4 young women will have to set it up themselves and none of them has much technical knowledge.If they were to go for something like the tiscali package @ £12.99 p.m they would still have to buy a router?

espresso

The AOL package seems to meet your needs as it is also unlimited. Far less complaints about AOL compared to the most complained about Tiscali. Help with set-up is available on here if needed, although it's quite simple to do.