wireless broadband? help

ade1882

I am totaly new to broad band and totaly new to laptops. I purchased a laptop from tiny today which is a built in wireless, 512MB DDR RAM, 380S, AMD Sempron 2600+ mobile Processor with an 80GB harddrive. It cost me £499 which I pressume is a good deal. I am mainly going to use it to surf the net and download to my ipod. I was offered wanadoo broadband for £17.99 a month with a speed of 1GB the girl from tiny said it was unlimited but looking on wanadoo's web site this isn't true it has a 2 GB cap, unfortunately I had already signed up for it before I found this out. having spent the money on a wireless laptop I am obviously keen to get wireless connection after spending ages in queues to tiny and wanadoo with no answer it seems according to the wanadoo website that it is an extra £4 a month for a wireless connection.I am not to fussed about being able to download a large amount and am just looking for a cheap service at a decent speed I pressume i can pull out of the wanadoo sign up as they don't have any of my bank details, all i paid was a £9.99 fee for the first month. I don't get the laptop delivered for upto 28 days but any help anyone could give me now will be much appreciated.

cheghead

If you are signed up to Broadband it will be for minimum 12 months. Check your T&C's before you sign up with any1 else!

Steve_f_4

hi ade,
i bought a mac laptop for a lot of dosh (to me - £1400) but it came with a wireless card built in. now, i am sitting in my local arts centre and enjoying FREE BROADBAND ACCESS (yup, really free) because they are transmiting their service and sharing it via a fantastic set up called ARWAIN. a few places share their broadband width and in general all i have to do is switch on. i hase NTL dial-up at home which i rarely use. of course it means coming to the arts centre, but i live minutes away. i also generally buy a coffee/cake, but it is more sociable than being at home. i should say that i am self employed, so do this in the day.
none of this helps you, but i really wouldnt bother with wanadoo ... get the best offer you can. to be wireless in your home you need a transmitter, but to get access to other free wireless sites you just need to find them and sit in the right place!
good luck
sf

MoneyMachine_2

hi - hopefully there may be time to cancel your wanadoo broadband - check the small print carefully!! Or phone up and tell them you've just lost your job and cant afford broadband or a laptop anymore - tell them anything!!

Next, if you want wireless broadband in your home, you need to buy an ADSL wireless modem/router. These are about £60 ish and once you have one you are then free to choose any broadband package you like. You will also get much more competitive rates as you wont need a modem bundled with the Broadband - which typically pushes the price up and ties u in for 12 months.

Thats basically it! You'll be up and running.
On a personal recommendation - dont buy anything Belkin - This is only from personal experience as they do have a good reputation but I had nothing but trouble with their products.
they were selling a faulty Router at one point - all of them had to be exchanged - then when they upgraded their USB dongles - Version 2 wouldnt work if the version 1 had been used with the PC etc etc - lots of problem they seem to be having at the moment and their online tech support are basically useless. I am still using the new Belkin router I got - which is now fine- but have had to buy different brand wireless cards etc and would avoid them altogether if I had to do it all again.
I'm sure others on here will be able to reccomend other manufacturers.
Good luck

ade1882

Thank you both I have managed to cancel my wanadoo broadband. So all I have to do is get a wireless modem and then i can just choose whoever is doing the cheapest broadband deals. don't know who that is yet but i haven't even received my laptop yet. Tiny said about 4 weeks.