Broadband for my Gran?!

espresso

MissMuppet wrote: »

No she's on payg and I did set-up the dial automatically but she cancels it like she does virus updates etc... Haha! To be honest it's more hassle than it's worth, I might just reposess the PC...

Make a desktop wallpaper that says "YOU HAVE TO CONNECT TO USE THE INTERNET IDIOT"

MissMuppet

Yeah good idea... It's sad really she's losing her marbles so I can't really have a go at her, she gets confused because she thinks to get her emails is different to going on the Internet, oh well! I'm going to sort this broadband out for her next week, hopefully that will solve some of the problem...

BillScarab

pepsi_max2k wrote: »

>> How many people who use broadband connections know anything about
>> the above?

oh dear... lets just hope you have a decent cd based setup wizard then.


fwiw, here's gran's translation:

exchange sync: that green light that says DSL under it. if it's off, no internet. helps to know it at least exists incase poking it doesn't turn it green.
pppoe dialup: your login and user name. if the above green light is not green, it helps to know it should be as otherwise this won't work either and no internet.
usb connections: the blue wire / light that says usb under it. it may never light up...
lan dhcp leases: the yellow wire (at least with bt). when you plug it in, your pc will either connect to the modem/router or it won't. if it doesn't, helps to know why (right click the dual montior icon with red cross in and click repair).
wireless connections: no. just... no.
plug the modem/router in to start: white microfilter in to phone socket, black wire from microfilter socket with "dsl" under it to modem, yellow or blue wire from modem to pc.

every one of the above bits can and do go wrong multiple times (sync loss, dialup loss, ethernet/usb connection loss, blown microfilters...). most equipment is designed to at least attempt to fix things but... you gran uses windows right?

but yes, slightly naive of me to presume people would know that or think it was important to :rolleyes: if anything it saves a £50 call out charge to bt / pc world / etc to fix it.

oh and i wasn't assuming gran would be fixing anything at all, just trying to save missmuppet time from running round to fix stuff. really, dial up is much simpler if you don't know what you're doing, and 54 Kbps isn't *that* bad, and could well be cheaper for light usage.

and if you want to find the best deal, have a look through these lot, these must be someone better than PN's 1 Gb per month even if it'll never be used...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isps.html



if you don't mind changing phone providers too, talktalk and tiscali will do line rental + broadband + free calls at varying times from £14.99.

Slightly naive to assume we're all on ASDL, I've never blown many micro-filters on my cable connection. :rolleyes:

Why would MissMuppets Gran pay a £50 call out fee? If MissMuppet couldn't fix it for her she would ask on here for advice to save money.

And why "no" to wireless? It's easy to set up and generally reliable.

pepsi_max2k

note: i'm answering this as it think it may help missm or anyone, i'm not arguing points or anything...

Slightly naive to assume we're all on ASDL, I've never blown many micro-filters on my cable connection. :rolleyes:

which is why i recommended a cable modem in my first post (tucked away somewhere).

Why would MissMuppets Gran pay a £50 call out fee? If MissMuppet couldn't fix it for her she would ask on here for advice to save money.

i did mean others, assuming they were on adsl and had no idea about how it functioned and nofamily to call on. i'm hoping missmuppet is clever / willing to learn if she needs to / is actually a muppet as i'm quite fond of cookie monster.

And why "no" to wireless? It's easy to set up and generally reliable.

i think it numbers about 3 times a week one of my family and neighbours asks me why windows is telling them their wireless connection is slow or why there's a red cross there or why they can't get the internet. windows seems to have plenty problems auto connecting to ssids, connecting to the correct ssid, remembering encryption settings, using the right encryption settings, gaining dhcp leases when finally connected. and in my experience, with the two seperate pcs i've done it on, updating windows to use the wpa2 hotfix from windows update can kill wireless connectivity altogether or at least make it very twitchy (don't ask me why). really, there's not a single person i know whom i've helped set up a wireless connection with that hasn't had to have me fix it multiple times, and i know what i'm doing.
maybe i'm just unlucky but, compared to a double click and pressing dial, if i didn't know much about the stuff i'd rather not have the trouble.



and one more thing miss m, if you do get an adsl broadband connection (which is what plusnet / most major cheap non bundled providers will give you), at least try not to end up with a simple usb connected modem (I think PN option one comes with a proper router so you'll be ok with that, just don't use the usb part ). it's been a while since i used one but if i remember correctly, you still have to go through a virtually identicle "dial up" procedure (double click desktop icon, click dial) with it to access the net every time you turn the pc on, so that would leave you in exactly the same position as regular pstn dial up (plus all the extra adsl related problems i've detailed above). make sure you buy a seperate (or get a deal with an) "always on" router (basically if it comes with it's own power plug you should be ok), then the router will deal with all the dialing up stuff itself.

espresso

pepsi_max2k wrote: »

i think it numbers about 3 times a week one of my family and neighbours asks me why windows is telling them their wireless connection is slow or why there's a red cross there or why they can't get the internet. windows seems to have plenty problems auto connecting to ssids, connecting to the correct ssid, remembering encryption settings, using the right encryption settings, gaining dhcp leases when finally connected. and in my experience, with the two seperate pcs i've done it on, updating windows to use the wpa2 hotfix from windows update can kill wireless connectivity altogether or at least make it very twitchy (don't ask me why). really, there's not a single person i know whom i've helped set up a wireless connection with that hasn't had to have me fix it multiple times, and i know what i'm doing.

Questionable! Another anti-WiFi poster, if set-up correctly and it works reliably. When you have set-up a few more wireless networks, you may not have to go back to do it again i.e. get it right first time!

:rolleyes: