Fat pipes and lots of time

[davetherayon]

aka, broadband upgrade time I've been on the Virginmedia cable package for a while now, as Nottingham was a starter area for Diamond Cable we've had cable bb for quite some time. Anyway, been tootling along on 20MB till I was notified by VM that I could upgrade for free to 50MB, woohoo. Ordered a new modem online, and it arrived today. Didn't pay for an installer, as it's actually a piece de cake. Just unconnect the old one and connect the new one (using the power supply they provide, NOT your old one).

Then came the fun bits.

First, you have to activate the unit, by phoning 150 and going through the menu until the recorded message says your activation code has been sent. Then power off the modem, wait 10 mins, and power on. If your PC is directly connected everything should work like a dream but...

... I had a wireless router (Dlink 615) attached to it, which didn't want to talk to the new modem. So connecting the PC to the modem was fine, but none of my wireless devices (phone, Kindle) were connecting. A google search of 50 MB routers brought up units costing £100 or more. Eek. BUT!...

... further searching showed that with a firmware upgrade, the 615 would happily go 50MB. I followed the steps in this guide. Basically download the .bin file for your router - the router firmware version is on a sticker underneath it - then connect your PC to the router, type 192.168.0.1 and enter the admin password (which you did change when you originally got the router, right?) and select Firmware Upgrade and pick the .bin file you just downloaded. Let it install, takes about 3 minutes, then when the web page goes blank (which means the router is offline), disconnect and reconnect the router power lead. You should now have a fully functional router for free

Test it by reconnecting the PC to the router and go go google. Also, when you go to 192.168.0.1 the VM modem will come up, get the username/password from the back of the unit, and immediately change the username and password to something secure. Also select WPA2-PSK encryption in the wireless options, and select a new SSID (your network name) and passphrase (password) for wireless devices (which of course will then need to be reset on your phone/kindle/wireless dildo/etc.

50MB is nice. Whizzz!

[sleedale]

50MB? 50MB? Goodness me, ours barely scrapes 1 or 2 MB, takes literally HOURS to download anything bigger than a song, that's a single song.

Enjoy, maybe one day, super fast rural broadband will become a reality

I'm not jealous in any way, nope, not in the slightest, not at all, not..........well maybe just a very, little bit jealous

[rughead121]

Enjoy the boost davetherayon

I just upgraded to superfast. They finally got around to upgrading my little valley. Currently getting 36MB

Downloading faster than I can watch em

[wingit]

Just to really "tick" you off.

I'm on Fibre to the premises. I get 100MB download speed.

[davetherayon]

LOL wingit. I'm happy with 50MB, which is what the Japanese had in about 2001. When will the Govment get on the case and roll out fast bb to the rest of the UK?

[thatguy]

We'll not get superfast broadband in all rural areas the way things stand. It costs the telecom companies too much. If the government agreed to part finance the installation of cabling and equipment then it would happen, but they prefer to spend money on forign aid to reasonably well off countries, and support those who don't want to work. Big changes need to be made.

While on a rant.... these telecom companies take the urine as well.

One example....a basic broadband only connection with Virginmedia costs more than the same broadband, a phone line and a TV package. WTF is up with that?

Wish these assbuscuits would stop trying to force unwanted phone lines upon us.

[Bluefish]

I'm on superfast virgin, started on 20 then 50 then 100 then up to 150, all the time before it was 150 I was getting at least what was quoted when it went to 150 it went down hill fast, and 3 days ago it got fixed and i'm now back up to 150, only took them about a year, but what else is there nothing else comes close to Virgin, so as long as it stays at what it should be I'm happy.

[prowler]

Anyone wanting to test their speed...

Speedtest

My result....


A lot depends on where you download from, of course...This is my result from Paraguay.