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May 21st, 2006

Internet connections

internet connections

To be fair, which this cartoon blatantly isn’t of course, the internet connection at Maddie_C’s is now beginning to sort itself out. It has been on a lot more than it has been off over this weekend. But it has been a difficult week with a lot of phonecalls, plugging things in and unplugging them, turning things on and off, checking to see whether the wind had changed direction etc etc. I must also say in defence of BT that you can always get to speak to a human being on a local rate call within a couple of minutes when you call their broadband support, which is more than you can say for just about any other large company I have had dealings with.

But I’m still not sure whether (a) BT is a bad choice for broadband (b) Wireless internet is a problematic technology or (c) Broadband is often very unreliable for the first few days while the line ‘checks its speed’ and generally gets used to the fact of its own existence. I’d like to think it is (b) or (c), not least because BT dialup is in my experience superbly reliable, so it’s hard to see how they could get one thing so right and another so wrong.

I have a question for those of you who have broadband. Do you leave the blessed thing on night and day? If so do you find yourself checking your spam and moderating comments at moments when you should be doing something more useful? Or do you turn it off except when you are using it? We are a bit reluctant to turn off the connection here in case it never comes back again.

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This is a single post on the Cartoon Blog by Dave posted on Sunday, May 21st, 2006 at 3:37 pm. Click here to read all of the latest posts. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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17 Responses to “Internet connections”


  1. Mark Berry says:

    Not sure about the whole BTinternet thing… they do annoy me because I lent an old laptop to my folks-in-law, they installed BTinternet dial-up with their silly front-end… now I have the lap-top back and have it set-up for Lou (on my wireless network)… but no matter how many times I delete the BTinternet settings after a few days they pop-up again and I have to wrestle with it to let go and connect up to the network!

    As for always-on… yes I have mine on 24/24 (interestingly the Mac never drops the connection on wireless… both PC’s do on a regular basis! one requiring a re-boot everytime!) Pipex (my ISP) are brilliant at filtering spam, prefixing every message they believe to be spam with ***SPAM*** so it is easy to set up a rule (I don’t delete them automatically but send them to a seperate folder to check through at leisure – and to be honest they haven;t got one wrong yet – in 7months!) As for comments I don’t get spam comments generally but have had to switch trackbacks off because of spam.

    May 21st, 2006 at 4:13 pm
  2. Dave Warnock says:

    Dave,

    Ours stays on. See Do you use your ISP?. Currently my firewall has been up for 140 days. That includes wireless support for laptops as well as wired for the Sun Ray terminals.

    For me the controller of whether it stays on is the quality of the firewall. I have two, one in the router and one running IPCOP. If no firewalls then keep it off except when needed. If running windows then you probably can’t run 140 days without several reboots anyway so shutdown when you are not using it, especially as home windows does not have any security.

    May 21st, 2006 at 4:56 pm
  3. Chas says:

    Always on, I’m afraid …

    May 21st, 2006 at 4:57 pm
  4. Ben says:

    I tend to leave my broadband connection always on. However, occasionally it is necessary to switch it off and then on again in order to ‘clear the fluff’.

    P.S. My father invented broadband internet along with a guy called Eric. Even he has trouble with it occasionally.

    May 21st, 2006 at 5:16 pm
  5. Jack the Lass says:

    Usually on if I’m at home during the day. But at night or if I’m out for more than just popping down to the corner shop, then I switch it off. I don’t think I’ve had any spam at all since I’ve had broadband (end of December).

    May 21st, 2006 at 5:37 pm
  6. James says:

    I leave it on – it trips out when the power to the house fails (shouldn’t live in Hampshire countryside) but otherwise has been very reliable. I use Zone Alarm as firewall on my computer (it’s free and seems to work). BT says it has virus protection on router but I haven’t investigated. It’s always tempting to look at spam etc but it can be resisted (probably). BT Broadband was slow to get up and running (2 days after they said) but it does work and I have had no problems since.

    May 21st, 2006 at 7:28 pm
  7. Dave says:

    Various points:

    I don’t have any silly front end with bt dial-up, unless that is what the evil dialup box is (see last week).

    The broadband modem gets very hot, therefore must be using up a lot of electricity. I can’t really see that leaving it on all the time is a good thing *unless* it is then tricky to make things work again every time.

    The spam I deal with is that from all the Wibsite Wiblogs and this blog. It uses up a huge amount of my time on the internet. This blog is currently generating 3-500 a day. I know there are plugins that deal with spam but I am always a bit wary of things that might delete the real comments.

    May 21st, 2006 at 8:04 pm
  8. Kathryn says:

    On dawn till dusk (well, bedtime at least)….usually behaves now (but omg, BT/tiscali were a LETHAL combination at the beginning) and yes, I waste hours and hours and HOURS…Very bad news. But addicted now :-(

    May 21st, 2006 at 8:04 pm
  9. Septuagent says:

    Am on BT Broadband 2.2 mbs. Not wireless though. Very reliable ever since it was put in (with no troubles) about 15 months ago. It goes “off” when the PC goes “off”. I fire up the PC, make a pot of tea while Windows XP warms up, fire up the broadband connection using the “evil” panel, then go and drink some tea while all the gadgetry updates itself with its online updates – and then – wahay ! we’re off. The modem is currently just warm to the touch having been on for some hours. Have recently had the option to go to 8 mbs, but this involves extra bits to be fitted to the PC, and we are sufficiently far from the exchange that I don’t think 8 mbs is remotely likely. The last time I ran a test using BT’s own kit the connection speed was less than 1 mbs. Infinitely better than dial-up though.

    May 21st, 2006 at 8:35 pm
  10. Mark Berry says:

    FYI I don’t use a modem I have a 3com wireless router – which means I can also use ethernet when I am at my desk. It also has a built in firewall.

    http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/3Com_OfficeConnect_Wireless_Router_3CRWE754G72-A-UK/version.asp

    May 21st, 2006 at 8:44 pm
  11. SH says:

    Oh, it’s always on and the only way I ever get any time to myself is by turning the computer off. I get annoyed at myself later on that I have done this, but often not enough to turn the computer on again, so this is how I get housework and sleeping done.

    May 22nd, 2006 at 12:44 am
  12. Paul says:

    that sounds like a lot of spam. what about the system where you have to type in the curly colourful letters to prove you’re a real person?

    or there’s a new type i saw recently where you have to select the kittens out of a photo line-up of squirrels and other small semi-domestic mammals.

    i’m sure people won’t mind.

    on the broadband front, i leave it on all the time (but turn off my computer). turning it off should be ok, but a couple of times due to power surges or something like that i’ve had to go through the initial settings process again, so i prefer to leave it on in case they get reset.

    as for ‘wireless broadband’, there are two elements to it. one is the broadband, which is like the relationship between bt and your modem, giving you high speed internet. the other is the wireless bit, which is like the relationship between your modem and your computer. when there is a problem, it could be with one and not the other. (one way to find out which one has the problem is to bypass the wirelessness of it by using a wire and see if it works).

    bt’s marketing is misleading because they make out that their broadband is wireless, when what they’re actually doing is giving you a wireless modem. any of the providers could do this, except some will make you pay for it as part of the set-up charge.

    (but i’m not actually a bt broadband customer so please correct me if you see fit).

    May 22nd, 2006 at 8:30 am
  13. Steve Humphreys says:

    I get my broadband through my ntl set-top box, so it’s on from early morning cartoons to late night dodgy sitcom repeats – but off at night since I learned that leaving things on standby uses nearly as much power as actually using them.

    In the interests of balance, ntl have their drawbacks too. I lost my broadband connection, and after several days of phone calls to people with strong Indian accents (I assume that’s where ntl have their call centres), during which they advised me to disable my wireless router, turn off my firewall and uninstall my antivirus software, they finally sent a couple of men out, who told me it probably wasn’t the set-top box, but gave me a new one anyway (no problems with the broadband connection since).

    May 22nd, 2006 at 8:41 am
  14. Darren says:

    well I use BT/yahoo and have had no problems with them for well over a year, possibly two now. However, I don’t use their modem or router for my wireless system, I use a belkin router/modem and that has been great. Also found out at the weekend that I was getting about 5.5mbps download speed – apparently this is quite good considering how far we are from the exchange. Sorry to rub salt into your issues :-)

    May 22nd, 2006 at 9:04 am
  15. Simo says:

    The modem/router is always on often with nothing connected to it as my desktop is no longer linked as it has moved venue and is mostly used by Zac (4 1/2) so doesn’t need internet at the moment so it is only used when i’m at home with the lap top, usually leave it on even when away from home, just make sure the wireless is secure!

    May 22nd, 2006 at 10:56 am
  16. Andy says:

    I have been with BT broadband for less than a year. The router i was supplied with was fine and had no problems. I recently bought a D-Link wireless router and had many problems with losing connection(requiring a reboot + unplugging the router for 10 secs). After 2 weeks of fidddling I HAD to take the router back(Also I had a Nintendo DS which would not connect to it). I now have a Linksys wireless router on BT Broadband and now i am back and better than ever…no problems here (for)now!!

    June 4th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
  17. Dave says:

    Thanks for all responses. I suppose I should add now that BT wireless internet is working ok. My advice to people setting it up would now that as long as you are prepared to accept little or no connection for the first 3 or 4 days then BT is fine. Customer service is good, though the ‘desktop help’ that comes with it is a waste of time in that it has never worked.

    The slightly annoying thing is that I cannot hibernate my laptop then restart it and expect broadband to still work. If one stops using broadband one has to shut the ‘puter down entirely (a lengthy process) otherwise when you use it post-hibernation you will find either that it will not connect or that it will only find 10% of websites. All most bizarre and a shame as hibernating is so much quicker.

    June 4th, 2006 at 4:36 pm