NTL cable modems and speed

Woden

Just spend 4 hours doing friend of the family tech support who use ntl broadband.

The main issue was there next door neighbour got bb and there wireless usb adaptor was picking up the neighbours connection instead of their own by default. Don't know much about networking but i fixed this issue and thought ok. Then i noticed there browsing speed was pretty terrible compared to anything I ever had on eircom's package. Decided to delve in to this further thought it might be some basic set up issue. For some reason I found the connection between the cable modem and net gear router to be in one of the lan ports on the router instead of what i presumed was the regular port that connected a router to a modem. In addition to this i could not get into the router's as they did not know the username and pw.

Ended up briefly on the phone to ntl who where absolutely useless and told me to contact netgear. Got a nice chap from netgear and decided i would reset the router to factory. This was great until i realised wireless is not on by default and had to move the computer to connect it with a wire. I then proceeded to set it up like i have my own where i can access the router on 192.168.1.1 and so on. This seemed to help a litte with speed on the wire. Went back to the wireless and still seemed somewhat better. Then i started losing connection. Would only do a couple of pages and then wouldn't do anything until ipconfig /release, ipconfig /renew. Eventually read something about turning DHCP off on the router and connecting it into a lan port. Which seemed to bring the connection back to the slow way it was before and I was unable to access the router again.

Annnnyyway. Is this how it is usually set up? Is NTL usually so slow (felt a bit like dial up) Is there anything simple that can be changed that I just don't know about and am not doing correctly?

dub45

Did you establish that they were getting the correct speed via the modem when connected via ethernet?

rogue-entity

Their is no correct way, to set it up, you either connect the cable modem to the WAN port on the router and turn off its DHCP server, then use the router's DHCP server to dish out IPs to for your wireless and wired PCs.

Cable Modem:
IP: 192.168.0.1

Router:
IP (Internet Port/Gateway): 192.168.0.2
IP (LAN): 192.168.1.1
DHCP Start Address: 192.168.1.2

But as dub45 said, try first connecting your cablemodem straight into the PC, and check the speed on that.

Woden

Thanks for the replies. I tried to bypass the router with a direct ethernet to modem connection however I could not get online like this. Was not sure if i had to supply the ip and stuff directly and I wasn't sure what to use however I could have messed around a bit more. Don't think i thought of rebooting the cable modem.

One thing i noticed whichi forgot to mention was that download speed was fine. It was just web browsing which was slow and when i pinged sites the actual ping was fine but the response time before i got info back in dos was slow.

The woman will be getting a call from NTL today so hopefully they can sort it outa bit or send someone out.

Just another comment when I had the cable modem connected to a lan port it returned ip's in the 89.xxx range (which is what it was at the start of the day) instead of the typical 192.168.xxx.xxx.

dub45

I set up a wireless router for a friend of mine with NTL last year and it was pretty basic stuff. I asked for advice on here first of course. But the basic thrust of the advice if I recall correctly was:

turn everything off. connect the modem to the wan port on the router (it was a netgear model) power on the modem - wait a few mins - power on the router and everything worked fine there was no messing around with addresses or anything else.

christophicus

Have you made shure that in Internet options >connections, under LAN setting you have ticked "automatically detect settings."

Woden

cheers for the tips guys i will try them out/check those if i am up in the house again.

Can say that the general experience with ntl and there support/shoving me off to netgear has made me happy i'm with eircom.

christophicus

I know how you feel , but there is nothing tha really comes close to NTL in terms of price

dub45

Dataisgod wrote:

cheers for the tips guys i will try them out/check those if i am up in the house again.

Can say that the general experience with ntl and there support/shoving me off to netgear has made me happy i'm with eircom.

In fairness to NTL (God what am I saying here!:) ) No isp will undertake to support equimpment that they have not supplied and this would be case in respect of the Netgear router.

Snake Plisken

shouldn't the wireless router be set on the same ip address range i.e. 192.168.0.xx looks like the W/Router is set to 192.168.1.xx you can change the start range to 192.168.0.3 for example that might help speed things up.

The way mine is setup is Cable Router plugged into the internet input socket on back of Wireless Router, then PC1 plugged into first lan socket, Blueface ATA plugged into 2nd socket etc. I then login to the router which is either 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 and set the Wireless Router ip address to 192.168.0.1 then enable DHCP server and set the start Ip address to 192.168.0.2 I save the settings and go into the network connections on PC 1 and manually set the pc address to 192.168.0.2 submask to 255.255.255.0 default gateway to 192.168.0.1 and Preferred DNS server to 192.168.0.1 save the settings you might lose the connection but just right click it to repair and you should be good to go.

Snake

Woden

dub45 wrote:

In fairness to NTL (God what am I saying here!:) ) No isp will undertake to support equimpment that they have not supplied and this would be case in respect of the Netgear router.

Ah they did supply this router though along with the cable modem in this case (and set it up for the family also)

christophicus

so did you get it working?

dub45

Dataisgod wrote:

Ah they did supply this router though along with the cable modem in this case (and set it up for the family also)

In this particular case no - even though there was an 'offer' at the time where some people got the Netgear and some didn't. At the moment NTL don't appear to be able to support anything anyways!:eek:

jimmycrackcorm

Dataisgod wrote:

cheers for the tips guys i will try them out/check those if i am up in the house again.

Can say that the general experience with ntl and there support/shoving me off to netgear has made me happy i'm with eircom.

Then you've never been on to the Eircom "ring this other BB support department" merry-go-round. I'm very happy with NTL now I've managed to cancel my eircom line and use voip over BB.

christophicus

^^^ You obvious;y havent had any problems with your line yet .

Woden

Have not been back tbh to try anymore. Will speak to the lady tomorrow but i was happy enough to return it to the way it was before after messing with it with it pointing towards the right network and leave it to their support to fix

Not sure about ntl's offers and such at the time but there is no way the family bought this router like they just rang up ntl for a package and took what they where given.

In reply to the user on eircoms support I have had to ring them at times but i just rang the one that is related to my package and had no issues with being bounced around.

JNive

is the NTL modem the black motorola surfboard one, is it accessed via the IP address http://192.168.100.1 when connected directly to a computer.

Anyways, if its a modem and not a router then to avoid DHCP conflicts or anything try setting your netgear router's IP address to 10.0.0.1 instead of the 192.168.x.x one

Make sure its set to assign IPs via DHCP.
Now connect the WAN port of the router to the LAN ( might be the only one also ) Port on the NTL Modem. Make Sure its a straight-through/patch cable and not crossover ( the pin colour order from left to right on one end is the same as the other end, crossover means the orange and green wires are swapped at one end )

so, start off always with connecting your router to your PC, either via ethernet cable or Wireless, and make sure its fully accessible, and pings reasonable ( under 10ms over wireless at most )

Check ipconfig /all in command prompt and make sure you have an IP address in the 10.0.0.x range assigned with DHCP enabled etc, the gateway should be 10.0.0.1 also ( assigned via DHCP )

Once that working, and your signal quality is ok and stable you are good to go.

now make sure the netgear router is set to obtain IP etc automatically ( in the wizard choose a cable connection, in the manual settings make everything dynamic.auto and enter no user/pass ). Apply these settings and reboot the router.

Wait 1 minute

double check its back up and that you can communicate with the router.
Connect the WAN port to your Modem as outlined at the start.
Power up the cable modem and wait for all the lights to light up etc.
Now log into your netgear admin page again and check the 'status' page and check if you have been assigned an IP etc correctly ( it should not be 0.0.0.0 , or anything in the 10.0.x.x or 192.168.x.x ranges )

now verify you can view sites like google.com etc and do a speedtest.
Also, verify that WEP or WPA is enabled for the wireless, and click on 'Attached Devices' to see if anyone is leeching that shouldnt be.

Also, if you wanted to, while you are connected directly to the NTL Modem, check the signal stats.
your SNR db should be >32db and your downstream power should be between -15 and + 15 db ( closer to 0 is ideal ).

Your upstream power should be <50 db

madmoe

Hey guys,
Is it just me or has anyone else seen a HUGHE drop in performance from you NTL line in the last while? I am paying for a 3MB line and its SO friggin slow in the last few weeks!!

Anybody know what the story is?

M

christophicus

Maybe you should have a look at a few other threads here. We have basically been bitching about it for 3/4 weeeks now.

madmoe

Thanx mate, done a bit more looking earlier today and spend ages reading them, so the story is unfolding and not just for me.....

Is there any other compnay the does BB who do not require a landline?

M

JNive

Digiweb via the Dish
IBB via the antennae
IBB via ripwave
3G+/HSDPA from Vodafone / 3
Satelitte solutions
FWA from Eircom
Assortment of local Wireless Operators like Permanet etc


thats about it i think

madmoe

Thanx for that list matey, now I need to figure out which one is best? Also, we get our TV from NTL so that is another thing to consider :-(