Major problem with NTL/UPC broadband/phone/digital package

Chi Force

So unbeknownst to me and with all the best intentions, my dad signed up for this package, bumping us from 8Mbps broadband to 15Mbps. Our package was installed yesterday. Suddenly my downloading is great but my internet stops working and vice versa. So I call tech support. Twice. No call back. I go to sleep.

This morning I arrive in my kitchen to be told that my sister has been on to tech support again and has "sorted the problem". Great, saves me the bother, what did she do to fix it? "Oh the girl just said to unplug the Netgear Powerline, it was conflicting with the new router". Oh. At this point I should say that my pc is two floors up and the powerline is a necessity as the strength of the wireless isn't good enough to reach me. I've been through it all before. (I should also say that we were only given a dongle for the pc downstairs despite the fact that two workmen had visited my study for wiring etc and my pc is nigh impossible to miss.) I was, at this point, boiling with the rage of someone who relies on the internet for most things and has finals and two essay deadlines approaching rapidly. I called back again. the conversation was unpleasant to say the least (but that's a story for the rants thread) and the upshot is, if I want broadband, I have to use wireless. Which, of course, I can't get.

NTL won't provide or even suggest an alternative modem (if that's what's causing the problem). I would be willing to pay for it if they did. They offered no help and effectively washed their hands of the whole thing. We've had the package about 20 hours now, been on the phone to them no less than 5 times and things are going from bad to worse. So I need to know if anyone else has had this problem and if there is any solution (keep in mind this girl had no idea of what a powerline was and kept telling me I couldn't use two modems together - after repeating several times that I wasn't using two modems, I had to give her the item code and tell her to look it up). I can technically use the powerline but everyone elses wireless slows down to a crawl which I don't want either. My siblings are all in college too and this mess isn't their fault. I set up my own home network before and everything worked perfectly for two wired pcs, all our laptops, mobile phones and an xbox. I don't see how it's such a problem now but I'm not an expert.

Thanks.

P1erce

Can you ask them how a layer 1 technology with limited understanding of "ip" can conflict with an NTL router?

Unless each adapter has an ip adress and does routing (layer 3), its just a hub and as such should not impact your network in any way.

You can verify this by having 2 pc's connected back to back with the power over Ethernet adapters.

Just have

1st pc as 192.168.1.1 / 255.255.255.0
2nd pc as 192.168.1.2 / 255.255.255.0

and test between 2 computers.


Pierce

mehmeh12

Have you turned the wireless AP to max broadcast strength? Why not bring your computer closer to the AP?

Chi Force

Thanks P1erce, will check!

Chi Force

Thanks for the reply mehmeh12, it's already been moved around within my study and I can't take it out of here, I have a lot of bits and pieces attached to it and there's nowhere else to accommodate it. Besides, it really has to be somewhere quiet so I can work.

paulm17781

If it will work with powerline but slow everyone else to a crawl, it sounds like your router isn't up to it. See if you can borrow a good router from someone (the NTL one is awful) and try it.

Chi Force

I have an excellent Belkin N router but they've told me I can't use it! (possibly because it's now cable not dsl?) I wonder if I could get a belkin or netgear cable router that would work. would rather not go to the expense if it didn't work. And you're right, the new router isn't fabulous....

Devia

Chi Force wrote: »

So unbeknownst to me and with all the best intentions, my dad signed up for this package, bumping us from 8Mbps broadband to 15Mbps. Our package was installed yesterday. Suddenly my downloading is great but my internet stops working and vice versa. So I call tech support. Twice. No call back. I go to sleep.

This morning I arrive in my kitchen to be told that my sister has been on to tech support again and has "sorted the problem". Great, saves me the bother, what did she do to fix it? "Oh the girl just said to unplug the Netgear Powerline, it was conflicting with the new router". Oh. At this point I should say that my pc is two floors up and the powerline is a necessity as the strength of the wireless isn't good enough to reach me. I've been through it all before. (I should also say that we were only given a dongle for the pc downstairs despite the fact that two workmen had visited my study for wiring etc and my pc is nigh impossible to miss.) I was, at this point, boiling with the rage of someone who relies on the internet for most things and has finals and two essay deadlines approaching rapidly. I called back again. the conversation was unpleasant to say the least (but that's a story for the rants thread) and the upshot is, if I want broadband, I have to use wireless. Which, of course, I can't get.

NTL won't provide or even suggest an alternative modem (if that's what's causing the problem). I would be willing to pay for it if they did. They offered no help and effectively washed their hands of the whole thing. We've had the package about 20 hours now, been on the phone to them no less than 5 times and things are going from bad to worse. So I need to know if anyone else has had this problem and if there is any solution (keep in mind this girl had no idea of what a powerline was and kept telling me I couldn't use two modems together - after repeating several times that I wasn't using two modems, I had to give her the item code and tell her to look it up). I can technically use the powerline but everyone elses wireless slows down to a crawl which I don't want either. My siblings are all in college too and this mess isn't their fault. I set up my own home network before and everything worked perfectly for two wired pcs, all our laptops, mobile phones and an xbox. I don't see how it's such a problem now but I'm not an expert.

Thanks.

I actually felt like I was reading back something I had written on my own experience when I saw your post. I too have a room in the loft and similarly my parents recently changed our broadband/digital/phoneline to NTL to save costs. I have had nothing but hate for the setup ever since.

For my old setup I had an eircom 7mb line through a top-tier D-Link router situated in my room wired to my PC and not ONCE did I have any sort of problems with my connection. NTL went and slapped possibly one of the worst routers (EPC2425) two floors down leaving me with no way of wiring my PC upstairs. Once I discovered that the wireless was beyond useless and I was never going to get a stable connection in my room by using a USB or PCI wireless adapter I had UPC on the phone, explained the situation and got them to install a second access point in my room free of charge so I could move the router up.

The line is still dropping intermittently but apparently a lot of people are having this problem. Im hoping they sort out things their end soon and that I can somehow replace this godamn excuse of router with a proper one.

P1erce

Chi Force wrote: »

I have an excellent Belkin N router but they've told me I can't use it! (possibly because it's now cable not dsl?) I wonder if I could get a belkin or netgear cable router that would work. would rather not go to the expense if it didn't work. And you're right, the new router isn't fabulous....

I do not understand how that could do anything.

If its an Ethernet router (you plug your Ethernet cable from your modem to your router), it shouldn't affect anything.

Okay if your router->router it might make configuring a server on your side a bit challenging but everything else should just follow nicely.

I know I have had dodgy linksys routers that shut down and stop responding to everything but for the most part have very few issues.

What would NTL say to a large organization that has to use routers to reduce broadcast domains? Err sorry sir no can do...

Pierce

dub45

P1erce wrote: »

I do not understand how that could do anything.

If its an Ethernet router (you plug your Ethernet cable from your modem to your router), it shouldn't affect anything.

Okay if your router->router it might make configuring a server on your side a bit challenging but everything else should just follow nicely.

I know I have had dodgy linksys routers that shut down and stop responding to everything but for the most part have very few issues.

What would NTL say to a large organization that has to use routers to reduce broadcast domains? Err sorry sir no can do...

Pierce

Perhaps the router concerned is actually a combined moder/router given that the poster was originally with Eircom?

P1erce

Chi Force wrote: »

So unbeknownst to me and with all the best intentions, my dad signed up for this package, bumping us from 8Mbps broadband to 15Mbps. Our package was installed yesterday. Suddenly my downloading is great but my internet stops working and vice versa. So I call tech support. Twice. No call back. I go to sleep.

Chi Force wrote: »

I have an excellent Belkin N router but they've told me I can't use it! (possibly because it's now cable not dsl?) I wonder if I could get a belkin or netgear cable router that would work. would rather not go to the expense if it didn't work. And you're right, the new router isn't fabulous....

dub45 wrote: »

Perhaps the router concerned is actually a combined moder/router given that the poster was originally with Eircom?

Eircom router... where? Of course if the Belkin is an ADSL router rather than

P1erce wrote:

If its an Ethernet router (you plug your Ethernet cable from your modem to your router), it shouldn't affect anything.

deadl0ck

You could use a Cantenna or make one to get a better wireless signal.

I used to use one with my old XBox and a Linksys WET11 and it worked great when it wouldn't get any signal without the cantenna....

accensi0n

P1erce wrote: »

Can you ask them how a layer 1 technology with limited understanding of "ip" can conflict with an NTL router?

Unless each adapter has an ip adress and does routing (layer 3), its just a hub and as such should not impact your network in any way.

Why do you think the physical layer can't impact the network?

Try cutting the cable and see what happens. Try using damaged cable. Try using a 1000 metre cable. etc.

jimmycrackcorm

Chi Force wrote: »

I have an excellent Belkin N router but they've told me I can't use it! (possibly because it's now cable not dsl?) I wonder if I could get a belkin or netgear cable router that would work. would rather not go to the expense if it didn't work. And you're right, the new router isn't fabulous....

You should still be able to use the Belkin as a wireless router connected to the NTL one. You may have to set it up for gateway routing though if it is a DSL router.

dazmoriarty

Hi experts,

Can anyone give me directions on getting FTP on my D-Link DNS323 NAS working externally through our UPC EPC2425 router?

I can already access the NAS web server's admin page externally from work, but if I try to FTP to it it times out. Should I be typing in "ftp <router IP>:21" or something like that? I have set up FTP credentials already on the NAS, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

I just want to make my private storage available from anywhere in the world (I do a lot of travelling and takes lots of pictures!)

Any guidance would be most welcome - thanks a lot.

DM

matt-dublin

@daz you should start a new thread for that question not piggyback on someone elses. but you would need to enable ip passthroug/NAT on th ntl router, also i would suggest getting an opendns account set up but what you want to do is a bit complex and has many security implications.

@OP it sounds like both the ntl wireless router and the netgear one are using the same channel.

go into the ssid settings on both routers and on one choose channell 11 and on the other choose 7.

if both of them are using the same channel they will effectivly cancel each other out dut to RF noise.

Also, the netgear router needs to be set to bridge mode and turn off DHCP.

Nothingbetter2d

what i did at my parent's house when i lived there

run a big long cat5e cable from the router out through the outer wall up along the wall and back in at your room. wired up a cat5e socket at both ends and plugged the UPC router into the bottom socket and a second linksys router (configured to be an wireless access point) into the top socket. then plugged my pc's into the router directly and allowed the other members of my family link to the linksys router wirelessly.

problem solved and i had great connection speeds.

option two for you is to buy a range extender for your netgear router. see http://www.netgear.com/home/products/wireless-range-extenders/wireless-range-extenders/WN3000RP.aspx

jor el

This thread is a year old, and there is no need to bump it to ask a completely unrelated question. Exercising a little bit of common sense before posting in an old and unrelated thread wouldn't go amiss.

There is also a dedicated sticky thread for all UPC modem/router questions.