Switching ISP's, need help + advice

brianw1

Hey i just want to get some advice from some tech people.
The ISP we are with now are a local one based in galway, and to be honest they arent great. We pay for a 1mb connection which costs €30 a month and it gets really bad in the evening during peak times, especially for gaming its just unplayable.

So basically they put an ariel on our roof that points to another ariel on a hill, thats how we get our connection. Then this wire runs from the roof right down into the router under my pc, its a mess really. Upc have this class deal to get a 20 mb connection for around €34 a month and they send a free router if you order online. So basically i want to know how easy is it to connect a upc router and to get it working. Would it just be as simple to:

- get the new router from UPC
- unplug the current router beneath my computer
- hook up the new one
- then take down the ariel on the roof

would the new upc internet then be working?

Another problem is that my parents run a home business and alot of orders come in through email, so its real important that we arent left without internet, or pay for a technician to come to the house if i mess it up because my parents would kill me :P

one way i could see that we wouldnt be left without internet, is to wait and see if the new upc one works and if it does to cancel the contract with the current isp
i would really appreciate any help on this or advice on how to set it up

thanks



edit :
after searching around on the upc website it mentions something about setting up a new outlook express client with their internet. as my parents use outlook express as their client, will they still be able to send a recieve mails with their current client after the switch?

dub45

brianw1 wrote: »

Hey i just want to get some advice from some tech people.
The ISP we are with now are a local one based in galway, and to be honest they arent great. We pay for a 1mb connection which costs €30 a month and it gets really bad in the evening during peak times, especially for gaming its just unplayable.

So basically they put an ariel on our roof that points to another ariel on a hill, thats how we get our connection. Then this wire runs from the roof right down into the router under my pc, its a mess really. Upc have this class deal to get a 20 mb connection for around €34 a month and they send a free router if you order online. So basically i want to know how easy is it to connect a upc router and to get it working. Would it just be as simple to:

- get the new router from UPC
- unplug the current router beneath my computer
- hook up the new one
- then take down the ariel on the roof

would the new upc internet then be working?

Another problem is that my parents run a home business and alot of orders come in through email, so its real important that we arent left without internet, or pay for a technician to come to the house if i mess it up because my parents would kill me :P

one way i could see that we wouldnt be left without internet, is to wait and see if the new upc one works and if it does to cancel the contract with the current isp
i would really appreciate any help on this or advice on how to set it up

thanks



edit :
after searching around on the upc website it mentions something about setting up a new outlook express client with their internet. as my parents use outlook express as their client, will they still be able to send a recieve mails with their current client after the switch?

It would be easier to answer your question fully if you said who you had your current email account with however the usual "rule" for setting up an email account is that the pop3 settings (incoming) are for your provider of email and the outgoing settings are for the isp that you are actually using to connect to the internet.

So lets say you are using eircom and your email account is brianw1@eircom,net.

Then your pop3 settings would be for eircom (webmail.eircom.net) and the outgoing ones (smtp: mail1.eircom.net) would also be for eircom. Say you switch to UPC then the Eircom pop ones stay the same but the smtp ones have to be changed to whatever UPC uses: smtp.upcmail.ie

http://support.upc.ie/app/answers/detail/a_id/216/kw/mail/sno/1