BT Broadband
 

Hello everyone

I'm considering getting BT Broadband. But the BT web site states it does not support OSX 10.3.

My experience of unsupported peripherils etc in the Mac environment is that they will or can work.

I've done a couple of searches on this forum, but can't find a specific answer.

Does any one here have any experience of OSX 10.3 & BT Broadband.

cheers

BT flogs a USB modem that does work with Mac 10.3 - but it is better to get an Ethernet modem hooked up if you can. Mac isn't really designed for USB modems.

The USB modem can prevent the system from sleeping, or logging out properly. Requires a driver to be installed.

I have found BT to be difficult when there is a problem - their immediate reaction is to blame the Mac, even when it's obviously not the issue. So it helps to know the system works/doesn't work with a PC when dealing with them.

Do check out cable for where you live - depending on who you deal and what other services you get, you might find cable competitive. Remember cable will usually include a Ethernet modem so you wouldn't have to purchase that (if using USB was an issue.)

EDIT I believe the USB modem is called Voyager 105. I did have a conversation with a BT guy who was a Mac user, and he did say that BT expects people to get a 'proper' modem, which is why their modem is pants.

Thanks

just got to wait for the village I'm in to get turned on, according to demand broad it'll be in 2-4 weeks.

If you do get an Ethernet modem (which I'd seriously recomend) get an XBridgeDSL, you can order it from the apple store, its setup software is preconfigured for most Uk ISPs.

Do you feel the modem really deserved it? And isn't there a society for the prevention of cruelty to electronics that would like to know about this?

Sorry, it's late, and I have a vivid imagination.

Heh! I forgot that Americans occasionally use this site. :)

In Brit English 'flogs' can mean to sell something (usually cheap, nasty, one-size-fits-all) advertised as it were a must-have.

Oh yeah, I'm familiar with British vernacular, but at 2am, on first reading only the American translation comes through. By 4am, I'm spelling things with an extra 'u' and confusing all the Americans.

i have bt broadband, and the voyager 105 usb modem - works fine, and no problem connecting or using . . . . . BUT 90% of the time the computer will not shut down and i get error warnings and kernal panics.

If i pull out the usb connection before turning off then everything is fine.

im off now to buy an ethernet hook up instead, as the people at BT are full of shite in the help the give out.

:)

My experiences with BT Broadband lead me to stay stear well clear of them. Use someone else like Nildram as an ISP and just buy your own ADSL modem / router (you should be able to pick an ethernet one up for less than £30).

Agreed - BT = nasty. That monopoly went to their head and they're just not as agile as their competitors when it comes to this stuff.

My recommendation - Pipex Xtreme ADSL. I've been on it for just over 2 years, no real gripes, and it works just fine with my Netgear router and a wireless LAN in the flat.

£23 per month, and the best bit is that they'll pay your connection fee for you - catch being that if you *disconnect* within 12 months, they'll charge you for the connection fee.

Not sure if Mac OS X is "supported", but who needs support? Any time I've been on the line to them, they've been exceptionally helpful, even when (as was the case recently) it was BT's cockup with the line that was causing the problem.

If BT were being honest, I doubt they could really define *any* of their services as being "supported" ;)

BT not nasty, just completely useless!
 

Got my new G5 iMac for home use at the very beginning of October, (4 weeks from the Paris unveiling, so, not bad). In anticipation, I signed up with Pipex for broadband. BT supposed to activate the DSL by 5th Oct (actual job was assigned 1st October, a Friday).

Beautiful new Mac arrives and more than fulfils expectations in looks and speed and so on. But....plug in for broadband through the USB 'modem' and no action, no ADSL signal synchronisation, no internet. Three weeks pass, hundreds of phone calls to Pipex and BT. Pipex very helpful, BT rubbish, including one person who told me that OSX and Macs are incompatible with broadband!

After testing every possibility, tried out the modem and filters elswhere, imported a PC into my house to prove it wasn't a Mac issue, BT send round a line engineer (£106 call-out, and another week's waiting), he arrives and straight way tells me that I require a broadband engineer and doesn't understand why he's been sent, no problems at all with my phone line.

Hours and hours on the phone (or waiting to get through) to BT, insist on speaking with managers and endless promises of a reply the same day, and nothing. Eventually, a manager does get back to me to say that the fault on the line is open because they need to check something at the Exchange before they can send the broadband engineer round, but they're very busy and haven't got around to looking at it yet. I express further exasperation (nearly 3 weeks unwired) and eventually, he says he'll look into it himself.

Less than two hours later, he's phoned me back and is apologising profusely. Friday 1st October, the engineer at the Exchange who was supposed to just fit some sort of hardware to my line to give me my ADSL signal, 'forgot' to do it. It was assumed the job had been done and Pipex were informed by BT that all was set for me to get connected on 5th Oct.

The manager actually did the job himself, I plugged in my modem and all worked fine, at last! Hardly any configuration, basically just a username and password after loading the software. Unbelievable. Aren't BT wonderful! Just forgot to do my little 5 min job, and left me offline at home for 3 weeks.

I've still got teething problems trying to get internet access for the other family user accounts on this Mac. Can't seem to get access for anyone except me as administrator. AirPort express wireless internet access doesn't work either. The modem is a SpeedTouch 330. I've mentioned this problem over on the system forum, cos I'm a newbie. Haven't brought the thread over here in case mods think I'm cross-posting.

Other users problem fixed. Only AirPort a problem now, but I think I know how to sort it.

Hi Priesty,
I take it the modem plugs into the USB right? and what exactly do you want to do with the Airport express?

You may need to go into System Preferences/network click the "Show" scroll bar select "Network Port Configurations" and drag the usb modem to top of the list. after doing this you should have the internet available to each user.

Jim.

Hi Fastmac, yes, the modem plugs into the USB. (USB networking..rubbish). The AirPort USB is for printers only, apparently. I need to change the modem for one with an ethernet connection or get a router or something. All I want is a wireless connection so I can move the 'puter around the house.
Thanks for the advice, but.......I actually got the user problem sorted in the end using the PPPoE option: 'connection when required' (see my thread in the System forum).

Okay,
well I woud reccommend a NetgearDG834UK but there are others, for the router. But as you have the Airport Express you could get away with a non wireless router, the benefit of having wireless/wired router is that the AEx couldbe used to extend the wireless range if you have any dead spots

Jim.

Thank you so much for all your posts. I am going to use this term as much as I can! :D

Thanks, Jim. I've found the NG DG834UK at a good price online (less than £50, special price from Gynogapod). Wireless is twice the cost and our house is probably not big enough to have dead spots (but...we'll wait and see).

Thanks for the advice, I hope it's not too difficult to set up.

Just wondering how you are getting on with that Netgear combined ADSL modem/router?

I was considering getting that model myself as BT have invited me to try out broadband for only £2 more a month than BT SurfTime (dial-up).

Any info much appreciated.

Rob.

Hi Robarmo,

Yes by all means get that or the DG834DG with wireless.All you need is the ADSL connection > Router > computers, easy to set up, no software to load and no dodgy drivers unlike USB mickey mouse modems.

You could get the USB working fine up till you get an OS upgrade or even incremental upgrade then you'll find the drivers don't work anymore!

Hope that helps.
Jim.

Thanks for the reply.

That model seems to be the (non-wireless) top seller at Amazon (UK), I already had it in my wish list when I saw the same model mentioned here.

Most of the customer reviews on there are from PC users though, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to get some Mac orientated feedback about it.

Just need to comfirm with BT that their offer allows me to use my own modem, and I'll order one.

Thanks again.

Rob.

Hi Jungleguy, I'm using BT Broadband right now with the following provisos, the cheapest version (£19.99) I think, doesn't work with Macs, so you have to opt for the £24.99 version, when I ordered it I was told it was unlimited downloads but on the bill it says it's capped at 15Gb per month, when you get the bill along with your normal bill it will include the next three months charges up front, 3 x £24.99, if you elect to pay by direct debit monthly and save a pound per month, you will be expected to pay all outstanding bills beforehand, having said that, they send a modem pack and you just plug it in and install the driver, don't connect the actual modem to the usb until the software tells you to and you'll be away, however, if I had been within range, I'd have got it from Tesco's and as soon as I've served my 12 month contract that's where I'll be going, hope it helps, Gary

Anybody know *why* Broadband basic (cheapest version) doesn't work? Is the modem incompatible, or what?

I'm using this with a PC at the mo, might being using a Mac Mini instead in a few weeks :)

-spr*gger

See my posts in this thread, on page 1 post no. 15 and 19, if you follow the advice there you can use any broadband service from any ISP and your Mac will not have shutdown problems or kernal panics.

Good Luck.

Jim.

Hi again.

I got BT Broadband just before New Year and I've had no problems. You can't install all the bonus software they supply on a Mac, but then we haven't bothered installing it on our PC either.

I bought myself that NETGEAR DG834 I mentioned in an earlier post. I was a bit surprised because it's a lot smaller (and nicer) than the one pictured on Amazon.

Anyway, before I ordered my own router/modem, I rang up BT and asked if it was OK to supply my own as I wanted to hook up 2 computers. They said that was fine with all packages except their (now £17.99?) "basic" package, which is limited to one computer and the modem they supply. I suspect this is where any non-Mac compatibilty problems may arise - although the free Speedtouch modem they sent out DID include OS X drivers.

Unfortunately, they don't appear to include a 14 days to cancel, or similar clause in their 12 month minimum agreement - so you can't try before you buy.

Rob.

Legally thay have to include a 14-day cancellation clause, it's standard with any contract now. They probably just aren't shouting about it so much.

I'm sure someone can help me with the following problem, it is fairly similar to the post topic. I am trying to work out what I need for wireless.

I have:
Airport Extreme equipped Powerbook
BT Broadband account (the more expensive one, £25/month) with USB modem.

As I see it, if I get an ethernet modem and an Airport Express, I will have it set up. I also need to get an original Airport card for my slot-loading iMac though, so I need everything to be cheap as these cards and the adapter they need seem to run to >£100, which seems a rip-off to me but there you go.

My question is, what is the cheapest ethernet ADSL modem for BT Broadband?

The cheapest solution I can see right now is - Airport Extreme £88, NetGear DG834UK £58, plus the Airport card and adapter at least £100, which is £246. It seems a lot of money, is there any shortcut I could take to get it cheaper?

Hi,
It is the cost of the old Airport card that is hiking up the cost, unfortunately these are rare now since Apple no longer supply them,
Could you not have the Modem/Router close enough to the iMac to just ethernet cable it and have your PowerBook wireless? connect the AE to theNetgear and configure it from the iMac, Consider getting the Netgear DG834G (wireless) it is only marginaly more expensive and if you drop the old Airport Card it would still be cheaper than £246. Once the AE is configured you would then be able to move it anywhere to extend the wireless range and also stream iTunes to your HI-Fi.

Jim.

This sounds a FANTASTIC solution, my iMac is right next to where the ethernet modem and airport express will be, so if I can wire it that's ideal.

Let me get this straight - I plug the ethernet modem into the Airport express, and there is a second port on the ethernet modem which allows me to ALSO connect it to the iMac, and the modem just handles the connection all by itself and splits it into these two connections?

Can't thank you enough, this is ideal if I grasp it right. And it wouldn't be required that the iMac is on for the connection to be alive in general would it. It's the bit about 'configuring' it from the iMac that throws me. I thought ethernet modems require no configuration?

why not just get the wireless version of the DG834? that would eliminate the airport (bout £130? for the wireless DG834 so you would save £40). The iMac would then ethernet into port one on the DG834wireless, and the powerbook would be connected wireless.

No. The modem is connected 24/7 or dials up on demand (ie when u access the net), and it would be online even with no computers attached.

All modems will need configuration, even if its just putting your name and password in. The DG834non-wireless that I have only needed my name and password to connect. Of course me being me I then went through all the settings and customised it (sending logs to my email, opening ports in firewall, etc).

Rosb,
your iMac would be connected live 24/7 but you may turn the iMac off if you want to and you may want it so that you are not conected 24/7 so you arange a dummy dialer to connect when needed. The iMac does not need to be on for the network to function, only the router needs to be on for the lan to work. But the Netgear has a hardware Firewall and there are presently and up to now no viruses that affect Mac OS X.

You open a web browser on iMac and type in http//192.168.0,1 and you get your router setup pages.

If you still get the Airport Express, that would have to be configured to be a wireless access point to do as I suggested with it.

Jim.

That's brilliant, thanks for explaining that to me. Looks like the wireless network is very cheap after all. I may just get the Airport Express anyway though, think I would trust Apple's wireless connection more than a generic PC wireless transmittor. Thanks again, this forum's a pretty amazing source of knowledge!

Ross

Your welcome Ross :) , let us know how it goes.

I currently have the set up you are after (wired DG834 with Airport Express) and it works like a dream. I have 2 iMac wired into the router over ethernet and my 12" Powerbook accesses it through the Airport Express.

It's extremely easy to set up, use Apples Airport Base Station Assistant to set Express up, and use the wizard built into the NetGear to set that up.

Only thing I can suggest is to not go with BT ;)

There are plenty of competitive Broadband suppliers out there. plug I'm on Pipex.net. Very reliable and customer service is brilliant. Just my 2p worth :p

Instead of a "dummy dialer", I just created a new Location that has no Network Port Configurations checked under Network panel in System Preferences.

Rob.

bt modem
 

Hi... bloody usb modem...

ive got a g5 running 10.3 and a bt voyager usb adsl modem, and its a load of hassle

ive resorted to unplugging the modem from the computer before i shut it down otherwise it often doesnt shutdown proper-the light is on and i can hear the fab but the screen is black and it doesnt respond-when the modem is out it never does this ???

also occasionally when i plug the modem in when the coputer is on (maybe i shouldnt do this?) the computer instantly does kernal panic and a power sign appears on the screen telling me to hold down the power button to restart

can anyone reccomend any other options for using the bt connection but a different modem?

cheers

Just read through the two pages of this thread, it tells you all you need to know. In a nutshell, dump the toy modem and get a router.

connect to bt broadband using airport
 

Hi

I am trying to connect to BT Broadband using my Airport Extreme. Can anyone tell me if this is possible and if so what do I need to do in Airport Admin Utility etc?

I need a step by step guide and BT just cannot support me or Macs

I can connect to broadband on a wired connection using a Speedtouch modem but get nothing at all via airport

I am using an iMac on OS 10.2.8

Thanks

You may need to connect the AE Base by ethernet to your iMac to set it up and assuming it has an ADSL modem built into it, have the AE base connected to phone point then you will have to have your full username as given by BT and your password. Hopefully these details will be saved and then set up the wireless part and you should be ready to go wireless to your iMac. Not having an AEB that is as much as I can give you, I'm sure someone with an AEB could give more precise instructions.

None of the Apple Base Stations have an ADSL modem built into them, so first of all the ABS won't connect by just plugging it into the telephone line.

I presume by Airport Extreme you actually mean you have an Airport Express. Because of you mentioning the Speedtouch USB modem, I presume you are connecting the modem to the Express's USB port. This will not work. The USB port is to share a printer. Thats it. Nothing else.

What you need to do is to buy an ADSL Modem and plug it via ethernet into the Airport Express. The modem will then connect to the internet for you over the phone line, and the Airport Express will share the internet connection wirelessly for you.

Speedtouch modems are a pile of crap anyway IMHO. ;)

My experiances with BT have been absolutely terrible!

One of my e-mail addresses stopped working. BT insisted that the account did not exist. Then they changed their minds. They then told me I had to bring it up with 'Narrowband Support'. Narrowband support is based in India, so the 'support' you recieve is completely useless.

There are rumours that they are moving their broadband dept. to India aswell. Not something you want to deal with.

I am currently in the middle of a debate with them as to why they have just charged my credit card £128, despite cancelling my subscription over 2 months ago!!!

I am currently with Plus.net. Since going with them, I have had absolutely no problems. I'd seriously recomend them!

B

My experience with BT Broadband has been OK, it was cancelling the old BT dial-up account that has been a hassle. Despite them claiming they transfer everything across automatically, they didn't cancel the flat-rate evening and weekend internet call package, and billed me for three months worth even though I couldn't use it anymore (because they HAD cancelled my old SurfTime internet access package - common sense anyone?).

Anyway, when I queried it I got passed around the houses (including India), and was eventually told I should have cancelled the call package myself, even though this isn't mentioned anywhere during the upgrade process.
They said initially that I'd be billed for it up until the date I rang them, which I argued against - I guess we'll find out when I see the rebate on the next bill.

Just trying to save someone else the same hassle - make sure both components of your dial-up package (access and calls) are cancelled!
Don't assume BT will do it automatically.

Rob.

Netgear DG 384 and Airport express
 

Although I've had my AirPort Express base station for some time, I hadn't tried to set it up, to provide my iMac G5 with a wireless internet connection, until a couple of days ago.

Having ditched the crappy old SpeedTouch USB 'modem' (from Pipex) and now connect through the Netgear router, the internet connection seems much faster.

My problem is that I can't get the airport express to work. It seems to be trying to make a PPoE connection when the router uses DHCP. Can't find anywhere I can alter this. Not even sure what I need to do. I know it should work, but can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Start a new topic with all the details and you will get more response.

Thanks, iNemo, I just realised taht I should have done that, after I posted.

I bet Jungleguy had no idea he was starting a six month Brit BT thread when he first posted. :)

From what I have been reading latley,
BT are about to start upgrading most of their users to 2mb where possible. With no change in the price.

This will also apply to new users, ( not I thing the email only accounts )

I hope I get it ... wooosh

Thats because the 2MB trials that ISP's have provided since 29th nov through BT Exchanges (Pipex for one) have been successful. I couldn't live without 2MB now. College is approx .7MB a machine on average :(

Hey iNemo,

I mean't to ask, if you do not mind.
What is your average usage a month on 2mb, as in MB in and out.

Onces I get 2mb I bet the usage will go up, which may be the real reason to give it to us, so we go over and pay more.

BT will limit on my service, 30gb a month.

I have no clue what I use at the moment, but I do download a lot of apps.
and Also have started to use iChat Audio with a mate. which I guess will be a byte guzzler. and is my main concern.

Any thoughts

Mark, If you are or when you are capped you will have a link somewhere on your homepage to check your usage. I'm a long time user not presently capped.

Thanks, I figured that would be the case,
Me to, and It winds me up a bit about being capped.

But what I should have mentioned was I thinking of trying to get on the 60gb before I am put on the 30gb , I suppose I should just wait and see

BT usage limits
 

I remember reading when I was signing up to broadband about the usage limits, and apparently BT will email you a warning as you pass certain milestones aproaching your limit. They are also meant to be implementing a "top up" option that will let you purchase extra GBs for a small fee as and when required.

Rob.

Hi Rob,
depends what you call small fee.

"Usage top ups will be available in units of 1GB priced at £1.95 inc. VAT per GB."

http://www.btyahoo.com/broadbandusage_holding#q6

If anyone is still rerading this very old thread......

DONT GET BT BROADBAND!!

I had blueyonder for a year and a half and it was flawless! I currently have NTL at home plugged into an airport express and it is great!

BUT I have BT broadband at work and it is really bad, it spends half its life with a 'degraded service' and when you call them up to ask whats going on they tell you to defrag your hard drive!!

I mean really..... BT Broadband SUCK

Em..
I have a BT connection at work on a stand alone Mac os 9 for the moment, and yes that is crap. Whether its the Mac, the old router they have on it, or bad line I can not tell.

I have had BT BB at HOME from the start of them offering it, and it was not always that great for the first 8 months.
But I have no real complaints with it at Home, I do not get any drop outs,
I am not too happy with the new capping strategy, but then its the way of the world.

BT like most of these companies the offer Broadband or Cable,IMHO are all rubbish when it comes to support, especially when it comes to Macs.

But I would not go as far as telling people not to get it.

I have friends on NTL who are constantly getting the line dropping off for days on end, emails that do not arrive .... with no real help from NTL.

The other thing to note. is NTL and Blue yonder are cable, not Broadband ADSL so its a different service, and may not just involve your internet access.

Photek

How can you compare Cable (Optical Fibre) Broadband to Telephone (Copper Wires) Broadband that relies on the centuries old distribution system. And beside that, not everybody is in a cabled area so perhaps you should consider your self lucky. Broadband (excepting Cable) is provided by dozens of ISP's whom all rely on the BT Backbone to provide their service, some better than others, but you get what you pay for. Zen and Metronet are two of the best, BT internet comes in around sixth position according to adslguide.org. So many people have BTinternet because it is easier to get because BT is such a huge monopoly.

Fastmac

I was actually comparing 'service' not modems or technology. Alot of people in these forums are basic users and appreciate people with experience of various ISP's giving their own personal opinion to allow them to make up their own minds about which ISP to choose, and in my opinion I would not choose to be a BT customer, after them looting my bank account via direct debit and not paying it back for 6 months, bad internet connections, basic or no mac support coupled with very low capped download limits per month and higher prices than competitors.... I would say there are better deals to be had.

just my opinion :D

That's OK, I just felt a counterbalance was needed so that when the many others read this 3 page thread they will see some explanation of technical merits and background overview regarding your opinion. The whole thread is about peeps who had problems connecting or setting up BT Broadband. We are well aware of other ISP's and how good Cable Broadband is and that there are better services other than BT. I think the crux of the matter is that once you take BT broadband you are locked in for 12 months so you just make the most of it.
I have just come out of my 12 months and I am switching to Metronet.

I forgot there were actually Brits that used this friggin' site ;)

Anyone wanna talk about Comcast? :)

And you point is... :confused:

The site is registered in the US (Beaverton, Oregon) ... why wouldn't Americans be on it?

But just joshing with you anyway ...

Shangri-La.

Now what have we told you about sucking to much Mountain Air,


:D

Yup 4000+ meters goes to one's head ;)

Called BT yesterday to ask when i would be put on the 2mb upgrade.

and was told I already am..???

Thanks for telling me. BT

You would have thought i would have noticed I was on it for over a week.

Just did a test though. 35mb jpeg download in about 2minutes..something

I really wish the downloads windows would tell you how long it took to download, like they did in the old days. :(

Works on 10.4 not on 10.3.9
 

Folks

I've searched this thread but don't see mention of this problem:

My BTinternet (yes I know it's rubbish) ethernet connection - through their Voyager 205 router - works only intermittently on my iMac running OSX 10.3.9; but when it's dropped out there, if I simply unhitch the ethernet cable and stick it into the side of my iBook running 10.4, it works fine.

But I really would like to make it work full-time on the iMac....

Any thoughts?
Herman

Try upgrading the firmware of the voyager, this is the usual fix for dropouts.

Same here, they got in touch ages ago making a big fuss and saying they'd send me a letter when it's my turn to be upgraded. Only noticed when my brother mentioned he'd downloaded a 60MB update in a few mins. Checked my router settings, and sure enough - there it was in black and white.

Doesn't make much difference browsing, just downloading.

Can't complain though, I wasn't expecting to get upgraded to 2Mb/s as I'm only on a trial of the full package, actually signed up to BT Yahoo! Anytime Plus, which is only meant to be 150Kb/s!

Rob.

I was advised that to speed up the upgrade (to 2 Mb/s) process I should reorder my broadband package. Go to the BT site and re-order what you already have, and in a couple of weeks it will be upgraded to 2 Mb/s. It worked for me - no costs or charges.

Btw, is anybody out there actually using a Netgear 834 with BT broadband **BASIC**?? I still don't know why the Basic package isn't supposed to work with anything other that the Voyager 105.

-spro*gger

with respect, that is a pile of S**T, any brodband is good enough for the Netgear.

When I was ready to order broadband I rang BT and asked about their basic package, and how it was limited to one user and was advertised as not being Mac compatible (although their more expensive packages were).

They basically said it would only work with their provided modem (USB only unlike their more recent models) and their PC-only software, and that it was OK to use my own router with their other packages (as well as my Mac although a lot of the bundled freebies are PC only).

I too would be interested to know if their basic package does in fact work with a Netgear DG834, as my current special offer will be ending soon, and now that their basic package includes email addresses it would be ideal.

Rob.

Well as long as this is real adsl wer'e talking about, and not some techno-frig to create a high speed dial up, then there is no technical reason for the netgear not to work.

Good news - I can confirm that the Netgear DG834G router works with BT Broadband Basic (2 Mb/s) :)

Am using the DG834 and BTBroadband, have been for the past year. Never encountered a problem with 834. As far as changing Broadband provider :eek: got to say why go to another company that insists you have to use their phone service too :rolleyes: and to be frank take the piss stating you have to make X number of calls etc. Stick with BT Ok the know jack about Macs ;) but hey we all have a cross to bear :p

D link 300T
 

MAC: Dual 1GHz DDR 10.4.2
Hi there, I am one of the hundreds of thousands of saps that foolishly went with BT for their ADSL. Couple of questions:

1. I keep getting disconnected whenever I use Acqisition, Limewire or any other client that uses the P@P Gnutella network. I can connect and surf the net (I know its a different protocol), but even this is really flaky with constent drop outs. I can connect via FTP and NTTP, but the P2P sucks. I even get disconnented using Bit torrent. The only P2P that works is the old HOTline protocol.

The Internet connect Log doesn't give any clues..

2. I am looking 2 upgrade the shite Speedtouch 330 USB modem that BT kindly gave me with a Dlink 300T. I've read some good reports about this modem.

Any thoughts on points 1 and 2 would be much appreciated.

Yoda

Use the Force, read the thread that you posted in and tell us what it all means :-)

Sounds like you already know the solution to your problems, here's a hint:

"upgrade the shite Speedtouch 330 USB modem"

Rob.