will ntl bb work with existing cable point?

MrNuked

Will an NTL cable modem work with an existing regular cable point?
Do you have to sign up for a full year with them?

If you get a phone line installed do you have to pay rental for a full year?

The_Conductor

Hiya,

First of all, NTL broadband is not available everywhere as yet- they are in the process of rolling it out in quite a few areas as yet- so just because you have NTL cable TV does not necessarily mean that you are going to be able to use the NTL broadband. As far as I know they change the frequency modulator on your point and there after you are more or less set to go.

All the NTL packages are being upgraded as of the first of August- and your download is capped at 30Gig per month- which beats the miserly 4 Gig on the Eircom basic package.

Was talking to one of their engineers earlier- apparently the cable modem is initially dynamically assigned an IP address- but it should keep the address then. If you reboot the modem, it automatically tries to reclaim the IP address that it was last using (providing no-one else has grabbed it). This means you can run a website from your home PC...

I am soooo looking forward to telling Eircom where to shove their equipment and phone line......

MrNuked

Thanks for the info.
I think the place I am considering moving to has piped cable into all the apartments. If the NTL BB is available there (I'm guessing it will be in Rathmines being so central), will this cause any problems, legal or technical?

maxheadroom

AFAIK Rathmines isn't enabled for cable BB.

Also, in houses they do a new cable drop for broadband, I'm not sure how they handle it in apartment buildings.

seamus

Allegedly, you must use the cable modem that NTL supply, but they will supply a different one if you ask. Allegedly. But apparently that's crap, and once a cable modem is correctly set up on the line, it can get an IP. But who knows?

I'm pretty sure that just connecting a modem to a standard coax TV line won't work. If it was that simple, do you think anyone here would bother signing up with them?

You must sign up with NTL for a full year. They'll insist on a direct debit for the year too (in fact, they won't install it without a DD being set up first). NTL will also allow you to up or down grade your subscription during your contract with no penalty (except if you sign up for the current offer of three months free - you can't change in those three months).

If you get a phone line to avail of DSL, you don't have a contract for your line rental (i.e. when you disconnect, you just pay line rental up until the disconnection date), but most of the DSL packages have a 12 month contract, so if you disconnect early, you must pay the balance of the year's subscription.

Moriarty

Afaik ntl limit the connection by - among other things - making you register the MAC address of your cable modem with them before it'll be able to gain access to the network. Again afaik, there's nothing to stop you getting any modem you like aslong as you can set it up right and you register the new MAC address with ntl.

maxheadroom

IIRC, there's a HFC MAC address that's associated with your house (or more specifically, the blue box on the front of your house) and the MAC address of the cable modem. Both need to be registered, which the install crew do. It means you can only use the cable modem set up on your account, and you can only use it in your house.

The_Conductor

If my memory serves me right, I remember a thread here on boards a few months back giving directions on how to re-write the MAC addresses (I think it was a copy of a US article). Have been looking around, but don't seem to be able to find it. Apparently in a lot of cases, the restrictions on whatever package you are on, are associated with the specific MAC address, as opposed to being limited with hard-ware. Hmmmm

roryodonnell

I have NTL broadband in lucan, which is working now. I have a couple of wired points in the house. The box room is where NTL put in a new point for the broadband. Can I connect to other points in the house, say, the TV room, or will I have to switch the cables outside the house. Anyone else managed to get BB working from another point in the house ?

There are fuctions on some routers to clone mac addresses.

For example if are using a wireless access point connected to your cable modem you must get the AP to clone the cable modem's MAC to work sucessfully.

Moriarty

You don't need to go cloning the mac address, ntl are happy to change your mac address listing that they have to whatever the new one is if you get new hardware.

maxheadroom

Also, it won't work. The cable modem has 2 MAC addresses, one on the cable TV cable side and one on the ethernet side. there's no way to fake the cable TV facing one short of disasembeling the thing and figuring it out from there.