Re: Virgin Media Broadband - what do you get, and how easy to connect?

The message <1i63b37.3z9pwjfcuonuN%NEWS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
from NEWS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Roger Merriman) contains these words:

Johnny B Good <jcs.computers***@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The message <1i60rm0.1mvm4c91m54mcwN%NEWS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
from NEWS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Roger Merriman) contains these words:

Simon Brooke <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've just got myself a flat in Hamilton which has a Virgin Media cable
connection. I'm thinking of getting it turned on for broadband,
but the
only computer I have there is a laptop which runs Linux only,
and if it
isn't easy to use the Virgin Media connection with Linux I
shan't bother.

What sort of a connection device do you get from Virgin Media,
and is it
Windows-only? Are there any particular gotchas?

na cable modem can assess it via browser. connection via ethernet.

no problems at all, with regard to needed windows or other such
sillyness.

Agreed! I think all the cable modems supplied by NTL/TeleWest/VM have a
USB port as well as the industry standard ethernet port (RJ45 socket)
but this is best regarded as a 'courtesy item' (for those making do with
USB 'cos there isn't an ethernet port in their PC - best regarded, in
motoring terms, as the 'skinny spare wheel solution' to let you limp to
a service station for a proper replacement :-).

If a cable modem (which, incidently, remains the property of the ISP
and is their responsibility in terms of service maintainance repair
costs) is an option, you couldn't have an easier to set up and operate
internet connection if you tried (provided you ignore the USB option and
use only the ethernet port -the two are exclusive to each other anyway,
you merely have a choice of either/or).

An ethernet connection is OS (and hardware) agnostic, giving you
maximum freedom of choice with regard to the kit you want to connect to
your BB connection. If you can only get BB via ADSL, then using a
modem/router will give the same benefit.

It's worth keeping in mind that ethernet now has a vintage pedigree and
had to be almost zero cpu cycles overhead from the off in order to be
able to shift network data at 10Mbps (faster data transfer rates than
the local hard disk drives could maintain at the time!) using CPUs with
less than a tenth of a percent the processing power of today's CPUs

USB, otoh, is 'Johnny come lately interface' and a profligate consumer
of CPU cycles (simply because the CPUs, by then, had "CPU cycles to
spare"). USB2 (and to be fair, Firewire 400) is only possible by the
existence of GHz clocked CPUs.

firewire 400 has been around since 99 at least. it is more complex as
far as i understand it, intface than USB and doesn't need a pc ie you
can plug various devices together. and it should stream the data with
out dipping unlike USB which though can spurt a higher amount of data
the rate falls off.

USB does require the PC to drive it essentally. on the plus side the
chips in the USB devices can be simpler (well it's a saving for the
device makers)

Until I saw pretty well the same high cpu usage (and flakiness) on
firewire data transfers as I saw with USB2, I had the impression that it
(IEEE1394) was a more mature and better specced interface (despite the
Sony involvement). However, since it (IEEE1394) owes more to SCSI than
its downmarket cousin, USB, when it's not misbehaving, it (the "400"Mbps
version) does outperform USB2 (480Mbps) by about a 20% speed boost.
Obviously, this improved performance arises out of the full duplex link
cct being used compared to USB's bi-directional half duplex link cct.

One thing that amazed me was the use of logic (for a change) in
implementing the interconnect wiring standard as a cross-over circuit
thus eliminating the nonsense involved with other interconnects such as
straight versus crossover cables used with cat5 ethernet cabling. I
found this out by virtue of the fact that the 6 pin to 6 pin "IEEE1394
cable" supplied with the "EasyDrive" USB2/IEEE1394 combo external drive
enclosures had been wired pin for pin (ie _not_ to the IEEE1394
standard) thus rendering them totally useless for their intended
purpose.

I tried to explain this 'cable cockup' to the trader I bought the
enclosures from, but, TBH, I think I'd have had a more enlightened
response out of a pot of yoghurt.

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.
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