I was asking last week about getting cable installed for telephone. I have booked Virgin to do an installation but I gather that the broadband comes via the tv coax not the paired telephone cable. I assume therefore that a router connects directly with what ever tv terminal that they install, not the telephone box.
Kevin
"Zen83237" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
Correct. You get a cable modem from Virgin, which you need to connect to a router - which is different to the ones for ADSL.
The Virgin cable modem will have an ethernet port and any old (non- ADSL) router will do.
MBQ
y
Though unless something has changed, you can connect a single PC directly to the cable modem.
We have our cable TV in one room downstairs and the cable modem (and our wireless router) upstairs.
The cable telephone is on a separate wire.
This is the case as long as you are in a cable area, virgin do do adsl in none cable areas.
Sort or - yes it comes via the co-ax cable they install, however it is not provided by the TV box.
They will provide a cable modem (typically by Cisco at the moment it seems) with a single ethernet port on it. You can also elect to have them provide a 4 port wired/wireless router (DLink), or provide your own. The modem will come with some additional co-ax fly-leads and a F type two port RF splitter to insert between the cable entry point and the TV box. Hence allowing a split to the cable modem.
In mine, the cable enters the house, runs round for a bit and ends up at a two-port F-type wall outlet in the living room, one of which port is blanked off with a screw-on blanking plug (it appears to be intended for FM radio, but doesn't seem to work as I once tried connecting it to the hifi without success). The second port of the wall outlet connects to a second, in-line, 2-port F-type splitter which divides the cable between the cable modem and TV box.
Out of interest - because I'd like to do it to mine - is there any reason why I shouldn't move the in-line splitter so it's before the wall outlet? ie, is the wall outlet just a simple splitter too? That would be much better as I could then site the cable modem with my PC kit, rather than having it contribute to the spaghetti pile behind the TV in the living room.
David
Its not a splitter, its a filter. Don't do anything to it or they may bill you. If you do move it, or alter the wires before it you may alter the levels of everyone on that bit of the cable and may require someone to come out and adjust it, if they find its you they can charge you.
I have often thought about doing something with the redundant one I have to see what intermittent faults I could put into the cable network now I am on Sky and can actually get some broadband speeds all times of the day. Skys
18M speed really is 18M all day.
You can .. tho you wouldn't want to at least a router offers NAT fire walling protection!...
After reading all the above, I am now confused.
We are with BT's Open World with a home hub and we have two computers, sometimes three, hard wired to the hub and I am thinking of taking the offer of joining Virgin. We have fibre optic cable just off the property, so no problem there.
What extras will I need to run up to 3 computers off the cable?
Dave
The fibre does not come into the house. An RF coaxial cable plus three twisted pairs for phone comes to the house instead.
VM provide the hardware for a single computer or a router as already stated. Just plug the leads to the computer into the router. You should not need any extra hardware.
Bob
U need a cable modem type router thats a router less an ADSL modem in it.
Most makes do one like this for instance..
Just dun one for a Mate and all is OK with this model..
Yep Virgin really do do ADSL but don't touch it a barge pole unless its via Cable&Wireless LLU.
Wow - seriously? So not only must I not move the internet/TV splitter upstream of the wall outlet/filter, but I can't even move the wall outlet? :-( Better to find out now than later I suppose...
OK. how about if I disconnected the filter (it has F-connectors on both sides) and reconnected it in the next room without changing the length of coax cable - surely that would be OK? Or would the act of briefly disconnecting it bring round the boys from Virgin media? (But can I definitely not shorten the cable by a couple of metres?)
That way I could at least site the filter alongside the cable modem with the PC kit, and just have a single coax lead from the filter through the wall to the TV in the next room...
David
Thanks for that Bob
Dave
Thanks again
Dave
This does not tally with the installations I have seen locally. The wall outlet box may or may not have a filter etc I don't know never having looked in one. However the splitter they supply was a bog standard off the shelf F type RF splitter. It does not matter where that is inserted or what equipment is connected to which leg of it after the main wall port. (in fact as I accidentally discovered the other day it works with two of them in circuit and 30 yards of dangling unterminated co-ax hanging off one side. (customer had forgotten last time they had cable before moving out for renovations they had it split to deliver a cable to an upstairs room as well!)
After the wall plate you can pretty much do what you want IME. They supply various length cables with their cable modems and you use whichever is appropriate for the circumstances.
How do you know it doesn't tally if you have never looked?
They are all off the shelf parts. You can even buy the cable headends if you can a££ord them.
That is the purpose of them, to balance the lines and cut down reflections, etc. You may get away with chopping the cable before the first filter, you may not, it is different for each installation. I accidentally did something similar with a thin net, as a result some computers could not see others and it was different for each computer. It caused null points as the reflections caused by the impedance change cancelled the signals out.
I have looked at the splitter, and by design that is all that it is, a splitter not a filter...
If we are still talking about the splitter, then that is twaddle. The splitter is similar to:
If there is a filter, it will be in the wall outlet plate - which is the first termination of the cable on entry. Which I fully accept (depending on the content of the wall plate), you may have problems interfering with the cable before that.
However since the cable length on the consumers side of the wall plate is variable, and the splitter may not even be present, it seems pointless bestowing mystic powers on the splitter.
Indeed it might - a completely different situation however. Thin ethernet is a CSMA-CD technology that relies on subtle cable voltage sensing to maintain the contention detection. DOCSIS as used over CATV networks is a TDMA system giving deterministic access.
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