Moving to Homechoice
We’ve decided to move from our current ADSL provider (PlusNet) to Homechoice, the London-only provider of broadband, TV and telephone packages. They do all this via the little copper wire that runs from the BT telephone exchange to your house – impressive.
The main reason for switching to them is not the tech though (oh no, read on about that), but the fact that out TV reception has been awful since the Arts Depot was built up the road from us. Thanks to the precedent set by Hunter v. Canary Wharf in 1996, you can’t complain about TV signal disruption if a building project causes it, so we needed to look for alternatives. Satellite or cable would be the obvious choice, but we just don’t watch that much TV these days to justify the cost. The basic Homechoice package would give us what we wanted, give or take about a fiver per month, based on our current phone usage.
So, we’re due for installation on the 17th March. It poses a couple of annoying issues though. The first is that the Internet connection, like cable, will emerge from the set top box, which is in our living room. The computers, however, are two floors above that. So, I’ve had to lay a cable from the top of the house to the bottom – which has been an adventure in Ethernet (I can now wire a CAT6 terminal…). The second issue is that the STB will have a plain RJ11 socket to attach the home network to. That’s fine, but it means the ADSL router we have will be redundant. We’ll need a router/firewall, but since I’m determined to get this done on the cheap, I’m attempting to make one out of an old computer using IPCop.
Several nights into the small hours later, and my “spare” PC appears to work OK, but it’s so old it’s not Y2K compliant and keeps thinking the year is 2001. This means that every time I boot it up, the firewall goes nuts thinking it’s five years out of date, etc.
So, like any tight-fisted geek, I went to eBay. Last week I took delivery of what was described as a 650MHz machine with no hard disk and 32Mb RAM. It was £15.00 including postage. However, it turns out to be 90MHz with a hard disk, a SCSI CDROM that doesn’t work, and 64Mb RAM. Hmm. Never mind, at least I can install IPCop with floppies. Now, however, the box mysteriously hangs at random intervals. The installation date is approaching, and I’m thinking the fates are against me…
if you want an old computer
i have one which has been looking for a good home… not sure what it is but it’s a lot more than 90mhz, has a working hard drive etc. the only thing which doesn’t work is the floppy (drive).
Great!
I’ve now had TWO offers of old computers! This blogging thing ain’t bad for getting results.
Does it have a CDROM drive? If so then I’m might be able to use that to re-condition the one I got from eBay (with some extra RAM I found in a drawer) and put it back on there and recoup a bit.
Homechoice
Hi Jonathon
I’m tempted by the price & features of Homechoice. I currently have NTL with TV and Broadband internet.
I use SageTV to change channel on my STB and record programs (using a non standard Red-Eye device)
Please can you tell me the manufacturer and model of the STB?
Are you happy with the service so far?
Homechoice
Hi,
I assume HC are white-labelling the STB – it doesn’t give any info on the make or manufacturer that I can see. Maybe you can find out somewhere. There are some consumer reviews on Net4Nowt I see which indicate most people seem pretty happy. The discussion board on ADSLGuide is also pretty busy.
So far it’s all been pretty good overall. Our phone gets connected with them today so we’re on for free evenings and weekends (for some reason it takes a few weeks to switch you from your old provider). The STB is rather slow, and working out how to replay old broadcasts was a bit tough (the EPG is pretty confusing on that) but I managed to watch the new Dr Who a day after it was first shown so I was chuffed with that.
The only thing I’d say is if you’re really into TV signal quality I think you will be disappointed though as the compression *is* noticeable, and the sound quality significantly worse than the NICAM we used to get. But for the price, we’re not bothered.