Jedi Star

As per latest updates and reports from Tiscali Insiders, people have started talking about a possible Tiscali UK takeover by Sky. The News first came out in April 2008 for a possible Tiscali sale.

This will mean that Sky will get Tiscali’s UK Broadband customer base along with Pipex Customer base and not to mention the other resellers of Tiscali such as Toucan Broadband, Bulldog, etc. The estimated Customer Base for is approximately 1.7 million UK broadband customers

The latest collaboration between Sky and Tiscali for Sky basic channels for its IPTV customers have also indicated a possible takeover by Sky.

But this comes as a surprise taking into consideration the latest Market recession.

But this deal will also give hope to existing Tiscali and Pipex Customers a better Customer Service in future.

Also this means that the Tiscali IPTV will also get a boost from the same deal and people can look forward to more channels with their Tiscali IPTV package.

More on this as we have updates from our Insiders.

According to a recent research by consumer group uSwitch 1 million users have come close or exceeded their broadband usage limit.

What did the uSwitch Survey say?

•    7.5m did not know their download limit
•    6.2m customers thought they had no usage cap
•    One million have reached or nearly reached their limit
•    22% of broadband providers advertise the true limits of their packages

However most of the users dont even know that until their services are cut-off by their respective ISP‘s.

All the major ISP‘s brand their broadband packages as unlimited however they also have these so called usage caps where the amount of bandwidth used by each user is has a limit.

Most of the broadband users are confused regarding these caps and not sure how they can track their usage.

Also with the need of broadband increasing day by day, having your broadband cut off is like having your electricity cut off.

Also even though these companies have these so called usage caps or Fair Usage Policy most companies have not stated what these limits are.

According to me no ISP should be allowed to tag their packages as unlimited unless they really mean so.
Its high time the ISP be transparent to their user or face their grunt after the disconnection.

But again what I think is the major grunt for these disconnection is faced by the Technical Support Staff for these ISP‘s who themselves are not sure what are the policies as even they are not been kept informed regarding the same.

As per my experience in a Technical Support Center for an ISP, what I feel is if the ISP’s keep their customers in the loop they can have more happy customers who would stick with them for long.

If you check what the major ISP’s offer on their website you would find that most of them brand their services as Unlimited. For e.g.

•    Tiscali – advertised as unlimited, has fair usage policy but with unspecified excess, will cut off those deemed heavy users

•    Be – advertised as unlimited, unspecified excess, will not cut off users

•    Sky – unlimited with no usage barrier or cut off policy for those on its own network. 40GB monthly limit for other customers

•    Toucan (Tiscali in Disguise) – advertised as unlimited, with unspecified fair usage, will cut customers off

•    Virgin Media – unlimited but traffic of heavy users is shaped at busy times

•    Orange, advertised as unlimited, unspecified excess, will remove heavy users

•    BT, advertised as unlimited, unspecified fair usage, will not cut users off

•    AOL, 40Gb limit, will remove users who exceed it

•    Plusnet, 30Gb peak-time limit. Those exceeding their limit will be encouraged to upgrade

Usage levels are going to increase with more and more people using catch-up TV services such as the iPlayer and what these ISP’s need is to have broadband packages with unlimited bandwidth and no caps on the same. But I think these packages won’t come cheap.

Virgin mail users are facing the grunt of spam attackers. Tens of thousands of users have been cut off from their mails for the last four days.

The spam attack halted the delivery of all genuine emails after the attack started tuesday evening.

According to Virgin spokesman the mail were available in the respective accounts but access via webmail might have been taking a long time.

Out of the 200,000 people using the Virgin.net accounts half of them were affected. Virgin states that no emails were lost in the spam attack.

According to Virgin other ISP’s were also affected by this spam attack but none reported so far.

“All customers are able to access e-mail again now, though due to a large queue of undelivered e-mail messages, there may be a short delay before some e-mails reach customers’ accounts.”

But none of the cable service users were affected according to Virgin.

Gone are the days when Laptops were used by only people in multinationals or people sitting in Big Offices. Laptops have become the latest form of Personal Computing.

Laptops and High Speed Wireless were never available to users together, but all that is going to change pretty soon. Phone forms, Chip Makers and Laptop manufacturing companies are pushing for mobile broadband on Laptop.

Until now with your Laptop you could only get slow Mobile Broadband, but now major computer companies are already re;easing Laptops with Wirless chips which will enable them to use High Speed Wireless Broadband on them.

All the new laptops will have the Service mark which show that will work with the 3rd and the 4th generation High Speed Wireless Technology. And user will have them ready to buy on Store shelves latest by Christmas.

High Speed Wireless Logo.

These Technologies such as Long Term Evolution and High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) support speed upto 7 megabits per second (Mbps).

It’s almost as good as the fastest most Broadband users get in Fixed Broadband Services or Wi-Fi areas.

Its evolved same as Wi-Fi regarding using external card initially and which later became embedded.

The Logo and Branding will help consumers differentiate between normal and High Speed Wireless enabled Laptops.

Hugh Padfield, principal manager for PC connectivity at Vodafone, said: “It’s reached something of a tipping point even before it’s been built in.“

The deal to build these wireless modules into the Laptops has been brokered by the GSM Association.

Major Laptops Manufacturers such as Dell, Toshiba and Lenovo have inked a deal with 3, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Ericsson, Orange, Qualcomm and Vodafone.

The only thing that’s not clear yet is when will the Mobile phone Operators roll out the High Speed Wireless Services.

Also soon you will be able to see the High Speed Wireless Modules in Cameras, Music Players, Phones and Cars.

Now the only thing we need to wait and see is how much do these Packages cost and what all do we get in them.

First lets Start With XP Setting. (and i would give the example of Xbox 360)

1) First plug you USB modem and connect to the internet on your PC.

2) Connect your Xbox 360 with an Ethernet cable to your PC. Please use the cable that came with your console or use a Patch Cable.

Now how to share the Internet connection With your Console.

Step 1: Go To Start > Settings > Network Connections and start the Network Setup Wizard to set up Internet Connection Sharing.

Step 2: On the first two Dialog Boxes click Next, Next. If you’re using a laptop and don’t use Wi-Fi, the Wi-Fi adapter might be shown here – tick the box to Ignore disconnected network hardware. There shouldn’t be any hardware listed here for a desktop PC, unless it has more than one Ethernet port – you can ignore this too, in that case. Click Next then

Step 3: Then Chose the option This computer connects directly to the Internet and then Click Next.

Step 4: From the list of hardware select your USB modem. It should be obvious which entry to choose. Click Next.

Step 5: Now select the network connection that you want to share your USb modem’s internet connection with – this should be the Ethernet port or NIC. Click Next.

Step 6: Click Next to leave the remaining options at their defaults, but select Turn off file and printer sharing when prompted. Click Next another two times and Windows will then configure your network accordingly – this may take a minute or two

Step 7: When the Wizard has finished, select the Just finish the wizard option, then click Next, then Finish. Windows XP is now configured to share the USB 3G modem with the Xbox 360.

================================================

And now lets Start With Vista Setting.

Step 1: Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center, then click Manage Network Connections in the Task pane.

Step 2: Right-click your  broadband connection and choose Properties.

Step 3: When the dialog box appears, make sure that your  broadband modem is ticker in the Connect using list, then click the Sharing tab.

Step 4: Enable the Allow other network users to connect… option and if it doesn’t appear automatically, select your Ethernet port (this should be listed as Local Area Connection) in the drop-down list below. Click OK

Step 5: You may need to disconnect your mobile broadband modem and re-connect for the settings to take effect

With the appropriate steps completed for your operating system, it’s time to move onto the Xbox Live settings on the Xbox 360!

Set up Xbox Live

Step 1
On the Xbox 360, open the Dashboard and select System (the far right screen). Then select Network Settings > Test Xbox LIVE Connection.

Step 2
If you’re currently signed into Xbox Live with a profile, you’ll be prompted to sign out. The console will then run through a series of tests for the Ethernet (wired) connection to the PC.

Step 3
If the console passes each test and ends with NAT: Open, that’s all there is to it – press the Y button on the console controller to return to the Xbox Dashboard.

Troubleshooting

If the Xbox 360 fails any of the Xbox Live Connection tests, press the X button on the controller to repeat them. If you still have no luck, disconnect and reconnect your mobile broadband connection on the PC, then re-run repeat the appropriate sequence of steps to set up Internet Connection Sharing – keep all the settings the same.

It’s worth repeating this process a number of times if it doesn’t work – it took us several attempts before the Xbox 360 would establish a connection and complete the tests.

If the console still refuses to establish a connection to the PC, or if the NAT setting result shows ‘Strict’, you may have to reconfigure the firewall settings on your PC.

If you have a third-party firewall installed, try disabling it temporarily and running the Test Xbox LIVE Connection tests again. If this solves the problem, you’ll need to enable the firewall and forward these three ports:

88 (UDP)
3074 (UDP)
3074 (TCP)

Alternatively, you can put the Xbox 360 (via its IP address) in your firewall’s DMZ. This means that it won’t be protected by your firewall, but that’s not a problem for a games console.

If you use either port forwarding or the DMZ, you’ll need to know your Xbox 360’s IP address. By default, its IP address is assigned automatically and will change each time it goes online. You need to change this to a static IP address – one that never changes.

On the Xbox 360, open the Dashboard and go to System > Network Settings > Edit Settings (or select Edit Settings from the Test Xbox Live screen). Make a note of the IP Address, Subnet Mask and Gateway.

Press the A button on the controller, then select Manual. You can then select the IP Address, Subnet Mask and Gateway in turn and enter the values noted above. Select Done when you’re finished and the console will prompt to test the connection again.

That the end of it.

If any one is looking for drivers for Speedstream 4200/41000  my suggestion dont use the USB option for the Speedstream Modem, get the Ethernet cable and use it with the Network Card.

How to set It UP:

• Check if the Sync is present , Since it’s an ethernet modem, no need to install the modem to get the modem  in sync . If the ckt is not in sync than t/s for sync issues
• If ckt is in sync, make sure modem is connected to computer with ethernet cable.
• Check if you are getting default gateway,192.168.254.254
• If default gateway is present, put the default gateway in browser as you would do for any other router.

You should automatically get this screen, where you would need to enter u/n and pwd. If this screen doesn’t appear automatically click on PPP on the left hand side menu to get this screen. After entering username and password. Just click on save settings.

Once clicked on save settings on previous screen you need to enter the modem username and password again on this screen. Enter username and password as admin. Click on ok.

Once you get this screen it means the modem settings are saved, Just click on disconnect and reconnect to reboot the modem.

You can check if modem is connected to internet, by clicking on System summary (left hand side menu option below status and statistics). If you are getting IP address it means modem is connected to internet. Customer should be able to browse.

If you are not getting IP Address assigned than just check in WAN interface if any other configuration is set. If there is any other configuration is set than delete that configuration. There should be only one configuration set and that should be VC 0/38 (for UK may vary from country to country), and type should be PPPoA. These settings are picked automatically.

SOME Troubleshooting Steps

• Since we don’t get any error messages, woosh and test logons play an important part in t/s.
• In case of def gateway not coming, ensure that LAN is enabled. If getting a def gateway of 169.254.X.X disable and enable LAN.
• In some cases we find corrupt output for ipconfig, perform  “iponfig /release” and “ipconfig /renew” which should help. Also try doing a factory reset of the router.
• Cases where a def gateway is different or blank then check if an IP address is not forced in TCP/IP properties and also ensure proxy is not set in Internet options>LAN settings.

Why Do you get Error 691?…………

1) Your account is suspended.

2) You have the wrong user name and password.

3) Your dialer has gone corrupt.

How to Resolve this Error?……….

1) Check the user name and password you are typing in the dialer.

2) Check which number the dialer is dialing, it should be ‘0,38′.

3) Recreate the dialer. Steps to recreate dialer:

a) Go to ‘Start’ >> ‘Control Panel’ >> ‘Network Connections’ >> on the left hand side you have the option ‘Create a New Connection’.

b) Follow the steps as: click on ‘Next’ >> ‘Connect to Internet’ >> ‘Setup Connection Manually’ >> ‘Connect Using Dial up Modem’ >> ‘ISDN Channel’ >> type: Tiscali as ISP provider >> dial up number as ‘0,38? >> then enter your user name and password >> click ‘Finish’.

4) Try to connect. This should work If your acount is not suspended. If none of the above works please call your ISP and check if you account is suspended

Why do you get this Error 1024?……..

Is this Error going to harm my Computer?……..

First let me clarify, this error does not mean that something is wrong with your PC or your Modem.

This has been an ongoing issue with Tiscali Broadband users, Orange Broadband users, Toucan Broadband and people who have Broadband and have Speedtouch modems and the new drivers.

The reason that the error appears is because the new drivers that you get are meant for Windows Vista and not Windows Xp or the other older Windows Operating Systems.

So to get that error resolved, try this, it will work for sure but do it carefully as you have to make changes in Windows Registry. Try it at your own risk and just follow the steps that are given here.

*Start–>Run–>msconfig.
*Click on “Start up” tab:
*In the start up processes look for ” dragdiag.exe “,Please see to it that you find “C:\program files\thomson” next to it.
*Uncheck that option.
*Click ‘apply’ and ‘ok’
*Click ‘close’
*Restart system.

Please let me know if that works as it has worked for all the people that I have tried it with.

**( not sure if it works for Win 98)