Broadband Networking? best ISP?

[subucni]

Hi everyone,
i'm going to get broadband, but not sure who to go with, any suggestions?
i know we can get eurobell digital here, and loads of friends use them and dont have any problems so they seem like a good choice.
however, we already have dial-up with bt and my parents naturally just want to stay with them for it.
i know to run broadband on both pc's in the house with eurobell we'll need to have them networked but i dont really want that as i dont want my parents having access to my new pc i'm building for video editing (see hardware forum if you have any tips) and accidentally uninstalling stuff like they did on this pc.
would i need to network the pc for bt broadband too, or as its coming down the phone line (which we have next to both pc's) can it be connected to them independently? (i'm not quite sure how bt broadband works) would we just need 2 broadband modems etc...?

any answers would be great, cheers.
adam

[Clstrphbc_donut]

Im not exactly sure how BT charge....but, Telewest, for two modems it means two lines, therefore twice the price. So, i got a router which you plug your internet cable (WAN) into, then your PC's connect to the router using a network cable. The router then shares the one internet connection between the PC's. That's how i run my 2 PC network anyway. And on the subject of them gaining access to your PC....this is done on XP by sharing drives. If you leave the settings under default, they won't be able to gain access to your hard disk drive(s) therefore cannot delete files.....If you want to double check your not sharing drives go to "My Computer" and right click one of your hard disks and select "sharing and security" and check what it says there. I'm not sure if that's much help though!

EDIT : Oh...erm..i use telewest (Blueyonder) and have no complaints

[subucni]

thanks, that helps me out a lot. i wanted to go with telewest (blueyonder) too cause i dont know anyone who's had any problems and all they do is give you the modem and the drivers for it, and you use standard windows internet explorer. i didnt want to go with btyahoo cause they (from my experience) have a tendancy to try to get you to install their own version of explorer (which can only cause problems surely). they're cheaper too. thanks for the whole networking answer too, my mate (who has telewest networked) gave me the impression that it had to be networked through one of the pc's a using that to network the broadband connection to the other pc. he never mentioned just using a router which sounds so much simpler. thanks again.
i'll probably go for telewest then.

i do have a few more questions though (forgive me for being dumb,probably stupid questions but i dont know the answers)

* If it's running through a router, is the connection speed shared all the time or just when both pc's are using the net?

* I take it this also mean needing to have 2 broadband modems? or is it just needing 2 network cards?

again, thanks. bye

[mike_w]

I'm with Freeserve at the moment, but I assume that that won't make a difference to how to set up a network. The router only shares the connection speed when both PCs are using the net, so one computer can use the net at full pelt when the other computer isn't using the net.

As for the modems, you can either plug the modem into a hub/switch with the two PCs. or get a modem/router in one.

Hope this helps

Mike

[subucni]

helps a lot, thanks. i think im ready for the big bad broadband world now! hehe

[Russ]

if you can get Blueyonder in your area, go with them, http://www.adslguide.org.uk/ is another helping hand for you.