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Back online again.

Hello everyone, Stephen is back online after our Talk Talk broadband internet failed to connect. There is only a little that the average user can do, reboot your computer and reboot your router. If you put this link into the address bar of your browser, it should call up your broadband router help/diagnostic page. Talk Talk had supplied us with a Huawei SmartAX MT882 broadband router and the information on these pages is rather extensive but well over the head of the average user.

I rang their fault line on Sunday 7th February and spoke to a nice lady in India. She talked me through a few things and then logged my problem as a network fault that the technical guys will fix in 48 to 72 hours. On Tuesday 9th February Talk Talk technical support in England telephoned me at home and talked me through things and I did the checks they suggested. They thought that maybe our router was faulty and they would send us another router for us to try. I mentioned that we had similar problems in May 2008 and that then it was a faulty chip set in the telephone exchange. The guy did not think that this was the problem this time and he worried over the costs involved in sending out a BT engineer if the router was at fault. So we sat back and waited for the new router to arrive.

Gail was out with friends on Saturday when the postman came with our new broadband router, so I went along to our postal sorting office this morning to pick it up. This new broadband router is from the same manufacturer, Huawei but it is a later model called a HG520b which has a wireless connection, as well as 4 LAN ethernet sockets. Well, I read the instructions, plugged in this new broadband router, put this link into the address bar, worked through various menus, changed the WAN settings/username and password values from the default factory settings to my Talk Talk username/password, saved these settings, rebooted the router and hey!presto! Stephen is now back online.

What have I learned from this experience?

1: Broadband routers will not last forever and if your ADSL light does not stay on all the time, then there may be a fault with your router and you will have to get a new one.

2: Although the self test diagnostic software may indicate a DSL fault, it is not always at the telephone exchange but could be a faulty piece of kit in your home.

3: Do not worry yourself silly over not getting an internet connection. Try everything you can do within your own capabilities, when you have done everything you can, then ring the telephone help line. The call centre staff have to deal with all sorts of people, from complete novices to IT experts. Tell them that you cannot connect to the internet and what things you have tried. They will then talk you through some other things to try and if this does not work, they will pass you onto second line technical support, who have the skills and experience to solve anyone's problems and get you back online as quickly as possible.

4: I am pleased with all the help I have got from Talk Talk in India and England.

5: If I ever use my pocket money to buy a laptop or netbook, then a wireless broadband internet connection is already running in our home. I will not have to go and buy a wireless broadband router, which would cost from £50 at PC World.