I've been with tiscali broadband for ages now... was all good, never had any problems or reason to contact them.

Then I decided to upgrade to their 8MB package.. well since then I've had problems. First of all it was just not being able to connect. I was on the phone with them ages going through all the trouble shooting, mostly like "restart the computer", "remake the connection", nothing worked.
They left me saying that I probably had some firewall, even though I didnt change anything just upgraded with them when the problems started.

The computer was also being weird like having serious system errors, I dunno, so I reinstalled windows. Then it connected to tiscali AT LAST, all seemed okay. Buuut not long after it just disconnected, and for the past couple of months it does it. It will connect sometimes for hours, sometimes for minutes but never stay connected like it always used to.

For information, I am using a Sagem F@st 800-840 USB modem. I only have USB1 ports on my comp, I dont know if this would effect it.

I have read stuff about it being to do with the high speed, the line not coping or something. Or, I dont know if its tiscalis fault. I keep contacting them, they say they have checked lines and it should be okay.

I've even told them to DOWNGRADE me again in the hope things will go back to how they used to be! But that hasnt completed yet. I just cant bear sitting on the phone with them cos they have indian tech support that knows NOTHING about the problem..

So I dunno, I cant figure out what the problem is, so I dont know what to do, except keep badgering them. So firstly..if anyone has any ideas? XD

Secondly, if you're still reading... I've read about USB modems not being good, etc, esp with the fast speed. So I wanna get one of those hub setups... also my mum wants to get a laptop and connect to the internet via that.

I dont really understand how that all works though and how we need to go about it. We need to buy a hub... what else? I guess I just need to connect my computer by wire and then she can connect wirelessly ? Is it a hub or a router or are they the same thing??

How can we go about getting a different service provider, and is there anything else I need to get/know. What do you recommend? Thanks if anyone can help