New to cable broadband

[SmartMart]

Broadband "L" + TV "L" installed this morning and everything appears to be working well despite having to "install" the VM Netgear router myself. The provided installation CD doesn't work for wired networking so had to phone tech support who walked me through the manual installation. Now the questions:

1. The "enet" and "send" lights on the modem and the "internet" light on the router are continuosly flashing which isn't the case with ADSL so I'm wondering if this is normal for cable broadband.

2. I've logged into the modem and the router but I can't find anywhere where it tells me what speed I'm connected at. Could somebody please tell me where I can find that information please.

I've been on one of the speed testers and attached a screenshot of the results, if that's of any help.

Regards .....

[moaningmags]

The flashng lights you have are fine.

To check your speed you need to login to the modem at http://192.168.100.1 root is the username and password.

Mine says Bit Rate
20480000 bits/sec download

Bit Rate
768000 bits/sec upload

I'm on 20meg

[chickendippers]

1. Yes, this represents data being send and received, just as the light on your computer's ethernet port flashes when data is transmitted.

2. Cable works differently to ADSL, you don't need to worry about sync rates. You will be connected to VM's network at 10Mb, factors affecting that speed mainly surround local network congestion (oversubscription) or the specific website you're visiting.
The speed test shows you are clearly receiving the speed you're paying for :)

[SmartMart]

Many thanks for both your replies :)

I suppose the thing to do would be to do a speed test every day to check that my speed is OK.

Regards .....

[chickendippers]

Well if you are that concerned, then you might want to give this a read: http://www.virginmedia.com/customers/speedtesters/

[Matth]

If you have constant traffic indication, you may need to check for crapware, though you can see a little splash from DHCP broadcast, and possibly ARP.

[graf_von_anonym]

I suppose the thing to do would be to do a speed test every day to check that my speed is OK.

Well, you could do that, or you could use the time that'd take to have a cup of tea.

[SmartMart]

If you have constant traffic indication, you may need to check for crapware, though you can see a little splash from DHCP broadcast, and possibly ARP.

As I stated in my OP, there's continuous traffic, so I've just done AV and malware scans both of which found nothing.

There's also constant traffic with the PC switched off :confused:

Regards .....

[Joxer]

You can check on the router config page at 192.168.1.1 username/password virgin/password who is connected, but I can't remember what page it is on, that'll tell you if anyone is using the connection.

[Ignitionnet]

Constant traffic is normal and just the way cable is, don't worry about it.

[Jonathan90]

If you signed up for 10MB there's nothing to worry about cause that is smack on.

[SmartMart]

Thanks once again for all your replies and for reassuring me that there's nothing wrong. I'll shut up now :D

Regards .....