O2 Broadband

http://broadband.o2.co.uk/home/questions.jsp#j

Says:

10. Will O2 Home Broadband work with my Apple Mac?

Yes - and it’s easy to get started, without using our set up CD. All you have
to do is plug everything in and switch your O2 wireless box on. You’ll be
online straight away.

If you want to go wireless or change how your connection is set up, you can
use the O2 Home Broadband advanced settings. And if you need help with
connection problems or your email, you can give us a call.

Call us on 0800 230 0202 or complete the Email Us form.

By the way, there is no such thing as a

PowerMac G6 Alu

See the variety of computers you may have:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10467146#10467146

And please update your profile. G6 doesn't exist.

The greater falacy of calling it a PowerMac G6, is that that the "Power" designation originates from the Power RISC architecture processor series from IBM. Apple codeveloped with IBM and Motorola in the early 90s a way of producing Mac compatible RISC processors with the Power architecture. This architecture survived until 2006 for the purposes of use with Apple machines. After that point, Apple replaced those processors in its newer machines with Intel processors. The Mac Pro for all intents is a specialized Xeon processor Mac. It is not a Power RISC architecture Mac. The 601, 603, 604, G3, G4, and G5 were all Power RISC architecture Macs.

You dont require a CD installer to setup a router in fact any router. You just put the routers ip address in your webrowser and access its WebUI.

That being said O2 supply a thompson router that is preconfigured. It has a wireless network already setup the SSID and the WPA password is printed on the bottom of the router. You should plug it in connect it to your phone line and you are good to go.

I have been using O2 broadband for a couple of years, and the service has been very fast and faultless apart from very occasional brief interruptions when the email server is down for a few minutes, but this hardly ever happens and is hardly even worth mentioning. THere was a spam attack a few weeks ago that did cause a major hiccup but this was resolved very quickly.

Their telephone support is on a free number and is not in India 🙂 (no disrespect to India but those people in Mumbai just read instructions off a printed card) and the O2 guys are really helpful - not that you ever need them much.

The package they send you contains the router and everything else you need. Needless to say, the instructions for setting it up with a PC are about 20 pages long and the instructions for the Mac are 1 paragraph 🙂

Just plug it in and off you go.

This is all good because actually, O2 broadband is a front end for BeTHere, which has consistently come out tops for ISPs in the UK.

I would recommend it very strongly.

Spam? Forget it - they block 99.9% of it at the server so you never see it - although if you want to see it, you can look at it by opening the "spam" folder when using the very good O2 webmail service. All spam is automatically trashed, so you never even have to think about it.

Speeds are excellent and I have never been throttled. Bandwidth is simply not an issue. You can be watching BBC iPLayer in high definition and downloading a massive file at the same time whilst also checking your email. Not a problem, ever.

Apple Discussions is not the appropriate place to compare the merits and demerits of various UK-based ISPs.

I suggest you go here instead:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/o2.html?Cat=

Most ISPs are Mac compatible, whether they know it or not. If you get a technical issue with an ISP that doesn't seem to be covered in their help pages, ask in Discussions if someone has found a workaround. Usually it is simply a problem of DNS issues with the modem, or registration of the modem going from one machine to another. Often the modem just needs to be reset, which requires an unwired turned off period of at least 45 seconds, before plugging it into the computer, powering the modem on, then the computer.

Strictly speaking I'm asking about Mac related ISPs which could also unearth technical issues that there used to be with a number of ISPs with Macs a while back. NTL a case in point. Anyway I have my answer.

All ISP's in the UK were compatible with mac, the only issue we had in the early days of broadband were those really bad USB DSL modems they supplied, they needed a driver to run on your mac. That is why I used to import Ethernet Modems from the USA in the early days. I helped many mac users get on line.

It's true that at one time, ISPs didn't know much about Macs but those times are now well behind us ever since Steve Jobs came back and gave Apple a diabolically clever new marketing strategy that has now made Apple and the Mac something everybody wants to know about. All ISPs except maybe a few old clunky ones are now perfectly attuned to working with Macs, and have been for some time 🙂

... at least in the UK.

The only problem is that without Steve Jobs would Apple run off the rails again as it did before, when the corporate types with thick necks and bad suits took over ?

😟