Wow, this response is great! Thank you everyone.

I checked out the link MarioD,(thank you). It's put me off a bit though. It sounds like it may be a hassle. I don't live in the same part of the state as mum and if something goes wrong it would be a nightmare.

Eddie, it will be broadband ADSL that Mum will go on. I am not completely savvy with it all myself. Our modem (external box)connects to the XP and I connect to my laptop wirelessly from it. Thank you for the warning. The whole thing is starting to give me second thoughts. The 316mb isn't a problem, I'll just do something else while I wait.

Thanks for the ebay tip Tommyc. All info is more than welcome.

Sorry I didn't get back to you last night Tim. It was getting late here and I needed to crash but it got me thinking about this alternative solution.

I think I'll look into the possibility of upgrading our modem and giving Mum our old one which does connect without the service packs. We bought it 2 years ago and it just went straight on. We did the updates as they came up, so the XP is up to date and able to support the newer modems.

I will post an update on all this when I find out. Again thanks for the great feedback.

yjoh

[i]Music...a joy for life.