Help! UK Tiscali Broadband is killing us.

Question

We are having very difficult time with Tiscali Broadband. On the 7th of September 2006 our tiscali broadband has decided to stop working. Until that day since beginning of March 2006 we have made contract, there is no trouble at all with 3 Macs we have at home (G3 DT OS9.2.2, iBook G3 800MHz OS10.3.9, Powerbook G4 867MHz OS10.3.9, connected via Belkin 56g wireless router). First, we lost internet, then e-mail. After a couple of days internet started working except security site (on line banking, ebay with security and tiscali webmail). Then e-mail came back but we still can't send out mail (we can receive it).
I have contacted tiscali and they gave me many suggestion for Windows and Internet Explorer (cos they dont support macs). I have tried cleaning up all the cache, up date browsers with no luck. Turned firewall on and off but nothing changed. Reatart router more than 10 times. DHCP on and off. MAC address filter on and off. No effect. We have found out that our old dial up connection to Orange works with no problem on all three machine - security site no problem at all.
I suspected that there might be something wrong with the major maintenance work they have done recently - boost up the bandwith to 8MB from 2MB. I have asked tiscali but they simply ignore and kindly told us to ask for help from Apple(!). I believe my router set up is correct but there might be a problem.
Do you have any suggestion what I can do?
Below is our set up.(didn't include G3DT OS9.2.2)
<Our computers>
1) Apple Mac PowerBook G4 867MHz, 1GB RAM, 20GB HD, OSX 10.3.9, Mozilla 1.7.13, Internet Explorer 5.2.3 and Safari 1.3.2
2) Apple Mac iBook G3 800MHz, 512MB RAM, 20GB HD, OSX 10.3.9, Internet Explorer 5.2.3 and Safari 1.3.2
<Modem/Router>
Belkin Wireless Modem Router 4Port, 802.11g, F5D7630-4A
Connecting to the PowerBook G4 via wireless 802.11g using Belkin 54g wireless PC card.
Conneciton to the iBook via cat5 Ethernet cable.
<Rounter Setting>
Connection Type PPPoA
User Name > (my username)
Password > (my password)
IP assigned by ISP > Yes
IP Address > n.a
Subnet Mask > n.a.
VPI/VCI > 0/38
Encapsulation > VC/MUX
Dial on Demand > No
Idle Time (Minute) > 0
MTU > 1500
Any suggestion will be appreciated cos me and my wife need internet for our research everyday and for making our life going, and having a kid means our life is rather busy... Thanks.
PowerMacG4 867MHz   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

Answer 1

Hi, thanks for your help.
1. Look under System Preferences > Network > TCP/IP
What does it say: it should have an IP address, subnet, and router and also a DNS IPs, UNLESS its DHCP
IP = 192.168.2.4 (given by belkin router. distributed by me using MAC address filteering)
Subnet = 255.255.255.0 (belkin's default setting)
Router = 192.168.2.1 (belikins default setting)
DNS IP = assigned by ISP using DHCP so it doesn't appears in the pane.
Under PPPoE button
Nothing is ticekd (no PPPoE)
Under Apple Talk button
No Apple Talk
Under Proxies button
Only PASV is ticked (no proxies)
Under Ethernet button
Configure Automatically is selected
I hope it may of any help.
Thank you for your help.
PowerMacG4 867MHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)