Really confused about cable vs adsl and wireless

My friend has Virgin cable, with a Scientifica Atlanta (or something!) little black box, out of which comes a 10/100 LAN port, which is plugged into an old 4-port wireless router.

She wanted to go wireless, and phoned Virgin. They apparently told her (having given them her postcode and told them that she was on cable broadband) that "any ADSL router would do". So, she bought one from ebay.

Of course, the cable fitting is a cable socket, and the router wants a phone socket! (It was a netgear DG384G, and following this post on the forum:
http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?p=115776#post115776
I decided to ask novatech....
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[14:54:05] Stuart
Hi how can I help?
[14:54:45] WebsiteUser
Can the Edimax EW-7206APG Wireless LAN Access Point 802.11b/g 54Mbps be piggybacked onto a cable modem to provide wireless access via the cable modem (currently a 4 port 10/100 lan thing is doing it)
[14:55:25] Stuart
no you need a wireless DSL router for that.
[14:55:40] Stuart
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NGR-WGR614
[15:11:55] WebsiteUser
Ah, OK. I'll get back to D-Link and Virgin, who both told me I COULD do that,l but to check. And Virgin told me cable broadband wasn't DSL! They are useless!
[15:12:00] WebsiteUser
Thanks for the help
[15:13:43] Stuart
I use that very same router on on Virgin so I know it works.
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I've been doing nerdy stuff for 9 years now, and I thought I knew what was what. Is this all correct? Is there no way an ADSL router (which can't be returned) can be used as just a wireless router without the ADSL bit? Is there no wireless router that can piggyback onto the Virgin cable router? Excuse all the naive questions, but it appears everything I thought I knew is wrong, so help is appreciated!

You can connect it up and use it as a wireless access point, but this would only allow one computer to connect at a time.

The phrase 'wireless DSL router' was incomplete from the tech support, should have been 'wireless cable/dsl router' which is the industry term for a router that takes an ETHERNET cable as its Internet connection. Rather than the DG834G which takes an ADSL line.

The netgear WGR614 should do the job, as would something like the Linksys WRT54GS or the http://www.thinkbroadband.com/hardware/reviews/2005/q3/zyxel-334.html

suspect there are a few crossed cables here.

If your Friend is using a Virgin cable modem then she cannot use any ADSL equipment - they just do not work on the same system

She will have to buy a Router that will work with Cable - so you have to read the specs on the box

I'm on Virgin and we have 2 desktops attached by Ethernet and 2 lap top Computers that are connected by Wireless. OH and before you ask - yes we are a mixed Mac and Windows household

My stuff is getting elderly - but it still works for me - look at my sig - the details are ther

If she's got a cable modem, she needs to get a router without a built-in ADSL modem. Does that help, or have I only muddied the waters further?