[ale] BellSouth ADSL

[Matthew Brown]

Again, keep watching for my upcoming SDSL offering.

SDSL blows ADSL out the door.

Also, we'll be managin much of the network with Linux, so setting you up at
home should not be a real problem.

-Matthew Brown

----- Original Message -----
 From: Jim Kinney <jkinney at teller.physics.emory.edu>
To: David Brooks <dbrooks at trusted.net>
Cc: <ale at ale.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 1999 4:05 PM
Subject: Re: [ale] BellSouth ADSL


>I have ADSL w/ Bellsouth.net. They are braindead about any other OS than
>Mac or Windows. But don't tell them you will run something else. they will
>charge you for a NIC so go ahead and take it. Here's the game:
>
>They tinker with your phone line and install a high pass filter and run
>the high speed line pretty much wherever you want it to go. They plug in a
>"modem" (actually a protocol translator , async to ethernet) and connect
>it through ethernet to your box. They will _not_ connect it to a hub since
>the box needs to have an IP. The bummer is they only (currently) support
>DHCP, no static IP's. They have also changed my IP _DURING_A_TRANSFER_ !!!
>Even Linux didn't follow that nicely. Had to restart networking.
>
>You have to have a "supported" OS that they can install to in order to
>verify the system works before they leave.
>
>To get it to work under Linux, you need to compile your NIC's as modules
>and use /etc/conf.modules to provide alias's to eth0 and eth1. This way
>you can specify which card get local net traffic and which card get DHCP.
>You will also need to set up some firewalling on your new gateway machine.
>They don't tell the windows people this (Oooh, look at the people who have
>file sharing turned _ON_)
>
>In short, ADSL is generally great. It's fast, reasonably reliable and
>relatively cheap compared with ISDN (I have a 3Com ImpactIQ ISDN modem for
>sale $75 w/manuals) Drawbacks are DHCP, Bellsouth, and stupid OS
>requirments. Also requires a 1 year contract.
>
>Oh, yeah, they filter port 25 stuff so sendmail can't send mail. It can
>recieve but not send. I guess it's their idea of spam protection.
>
>I'm waiting for Mindspring to get it together.
>
>James Kinney M.S.Physics jkinney at teller.physics.emory.edu
>Educational Technology Specialist 404-727-4734
>Department of Physics Emory University http://teller.physics.emory.edu
>
>On Wed, 19 May 1999, David Brooks wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Okee doke,
>>
>> I think I may have asked this before, long ago, but I can't remember
exactly
>> what the response was.  I might be able to ask BellSouth this (assuming I
>> didnt get a really misinformed/automated reply from them), but I figure
this
>> list is alot speedier. Here's my situation:
>>
>> 1)  I've had it with dialup PPP connections,
>> 2)  A modem connection just isnt very practical for the use my house gets
>> (with the whole family on the 'net)
>> 3)  I run Linux (d'uh)
>>
>> Now, on BellSouth's website, they say I need either windows95 or
windows98
>> or Macintosh.  I refuse to believe that ADSL service requires this.  WIll
>> they still provide me service if I dont run these OS's?  Will Linux (or
some
>> other obscure form of *nix, namely FreeBSD) scare them off?
>>
>> Next,  I'm assuming they put a NIC in one of my computers, subsequently
>> leading me to believe that the "ADSL modem" they provide is a seperate
>> network device.  If I all ready have a NIC in every one of my computers,
is
>> this still necessary, and can this "ADSL modem" hang off my hub?
(ideally)
>>
>> If this ADSL modem is needed to be connected to one PC directly, is there
>> any sort of support for it under Linux?  Could I still use IP Masq to
give a
>> connection to all the rest of the PC's in the house? (not-so-ideally,
>> however still usable)
>>
>> Second issue - I would prefer a static IP address, because I have my own
>> domain name and would prefer to host it locally.  Does BellSouth.net
provide
>> this?
>>
>> Any information would be really helpful -- I'm looking to find another
>> cheap, higher-speed solution than dial-up pretty soon here.  I appreciate
>> your time.
>>
>> -Dave
>> db at trusted.net
>>
>> --
>> david a. brooks
>> trusted net, inc. [http://www.trusted.net]
>> voice: .. (770) 425.5700 x.280
>> pager: .. (770) 379-2333
>> :wq
>>