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Some Customers Can Roll Their Own DSL
Allnighterking writes: "SBC has announced self installed DSL for large sections of their coverage area according to this article at CNN.com. More information available here for your area. Seems that they believe the support is available only for win98 at the moment with Linux et al support coming later. However, it's been my experience that with a little bit of networking knowledge and the external modem you can make it work on *nix now. The claim is that you can install in under one hour with 24/7 support available."
Remember back when DSL wasn't a buzzword like "B2B" and "total management solutions"? DSL lines were reserved for the people who actually needed and could make use of them!
Now, DSL is so popular than it's exceeded cable modems in terms of number of subscribers. I can't get even get my DSL line to function half the time, because there's so many Napster kiddies all bombarding the DSL lines with their w4r3z and MP3 downloads. If someone doesn't come up with a solution to this (I've heard about bandwidth prioritiziers -- maybe those can offer a solution), we're looking at severe Internet congestion. Remember that AOL lawsuit that erupted because consumers couldn't access AOL -- it was always too busy? Expect a lot more of those in the near future.
What's going to be the next refuge for the technological elite? I can't use DSL or cable anymore -- they've been taken over by the 12-year-old hoi polloi. So what's the next big thing going to be? Fiberoptics?
pppoe on linux? but of course. check this out
you would have fast, courteous installation, too!
I waited months for my dsl to be installed.
When the tech (finally) showed up a couple of days after the initial appointment date, he had me run the wiring from the phone box, as that wasn't part of his job. Ok, no problem.
When it came time to install the dsl modem and software, he said that it only worked with Windows. I wanted to put the modem on a linux box that happened to have two ethernet cards. It took me 10 minutes to convince him that all I needed was the IP, netmask..., etc to get it up and running, and that YES, it WOULD WORK on linux.
He finally showed me his work order, I configured the ethernet interface on the linux box and we were up and running in five minutes.
So, I had to run the wire, and configure the box...good thing that I qualified for "free" installation.
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200 megabits a second is rather, uhm, fantastic, even for cable (even your PCI bus would have problems trying to keep up). Perhaps you mean kilobytes or kilobits a second?
Kilobits are used generally for linespeed (ie, 56K, 1.5Mbps). Kilobytes are generally used for file transfer and are 8 times larger (ie, 7k/s, 192k/s).
Unfortunately, it isn't quite that easy. Every SBC subsidiary uses PPPoE as far as I know, so telling everyone's favorite braindead OS to fetch your IP info automatically won't do much good.
It was really quite easy -- sort've. I got my equipment via UPS June 27th; I immediately set about hooking everything up and getting my network set up for the change. I'm through-I turn on the modem...no sync. Damn!
After calling them the next two days I get my line provisioned, and the modem syncs up. But it's not working. Bummer!
I call that night, talk to a few different people (one of whom said my order had been cancelled but I'd doubt that is the case since I've been up and running for a week and a half now). None of them can help me (they aren't extremely knowledgable, but they're friendly). One promptly opened a trouble ticket.
Late the next afternoon I'm sitting around in despair; the modem is mocking me! All the lights are shiny and green but it's not working! Suddenly the phone rings--it's a swbell technician asking if I'd like him to come over and check it out (this is late Friday afternoon). I tell him it's OK if he'd like to wait but he insists.
About 20 minutes later he shows up and starts fiddling with my computers. It doesn't take me long to figure out he doesn't know as much about networking as I do (especially my own network!). He is at least computer literate though so I don't shoo him away (I just keep a close watch).
Hours roll by, he can't get anything to work. He's been on hold with swbell for close to 45 minutes (and he was even in their priority queue!). Finally he gets through to somebody and starts explaining the situation. I've retired to my couch to read my latest gaming magazine. They chat for about 45 more minutes, and suddenly everything is working. Joy!
It turns out that my line had been provisioned but they had forgot to 'check' something in their software at swbell (or ASI, as the case may be). It was a harrowing 3 day experience (and three week wait to get the equipment) but it turned out to be well worth it. The technician was pleasant and I am still indebted to him for sticking with it for so long (he didn't leave my house until after 7pm, on a Friday night!).
The connection has been stable, no outages. The speeds are excellent; It's faster than the T1 I had when I lived in a dorm (downstream at least). It's a helluva lot faster during internet prime time, doesn't slow down at all that I've noticed.
Just be prepared to spend some time on the phone fixing their mistakes if you go with this deal. I am quite pleased, and would just as soon cram a radioactive nuclear warhead into the dark recesses of my body as to go back to a dial-up modem.
Or would that be too sensible.
Working for the (other) man
I suspect that this must be Nortel Networks' 1Meg Modem. Bell Canada's ISP, Sympatico, has been using this for a year and a half. For the past year they have been making their users use PPPoE. If SBC claims that it is for Windows only then they must mean that they only provide a Windows client. You can certainly get Linux to work. Sympatico provided a Linux client but is was terrible. You might try the Roaring Penguin client... its easy to use and works well.
I'm signing up for telocity DSL today. They do the self install kit. They also give you a static IP, don't care if you register a domain and point it to your DSL (as long as you don't run a biz off of it), and list UNIX under their supported OS's.
Not too shabby...
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-- Segmentaion Fault (core dumped)
Just out of curiosity, couldn't this be controlled at the router level, since DSL isn't on the local loop? I got in before PPPoE and I'm just running Bridged Ethernet.
- My password is slashdot
For those of you using Bell Atlantic DSL, and having trouble with it, you may want to check out http://www.telocity.com. Having just set up a new phoneline and DSL for my apartment at school, I have become very disturbed at Bell Atlantic's ineptitude. In reviewing DSL service, at first I couldn't see anything good about paying ten dollars more for Atlantic Bell then the fifty dollars a month for Telocity. Looking into the features of each Telocity easily became a better deal, with 3 emails, *nix support, a static ip, 24/7 support, and remote dialup if you are away from home. However the truth of the service became even more clear as I waited for my phoneline to get hooked up. Bell Atlantic, although I do have phoning capability, is still reading a dead line when they test my line from headquarters. Telocity's DSL test, however, confirmed that while my telephone in Bell Atlantic's database was faulty, Telocity's real time testing tools confirmed that my line was both operational and ready for DSL. Basically be very very careful with both phone companies and DSL providers ... had I relied on the phone company to confirm my line was working properly I probably would have had to wait months for DSL and more then likely had to use them. I am very glad I did not get burned.
Code softly but carry a big magnet.
I'm a mac user. The significance comes in later. Anyway, I heard horror stories about slow install service from PacBell, so when I ordered extended (static-IP) service, I asked to do a self-install. This was about April 10. They said they normally don't allow that, but I assured the tech that I knew what I was doing (having installed a few ISDN modems before, and knowing DSL is much easier). Somehow I impressed the tech and he put my order through as a self-install. My line was set to be conditioned on April 25, and the modem was supposed to arrive soon after.
My line was conditioned as promised, but no modem arrived. I spoke to three diffrent techs on two consecutive days. Finally I tracked down the problem. I have a Mac. They don't allow self-installs on a Mac. I asked why, but they had no straight answer. The real reason is probably nobody on their staff knows how, so surely no customer does....
To aviod the whole shenanigan, I changed my order and asked them to have someone come out and install it for me. Now my install date was May 10. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. I really wanted the thing installed so I could start working from home via VNC. I couldn't wait to end my commuting.
Strangely, on May 5, I received a package from PacBell containing one DSL modem, one 10/100baseT NIC, 5 inline filters, a wall-mount filter, and one line splitter. "Hmmmm...," I thought. "It couldn't be as easy as plug and play, coult it?." The NIC was extraneous since I've got built-in 10bT ethernet (the DSL modem is only 10bT), so I plugged the DSL modem into the wall, and then ran a cable between it and the uplink port on my existing hub. I booted the Mac, entered the handily provided IP information and Voila! A quick trip to DSL Reports showed me downloading at over 1000kb/s. I couldn't have asked for a simpler install.
The funny thing is, I've since received two notices from PacBell in the mail -- the last via priority certified US Mail. They apologize for not yet getting to my DSL install. I wonder when, if ever, I'm going to be charged for my DSL service. :) Aside from clueless employees, I'm a curiously happy PacBell customer.
US West has been doing this for at least a year. They ship you a modem and say to call if you have trouble. It's pretty brain dead: Plug yellow wire into NIC. Plug grey wire into phone jack. Plug black wire into wall wart. Any questions? :)
--GnrcMan--
However, I think he already knows your devilish plan
Nothing FreeBSD+NAT can't fix :)
In geek speak that means he's doing exactly what you just said.
1) Plug splitter into wall
:)
2) Plug DSL "modem" into data side of splitter
3) Install NIC (ok, might be hard for some folks)
4) Plug NIC into DSL device
5) Boot Windows
6) Tell Windows to "automatically configure IP information"
7) Reboot Windows
Done.
This is news?
Odds are they're doing it because they are SO backlogged on installs, they can't keep up. Time Warner did the same thing with RoadRunner here in Austin, for the same reasons.
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But I bet you already knew that.
What do I do, when it seems I relate to Judas more than You?
Still not dead.
Here in Austin there's a company advertising their "DSL Cable Modem Technology."
Um...
I guess they figured people had heard of "cable modems" before (they were rolled out before DSL) so they'd give the great unwashed something to latch onto...
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Looks like PacBell is charging an extra $20/month for two years for a free PC. Where do I sign, I'll take three.
SBC has been busy advertising the hell out of DSL service in the areas where they are the ILEC. Unfortunately, most people are disappointed to find out that they're either too far away from the switch, or there's too many load coils, splices, etc. in the line. Of course, SBC isn't really sure of this either, and will frequently tell people that they'll try to give them DSL service, but they won't know if it will work or not until they attempt it. To make matters worse, Bell isn't being very forthcoming to the CLECs who offer DSL, in terms of letting them know the line conditions, distances, etc.
Many who have gotten DSL from SBC are now complaining about frequent outages and poor service from customer support.
Customers are being made to wait a long time for installation, largely because they don't have enough install technicians. So it's not a suprise that they're making the "roll your own" service available.
SBC is trying to recreate the old AT&T several times over. They now push products like home security systems and DirecTV. The marketing department is trying to sell anything they can, frequently before they're actually ready to provide it.
If you live in an area served by SBC, I highly recommend looking at the services your CLECs have to offer...you'll usually get better service at a lower price.
GTE has had the self install method since January in Southern California st least. I sined up for DSL about a month and a half ago and was set up in less than two weeks! Compared to the old way of installation that could take upwards of 7 weeks to install, this set up is great. It personally only toke me 10 minutes to set up. Open the box plug filters into phone jacks, plug in modem to computer, change IP, and presto fully functional broad band conection.
I installed my DSL myself. They sent me a box with the equipment and a CD for Windows. I got it running with Windows and then switched over to plugging the external DSL modem into my linux gateway (dual network cards, IP masquerading).
I've got more of the ins and outs on my DSL diary
SBC attempts to push their Windows 98 solution dubbed "Enternet 300" which is a PPP-over-Ethernet (PPPoE) solution.
I was annoyed it wasn't a DHCP solution, but it took me all of 15 minutes to find rp-pppoe on Freshmeat which has been working great for me for the last 2 months. A simple kernel patch, and an unpatched ppp-2.3.10 does the rest.
I am using an old Dell P166/16MB to do IPMASQ, running a transparent squid proxy, bind for my internal network, and dhcpd for workstations (ie, bring a laptop over, boot up, you're online).
Only bitch I have is upstream; 128Kb sucks. (I do get 1.5Mb down though)
Well i installed SBC's dsl self install kit and i had no problems with it (on my end). I do have knowledge of networking and have installed DSL before with no problems. When i did get my self install kit which was shipped via UPS (i had to be home to sign for it so i got it a day late...) The kit comes with a Kingston network card that i didn't end up using. I used the uplink port in my hub instead. The DSL modem (it isn't a router) into the hub and tried to sign on... nothing. I checked my settings and everything seemed in order so i called up my dsl provider (SNET) and they gave me the run around telling me to call three different numbers. after being on hold long distance for about 45 min. i hung up and gave up for the day. I figured that the problem was with snet's DSLAM and not a problem with my home pc. I called up tech support the next day and asked them to check the DSLAM configuration which they wouldn't do until they walked through all the trouble shooting steps on my side ... idiots yes.. so then he finaly checked thier configuration and i watched my dsl lights sync up with the ATM. before he got back on the phone i was at dslreports.com doing a speed test. Anyways the self install kit is very easy. only wish they had another wall mount filter... :)
There is no
BFD, I did this a year ago with USWest! You still have to wait for them to turn it on at the main office (ONLY took a month with USWest in Seattle). The second time I did this, I didn't even request the installation package. I just bought a used Cisco 675 on ebay, setup the modem, and was online. If this had information about skipping USWest (or whoever) and getting FREE DSL or even about paying for DSL but not having to wait a month to get service it might be interesting. As it stands, this doesn't seem like much to get excited about.
I've had it through my local TPC for a few weeks now. The installer took one look at my setup and let me do most of the installation myself. All he did was put a splitter box outside the house, and swap my single RJ11 for a double one. No PPPoE, no DHCP, just a Fujitsu modem and a piece of paper with IP addresses on it. Couldn't have been better, as far as I'm concerned. Took me a few hours to get the Linux firewall configured, but now it's great.
He calls it a mr. fatty. Sometimes he calls it dubbbie du whoop bop sha bang bang boogie. Or just a joint for those who are fucking retarded!
Yeah, gosh, imagine if there were a bunch of PCs out there all running, say, Windows or something. A single email virus could wipe them all out!
(Does it matter if they came from SBC, or from Best Buy?)
p.s. you can keep yer domain.
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My first machine was a kickass TI-99. I got this when I was about six and it was pretty sweet for it's day. I also got a Speech Synthesizer for it which was neat for it's time. I had a few games for it games like MunchMan, BurgerTime, Space Invaders, Hunt The Wumpus, and Alpine. Not Bad. Then I was given an Apple IIc with 128k RAM (standard, and quite a bit at the time). I loved that machine. It came with a Apple Composite Color monitor, and Imagewriter II. I eventually picked an unbelievably large 40Meg Chinook hard drive. IIc hard drives sucked...they were more spendy than what you could have gotten for the IIe at the same size. Anyhow...it was all good.
The uplink trick is fine for most people, but I think a lot of people with somewhat "valuable" data on their home networks (many gigs of MP3's, anyone???) would want some sort of block between them and that dsl box -- hence the router/firewall combo boxen that are popping up EVERYWHERE.
:)
Karnal
From direct experience, I know that Southwestern Bell Internet Service's 24/7 tech support means that you have to wait on hold a minimum of 24 minutes each call, and you have to make at least 7 calls before reaching someone who knows how to help you do anything other than power the modem off and on and reboot your machine.
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
In order to Masq. correctly with PPPoE, you need to set up your Masq. clients to use the same MTU as the server.
So something like "ifconfig eth0 MTU=1492" on all your clients will do the trick.
You may not be sharing bandwidth at your neighborhood node - but you are sharing it once you hit the ISP, and they do have a care about how much bandwidth you're taking up.
I know I roll my own, but I don't call it DSL...
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heLlo... myy naame issh Linush Thoralvades, and I pronounsch (hic) it, "vodka"!
Am I the only one who cringes every time tech-support says "DSL modem" or "cable modem"? Quick quiz, who remembers what modem means? It's modulate/demodulate, which is the warbling sounds modems make when two computers are connecting. My Timex/Sinclair 1000 sounded the same way when it was recording data to audio cassette tapes.
My dsl ROUTER doesn't make that noise! Dig? It doesn't even plug into a parallel port, so hell yeah it's external... : )
BTW, US Worst mailed me the modem and setup booklet a month before my DSL was operational. And, yes it works with linux.
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -Gandhi
i was very unhappy with PPPoE. but maybe I was just very unhappy with bell atlantic DSL.
first, the do not advertize that they use PPPoE, so I had to figure that out myself, and obviously they are clueless about everything.
there were 3 different solutions for PPPoE in Linux. The one i used required a kernel patch and running pppd (PPPoE seems like useless overhead).
i had to use a dynamic IP which forced me to use dynodns.net, and it was quite a pain with the firewall scripts. bell atlantic claimed there was no way to get a fixed IP with PPPoE.
finally, the worst thing was that i would get disconnected all the time and had to log back in. a simple keepalive script helped with that.
i canceled my DSL service with them.
maybe someone else had a better experience with PPPoE?
"DSL speed ... stays consistent, as opposed to the shared systems used by cable companies where speed may decrease as more users sign up."
So every customer has a dedicated T1 to each major NAP? Bitchin'.
Let's say your neighborhood has cable. So from your neighborhood to the central network the bandwidth is 40MB/s. Now if 80 people are using it at once, each gets 500k/s. Let's say your cable provider has a OC-3 (155.52 Mbps). Now if your neighborhood is utilizing 100% of your 40MB line to the central router but the other four neighborhoods are only at 50% utilization, then your bottleneck is the 40MB/s line (since only 120MB/s of the OC-3 is being used). If all of the neighborhoods are at maximum utilization (200MB/s), then the bottleneck is their OC-3 line.
With ADSL, your bottleneck can only be at the OC-3, since your bandwidth to the central router is always going to be the same. It's sort of like the queue system at Borders (everyone waits in one line for multiple cashiers), where cable is more like the queue system at McDonalds (multiple queues, if you get in a slow line, you're screwed).
So the only problem I see with cable modems is that they have two potential bottlenecks before the data hits the net backbone, instead of one. I will admit though that if you are in a situation where bottlenecks aren't likely, the cable modem will deliver faster speeds. This may only be a short-lived situation as more people in your neighborhood get the need for speed.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
I have DSL form swbell. I'm mostly satisfied but i couldn't figure out why i wasn't getting an address form dhcp. People in neighboring towns that had dsl just used dhcp and went.
Well sbc now uses PPPoE (ppp over ethernet). I'm using rp-pppoe from Roaring Penguin. This is under Linux.
I know everyone has already pointed out that home DSL setups are nothing new, but the discussion also seems to include some "how to get it to work under *nix" that I might be able to help with...
I'm using telocity as my provider, and they sent me a kit w/ lovely windows instructions for install/config. You use some form of DHCP to find out what IP you are assigned from the ISP, but since you have a static IP I just used a winbloze box (my neighbor's that I borrowed for a minute) to quickly change to DHCP and run winipcfg to find my static IP and DNS info. I then fired up my linux box, changed the IP info over to the stuff I just learned, set the router to that I of DSL modem and fired off IP masq for the rest of the network.
Looking back, I'm sure I could have had DHCP running under linux, but I had heard that needs a reboot to get the leasing.... and I'd hate to reboot.
Wheeeee
If you get the DIY Plus special, you get 3 miles of copper wire, a trench digger, and right of way from your place of residence to the CO.
This is my sig.
I read in the Wall St. Journal this morning that SBC is giving out free PC's to people who sign up for their xDSL service for a period of 2 years.
The price of the xDSL is a little higher, but that pays for some of the cost of the PC. SBC said that they'll recoup the money on labor costs because they won't have to send out technicians to the homes because the PCs will be shipped pre-configured. I would imagine that they're also planning on making money over time by keeping the customer. Sounds like someone at SBC actually had a good idea!
[Connection closed by foreign host]
If you installed it yourself, at least you would know that the installation tech was knowledgeable!
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Heh, here the GTE tech showed up, fiddled with the jacks for a couple minutes and was done. He then looked at the CAT5 running along the walls throughout this place, and said "er, well, I guess you know what to do now". We smiled and nodded. He left.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Most DSL Providers already offer this option when you sign up for their service. It's usually cheaper and they also offer other options than the W9x variety. USwest, for instance, offers support under NT as well, and the DSL newsgroups you can find easy FAQ's on Linux setup as well. Basically all you're doing is setting an internal IP or using DHCP, so I'm not sure where the "One Hour" setup even comes in...
fslg503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8
Yah, I got a cable modem from Cox (seriously hehe) after debating weither to get DSL or cable. I looked at bellatlantic prices compared to cox's (for 49.99 you get 150 k/s on a cable modem and simirally 30 k/s on a dsl) and the fact that they didn't have it in my area even though I literally live 2 miles from a station of theres. I also recieved a 5 dollar discount due to the fact I'm a cable customer, and free repair service (my cable modem went dead and they replaced it for free). Right now the service isn't lateral, and I've never been able to upload faster then 20 k/s. But they have promised to make the service lateral by the this winter, and I've recieved nothing but helpful service after some problems with the modem. Installation is also free. I still feel strongly for my cable modem (I give it the hot beefy injection every night), and in talking to friends they've given a lot of negative feedback about their DSL's performance. But oh well.
BTW, who would seriously get a service who's acronym is Dick Sucking Lips?
or you could buy a Linksys Etherfast Cable/DSL Router... works great for me for my windows and my FreeBSD boxes simultaneously
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Didn't know they were using PPPoE. Ick. I get my line from SBC, but service from elsewhere, with a "real" connection. :)
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I started up my ADSL last August when it first became available in the St. Louis area. I've been incredibly happy with the download speeds etc. Uploads are, of course, slower thanks the the A in my ADSL but I'm not running a high volume web server or anything so who cares.
Anyway, my telco is Southwestern Bell, but my ISP is First Class Solutions (http://www.firstclasssolutions.com). As a result, I'm not putting up with any of the crap that goes along with the standard SBC setup. I've got a static IP, 1.5MB down stream, no compatability problems with linux.
I'm using an alcatel ADSL modem that connects straight to the wall and straight into eth0 of my linux box. eth1 connects to my hub and masqs my LAN out to the internet. I've had a total of about 20 hours downtime in the past year.
Here's the only bad part of the story. If you move, it can take them for-freaking-ever to get the service setup again. I'm moving in with my fiancee just upstairs from my old apartment. It's taken them two months to get the service moved to the new apartment, and I'm doing the home installation MYSELF!! It's taken them two months to just map out a circuit and flip a few switches. So, there's my biggest complaint... in the meantime, dialup sucks.
Quick question: Anyone know of a good website that explains how DSL works on the telco side. I'm just curious to learn why it took SBC so darned long!!
required the self install in our area
So why is this news?
Yeah. THat's what I said, in less detail.
If they bridge, even with filtering, you still can't block *all* non-local traffic and still have things work. some broadcast traffic must get through. ARP. etc. It's layer 2, after all...
The point of pppoe is to simply use the layer 2 infrastructure you built to tunnel PPP.
Multiple IP addresses are easy to stop with filters.
And PPP servers don't usually log.. radius servers do.
While that is a feature, there are some other nice advantages. If you want to have more then one type of service on a single circuit (say best-effor 100x over subscribed AOL account for one PC, and a mere 4x oversubscribed small-bisness account for another -- or even the same PC depending on what you are using it for) you can do it with PPPOE, while that is hard to impossable with DHCP.
You can do a lot more configuration at a higher level. Tracking an account number is much simpler then tracking a set of MAC addresses (which will change if the consumer gets a new computer, or ethernet card - and may move from point to point on your network anyway!). Tracking an account number tends to be somewhat simpler then tracking a (Router,Card,Curcit-ID) tuple, and it simplifyes moves as well.
It also disrupts a home network far less. You don't have to configure your network aware printer NOT to ask for a DHCP address (which would end up putting it on the global net, and possably using your only address!). If you have multiple computers allready on a network, and you want to put one on the Internet, this won't force you to get another card for it, or to sever it's connection with the existing network. This may be a rare case, but I assure you it was one the authors of the RFC did have in mind. Rember if your ISP does DHCP for you, it is a lot harder for you to also do DHCP for your local network!
If the ISP allready has a RADIUS infrastructure set up for a large dial network, this allows them to reuse it for DSL. This is a fairly big deal because beleve it or not it is a pain integrate yet another database (DHCP's configuration) with allready existing order, payment, accounting, and other random systems at the ISP. A PPPOE baised DSL set up will look a whole lot like the existing dial set up (presumably with a higher monthly fee).
ok, ignoring the absolutely massive infrastructure issues relating to DSL (inter- Central Office card theft is happening), here's the deal:
The self-install kit is the wave of the future, because the technician-install, from the Telco's perspective, is a total loss. The $99 tech install is basically equal to the loaded labor rate for the tech. And then touching the customers PC opens up a whole new arena of liability issues; when Joe Luser gets his $4k Gateway box to play solitaire and look at pr0n, and then subsequent to a tech performing some DSL voodoo under the hood, goes and fiddles and blows up WinDoze, guess who gets blamed?
Add to that the fact that most techs who are savants w/transmission equipment are idiots on the PC end, making a legit tech-induced comp.snafu more likely, and you understand why the Telcos don't want techs any closer to the customer than the local b-box.
They used a kind of conditional wording tho.
"Often do not"
That right there is the kicker. That means they can say well we said often not always or never.
Often is a lot harder to prove than always/never
If you think education is expensive, try ignornace
A friend of mine tried this for a customer that needed a connection between buildings about a mile apart. It's called a "fire alarm circuit", and it's straight copper point to point. At first TPC promised they could do it, then reneged, then agreed, then reneged AGAIN. It seems they're wise to this trick and now won't do a circuit that doesn't go through the CO. It may still be possible to get in some areas though. Last I spoke to hime he was trying to get the local electric company to let him use their pole space to run his own fiber without much luck.
No unfortunately its a Fujitsu Speedport. Of course if anyone has some interesting info on them I'd love to hear it.
I did a self install in May 2000. It took me 10min to get it to work. Booting up thr linux box took 2 of those. They provided me with a address where i could download the sbc pppoe client for linux. I downloaded it and worked fine. Later i switched to roaring penguin pppoe because of its's firewall power.
I think your information is out-of-date and/or misleading. I've had no problems with Roaring Penguin's free PPPoE implementation for linux
Then the "install guy" shows up and I have to argue with him over the fact that I was classified as a self-install and didn't want his help.
The "24-hour" tech support consists of warm bodies with no technical knowledge answering the phones outside of business hours to create "trouble tickets" for the real tech-support people during the day. My average hold time was about 45-minutes.
The entire process took 3 months, despite the fact that it consisted of sending me a box full of stuff and flipping a switch in the main computer to set my line as "active."
bell atlantic has this available in parts of New York state (Infospeed). I had to install the passive filters myself, and the guy never even had to come into my apartment. They had software which came with the package, which worked on Win98, but not on 2000 or FreeBSD, but I've bought a Linksys DSL router which has 4 ethernet ports, and connected it to the DSL modem, my win2000 box, and my FreeBSD box. It has a built in firewall, and automatically reconnects.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
you know that old dude who climbs the ladder outside your house and connects your phone line? They gave him a laptop for testing, called the thing a "modem" and set him loose.
I've had it since october 99, with two(2) people on the node with me... currently there are 157 people on the node with me... slight change in surfing, downloading or general speed. went from 300kilobytes per second, (yes, about 3mb per sec, when the server on their end let's me)35 ping on wod quake2 to about 260 kilobytes per second... (2.6mb per)47 ping on wod quake2. hmmmmm... 256kilo"bits" dsl is still about 1/8th as fast, and there is a max 250 people for my node... cable modem is just plain faster at the base level... now, if i wanted to pay for 7meg up/down dsl to my home, then it would be faster. But for $40 a month, you can't beat cable.
This is somewhat old news, I (and many others) got DSL self-install over a year ago.
I got service from PacHell, in February 1999. It came with a static IP and bridged connection, back before they went to PPPoE. I couldn't be home for the installation, so got a self-install. PacHell, always the paradigm of efficiency, had to drive a technician out to my house to give me the box so I could install it.
The box contained an Alcatel 1000 ADSL modem (the defective version, ancient "AA" ROM's, but that's another story), a splitter box, an ethercard (generic "tulip", glued together by Kingston), and various cables.
My landlord did not allow me to change the outside wiring nor run new phone line, so I took my one working jack (under the bed) and stuffed my splitter there! I split the two wires from that jack into four; two pairs, one for voice and one for DSL. After much reading I discover that the DSL modem uses the outside two wires of the phone line (yellow and black), not the inside wires that are used for voice and everything else (red and green)! Changed the wires on the splitter box and was good to go.
Installed without a hitch, used a static IP for just over a year. After that, I moved, and lost my grandfathered static IP, and had to do PPPoE...
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
USWest (now QWest) offered self installation over 2 years ago. You just plug the stuff in on your end, nothing special. You get NO benefit other than the saved installation cost.
Curious.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
DSL downtime has been almost nil for my parents' place in Northern NJ. The line has been in place for a year, and was down for only 10 hours during the TS Floyd in September 1999. Funny thing was, the phone service was knocked out for days, but the DSL trucked on. It is a Covad provided line of T1 equivalent speed. Word has it that Covad's DSLAMs were on a higher floor, and BA's DSLAMs and 5Es were in the basement, so when the floods came..zap!
I'd honestly like to know what moron would put public infrastructure equipment like that in the basement.
They're a hoot. Commercials seem to specifically target the AOL customer base. Policies and actions support users who pay, but don't use, the service. "DSL Cable Modem Technology" fits right in with their ideal customer base.
No, this statement is true. Cable connections are broadcast ethernet, which means everyone on a switch shares bandwidth. DSL is point-to-point, which means you have a direct line to the ISP and you get no more or less bandwidth than they give you. It's constant. The only thing that would cause a slowdown would be massive failure on their end, which is always possible but not very likely.
Plus, let's not overlook the best advantage of DSL. This is litterally what someone said to me when I inquired about running a server off it: "As far as servers... we don't care, do what you want. In fact, if you get your own DNS we can set it up to reverse to whatever you want." That is why DSL rules. The Cable services act like the freaking Gestapo when they find a server port active on your box.
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Interesting. I hadn't realized that acronym implies a pronouncable word result, i.e. laser, radar, scuba. dictionary.com agrees with you on that one. /T-L-A/ n. [Three-Letter Acronym] 1. Self-describing abbreviation for a species with which computing terminology is infested. 2. Any confusing acronym. Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU, MMU, SCCS, DMU, FPU, NNTP, TLA.
... Ernie (Electronic Random Number Indicating Equipment). Of course, this would have had to be Gowers contribution, since Fowler kicked it in 1933. But hell, just setting the tone for such idle banter in the midst of a treatment of English grammar... whataguy.
However, at least in this industry, I think the usage of acronym as abbreviation has to fall under common usage. Consider the Jargon File's treatment of TLA:
TLA
With the exception of SNA, all of the above would take considerable phonetic license to pronounce.
Also, I'd highly recommend looking up the "curtailed words" entry in Fowler's (second edition, circa 1965), which notes: ".... and we always welcome any opportunity of giving pet names of this sort to the new inventions of atomic or electronic science, e.g.
thanks for the anal grammar pointer du jour.
nathan
*urp!*
I'm running a standard RedHat box for IP_MASQ in my house with an 8 port hub and it works no problem. I had to install PPPoE stuff too.
Only major problem I have is every now and then (every couple of days) it drops my connection for no apparent reason. This was easily fixable with a cron job running every hour to check the connection.
There's some great resources at linux.org
Don't forget the MSG! Makes your brain go faster!
I got mine from GTE and it wasn't hard at all to setup. Plug in the microfilters on each phone, plug in the 1 plug -> 2 plug tel adapter and plug the tel wire from the jack into your modem (mine was an external ethernet modem). then you just connect your modem and comp w/ some cat 5, boot up your favorite OS and set it up for DHCP. Actually, I got linux working w/ my dsl quicker than Windows =)
~centurion
It isn't the technology that's new. It's the announcment!
And your stupid to run a server on cable or dsl. Thats why I have a colocation box.
And why, pray tell oh holder of little-to-no wisdom, is that? This should be precious.
-Jer
A similar product is made by lynksys you can see it at
d =20&grid=5
http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?pri
I personaly own one and I love it. I'm not 100% sure (because I've only used it with Win98/2K and Linux,) but It will work with anything that can use TCP/IP 10/100BT. It can act as a DHCP client or as a server. And it will handle PPPoE for the machines that can't do it. As well as Port Forwarding/ Filtering, snd DMZ host.
Do not read this
A number of DSL providers are offering self-install...mainly because they have been falling behind in orders. I know that here in California, Pac Bell's wait time for DSL installation is roughly 1 month. So they've started offering self installations as an option in LA and SF. I don't know about elsewhere, but here the only self-install options as far as OS are Win98 and WinNT 4.0.
Karma: Non-existant. Due mostly to the fact that you smell funny and nobody likes you.
This mindless drivel was posted for what reason? --necro
I've been waiting to do this self install for over a month (I had a scheduled date of July 12th). I decided to check how my order was doing and after 2 hours of phone calls I found out that SWB (Southwestern Bell) hadn't entered the order, yet. THe SWB tech (using that term loosely) that took my order entered in a bunch of notes, but never applied me for service. I was furious when I was told this. However, all I get is the we'll try to expedite your order, but we're swamped, we have to do line tests, blah blah. So I'm in for another month of waiting. SWB has turned over their DSL to someone called ASI. ASI complains that the SWB system is a mess and the levels of beaucracy involved are 3 or 4 tier. The DSL storm has taken these ancient companies by surprise and they simply can't handle the demand. Don't get me started on how I was told a Linux box wouldn't work (it ran beautifully on my old DSL line). I really wish there was more competition in this area so SWB et al. wouldn't get away with such horrible service, anti-competive practices, and inflated prices. What can I do to let SWB know that this isn't acceptable? Do the telco's have us by the balls? Are their any other ways to get DSL service without going through your local telco? Plain and simple: SWB sucks (SWB uses SBC for DSL, by the way).
I got GTE DSL (Portlan OR metro area) back in November. Then they came out and put the splitter on the outside of the house and wired one jack for the DSL line. I moved a few weeks ago and found out they do self installs now. They mailed me the stuff mentioned in the last post. Installation was trivial. I don't use GTE's ISP service. The DSL modem self programs when powered on. My ISP DSL-Only (they're great btw) uses fixed IP so I just had to enter the network info (gateway, name server etc, ip, etc...) and I was off and running. I bonus of having self installed DSL is that you can move the DSL modem to any jack in house! Great for LAN parties. Check out http://www.dsl-only.net/ They need a better set of web pages but their service is good.
probably the worst thing about bellatlantic's setup (and i would guess most of the rest of the PPPoE world) is that you change your IP every so often. this is, of course, always at the most inconvenient times, like right after you've su'ed root remotely and restarted the company's webserver. you can't kill -9 the shell after you log back in once the IP is done changing since that would also kill the webserver. grrr.
jon
-- http://www.cerastes.org
I already did this a few months ago when I got GTE DSL. They sent me a modem and a bunch of phone filters, and a couple instruction cards, and said, "Here. Do it yourself." So I did. It wasn't very hard. Then I plugged the modem into my router and it worked pretty quickly, in Win95, Win98, and Linux.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
I glued the stuff together, plugged it into my Gigabit Ethernet hub, and I was up and running within 15 minutes! Haven't looked back.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
I like my service with Southwestern Bell well enough, and surprisingly had a tech out to my dwelling within a week of ordering. However, they may as well have shipped me the package back then. After the tech got through checking the line with his laptop (I was NOT rebooting into windows for him!), I went and got linux working just fine. However, my experience may be a bit different, since I purchased the next step up from basic DSL, and received an Alcatel 'modem' and 5 useable IP addresses. The Alcatel came pre-setup by the manufacturor and I didn't have to do a thing to it then verify it was working. The tech support is another matter entirely. I called them once. Never again. They absolutely refused to help me until I went through their piddling little checklist of steps under a windows machine. Which I, of course, refused and figured out the solution myself. I do have to appreciate the dial-up access I get with the DSL, though. Not everyone offers that it seems, and it's been very handy for travelling!
The only problem is that they haven't delivered anything yet, and this is the second time we've ordered DSL at our current address (the first order evaporated, even though they're billing me for it).
Word to the wise: You may want to get the self-install option no matter what. The last PacBell guy to install DSL at our old apartment did the following:
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
Im setup through telocity, i believe they're nationwide. Its uses dhcp and they gave me a static ip. Works great for all the OS's i mess with. Time to make more partitions. :)
Here in Lexington, Kentucky, demand for ADSL has been so great that GTE has started a self-install promotion also. They give you the splitter, the modem, the jack, etc, etc, and you get to do it yourself. Then they only have to come out if it doesn't work. See http://www.gte.com/dsl/sys_reqs_equip.html for their blurb on this.
I for one am glad they weren't doing this back when I got DSL on my line -- my house is about 70 years old and my phone lines were about 50 years old ; they came in and rewired everything from the pole on the street to the wall jack -- for free. Gotta love those early bird install specials...
I'm with you on this. I've got GTE ADSL and the setup was nothing. I don't even think it took 30 minutes. Hell, I spent more time waiting in line at the UPS parcel pickup counter.
FYI for those of you using routers...don't bother. I can get multiple connections running at once by plugging the DSL modem into an uplink port on a little cheapo hub and use straight CAT 5 to hook up the ethernet cards on my machines.
I would agree with this. I have DSL from U$ Worst and it took me about 10 minutes to set it up with Win 95 (static IP and a 24/7 connection), to make sure it worked. But I think most end users might have some trouble fiddling with the router. BTW, it works great with 'doze, Linux, and OpenBSD, but then, I don't use US West (Worst) as my ISP, and that makes all the difference.
Linux users, despite that fact that the sales person will tell you that, of course your OS is supported "no really, not kidding", are in fact not supported.
Tell me if I'm wrong, but does SBC say anywhere in written that Linux is a supported OS for the DSL service?
So what happens is the following: Everytime their service goes down, and that happens at least twice a month here in St.Louis, you will be told that
a) Linux is not a supported OS and that
b) you will reboot into Windows and then do the shutdown-powercycle-reboot dance of Level-1 support.
If you do not comply they will immediately hang up on you. SBC DSL tech support even once threatened to hang up on me because I called the "DSL router" a "DSL router" and not a "DSL modem".... Their Level1 tech support seems to be staffed by a bunch of "bitching teenagers".
SBC is a phone company and it is a big one so you have been warned. Tech-savy users should stay away from this offer. There is no way out of it once you signed up.
"Always on" internet connection is a flat out lie. The service will disconnect you once a day and assign you a different IP address. Now since you are not supposed to run servers of this service anyway, there is no reason to complain about this, is there? Of course you can reconnect automatically, reenter your IP in the DNS but hey dont tell them about it cause even sshing into your own box is not allowed. No servers!
All in all, there are other ISP's - it will cost you an additional $10 a month but you'll get a static IP or at least DHCP.
So think twice what you want to do with your DSL. Ahh yaaa you all use Windows I forgot...
We got the "self install" kit from GTE for our DSL in Northern Virginia. We got it set up without any problems. It wasn't hard or anything. Am I missing something?
-------------------------
Stupid people suck.
Cable Modem/DSL with external modems/int NIC rock!
They are compatible with every OS (as long as you have the drivers for you NIC). Setup a network quite well... I just need the written information and everything is cool.
ChozSun [e-mail]
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
I ordered my "Self Install" DSL from SBC last month and they shipped my equipment to the wrong place! After hours of phone calls and an entire day wasted, the finally figured out what happened and shipped me a new kit on Friday. It's supposed to arrive tomorrow with a plug-in splitter separating the phone from the DSL. The rep made not that you can move the line to any room in the house with a phone jack. If you want to find out how my install goes drop me an e-mail and I'll let you know tomorrow or Wednesday.
...is that this program is only for a portion of their coverage area. And their DSL coverage area only covers a small fraction of their service area.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
BellSouth just started rolling out PPPoE in April, and the software they gave me or Linux (produced by NTS) doesn't work so hot with IP MASQ. MASQ needs an MTU of 1500 to run correctly, and PPPoE stays at 1492! So, i used the PPPoE client at Roaring Penguin, and it works great! So, when BellSouth comes to your house, ask for them to copy the CD they have with them. It has the NTS PPPoE client for Linux, but they don't support it.
Ham on rye, hold the mayo please.
thelocust[dot]org
OpenBSD supports PPPoE as of version 2.7.
e &aprop os=0&sektion=0&manpath=OpenBSD+Current&arch=i386&f ormat=html
jon
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=pppo
-- http://www.cerastes.org
"DSL service is flexible enough to grow with the skills and interests of our users."
That's one vague sentence...in fact, I'm not even sure what it means. Marketing 101 - play up the unquantifiable advantages. They can't be argued with.
"DSL is as reliable as your phone."
Duping the simple masses who think same wire == same reliability. Whatever. Several of my friends with DSL feel differently...
"DSL speed ... stays consistent, as opposed to the shared systems used by cable companies where speed may decrease as more users sign up."
So every customer has a dedicated T1 to each major NAP? Bitchin'.
And the winner...
"Cable modem services often do not support a wide variety of Internet applications." ;-)
Wow. Talk about menacingly vague. Anyone have a cable modem that won't work with everything (not counting Network Neighborhood, of course...
I'm surprised they're not being sued. Or maybe they are.
Cable is well and good until either (A) everyone in the neigborhood gets it and nukes the bandwidth or (B) you want to run a web/name/other server and the company forbids it.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
Eh? I don't think this is why they run PPPoE. It's easy enough to set up DSL so that each user is bridged in and gets a single IP address. However, this approach has some security drawbacks. One is that it's hard to keep people from hooking up more than one computer, and grabbing more than one real IP address (or a whole ton of IP addresses.) It's also pretty hard to track down who did what when without PPPoE. If the evil hax0r kiddie changes his MAC address, steals an IP (instead of going thru the DHCP server), starts his DoS attack, and then puts his MAC back to normal and DHCP's an address, the ISP is going to have a hell of a time figuring out which user that traffic came from. They will have an IP address, but it was never assigned. If they happen to have an arp entry, they may have a MAC address. But, it's a MAC that isn't on the network anywhere. They could keep a log of every change in the bridging tables, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. Even then, and "smart" kiddie will change his MAC address to one used by a legit user, so when the ISP starts looking around they will track the traffic down to the wrong house.
On the other hand, getting an IP address from PPPoE requires you to login. So, any traffic from that address is provably from that user. All neat and tidy. Any reasonable PPP server will easily log each login session. Much easier from an ISP's point of view than dealing with the limitless ways a customer can screw with a plain old DSL line (or a cable modem. Most of the problems I mentioned apply to them both.)
I had a very similar experience--see comment #39.
Where do they get these guys?
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
If you can do it...i would suggest it. I work for a rather large ISP in Austin Texas and i am in charge of ordering ALL DSL connections (SWB, Northpoint, Covad and IPC). I order about 10+ SWB circuts aday and have notice more and more customers going for this route. Right now if you want to rely on SWB to do the install, your install date will probably be pushed back 3 or 4 times. A few coworkers have been waiting for their DSL to be installed for about 3 or 4 months now and who knows how many customers this is happening to. It would be way cool if you could just bypass SWB all together. They have now introduced a 20 day WAITING (not turn around time) period before touching ANY trouble ticket, you could go 30 days be for anything is done about your connection being down. All i can say is SWB's business pratices SUCK. You will probably have better luck going through Northpoint, Covad or IPC. But if you cant afford it...bite the bullet and DIY with Bell. Id like to add one more thing though....BELL SUCKS. Im not going to even get in to the slamming of our customers or the 2+ hour hold times.
-voxy
Wasn't there a Federal agency putting the sting on these so-called 'Free PC' advertisements? It's not really free if they simply -hide- the charges in increased monthly fee, contract penalties, and 'shipping and handling'. I've shipped PCs across the country, and it never amounted to $200! $100, maybe, once I added package insurance...
Then they ship me the 'customer self-install kit' a few days before my appointment with the technician, which includes a DSL modem, ethernet card, crossover cable to connect the two, and a bunch of filter boxes that connect to the phones on the line with DSL to strip out the noise. I call up and ask if, since i've received the customer install kit, I can in fact do my own installation. No, I'm told, I'll have to have a technician install it, and there must have been some mistake in shipping me the kit.
The technician shows up this morning, and the only thing he does that I couldn't have done with a page of instructions was to plug a signal meter into the line with DSL on it and declare the quality sufficient. Then all he did was monkey around on my Windows machine installing the PPPoE software, signed on in the 'register new user' account, pulled up the online signup page, and let me type in my preferred username and password.
That signal meter reading apparently costs $99, because that's how much a technician install costs. Self-install is free.
So, my non-technical tip of the day: if you get DSL from Southwestern Bell, and they send you a self-install kit, self-install.
The technical tip for the day: PPPoE works just fine with SBC DSL. If you've got a development kernel, build it with 'packet socket' and 'PPP over ethernet' options enabled, and apply this patch to a recent version of pppd.
My /etc/ppp/options looks like this:
defaultroute /etc/ppp/pppoe.so
plugin
name mylogin
And my /etc/ppp/pap-secrets looks like this:
mylogin * mypass
To bring up the ppp link, i just type pppd eth0.
GTE just sent me the hardware in a box and I had to configure it myself. No one came over and no one had to check to see I was running Windows or had a working ethernet card.
Piece of cake, once I had the correct IP address and all.
Let's say that SBC is very successful with their free PC offer. Of course, a few crackers will be receiving these as well. And they will probe them for vulnerabilities and will find them. I don't mean to cast some fear/uncertainty/doubt here. But I wonder if having a large number of computers with identical vulnerabilities constantly connected on a tight range of IP addresses / hostnames will make them very prime targets for attack? ("Attack" means unwitting hosts for software for coordinated denial of service attacks, IRC bots, etc.)
Please help me out here. Am I being silly, or is this a serious concern?
"DSL service is flexible enough to grow with the skills and interests of our users."
I couldn't tell you what this means. Sounds pretty inane to me.
"DSL is as reliable as your phone."
I live in an upstairs flat. That means, one family lives downstairs and I live upstairs. I have Ameritech DSL, they have Media One Cable. I current (for the past 5 months) have had better than 93% uptime. My downstairs neighbor has had just over 61% (61.224%). At least here, DSL has been dramatically more reliable than cable. The only time it's been down is when, amusingly enough, my phone service was down as well, due to a storm.
"DSL speed ... stays consistent, as opposed to the shared systems used by cable companies where speed may decrease as more users sign up."
Again, with the same test-bed as above, my service gives me a constant speed as a rule. I've not yet seen a slowdown. Downstairs, when they first signed up, they never had a speed problem. Now, they get much slower downloads since more people have signed up. Additionally, Friday at 8:00 PM, they might as well be on a modem. The traffic is nearly at a HALT. *shrug* I dunno if it's true in all places, but both here in Detroit and in Upstate NY it happens to be.
"Cable modem services often do not support a wide variety of Internet applications."
I have two takes on this. Both Media One Cable and Road Runner Cable support (i.e. provide support) for a very limited number of programs. Specifically they'll support Internet Explorer (5.0, but not any other version, even upgrades), Windows 95 and Windows 98 (not NT, not 2000, not Linux, NOTHING else). If you're running Netscape, they won't help you. If you're having trouble figuring out how to telnet, you're out of luck. Having trouble with a firewall, you're out of luck.
The other side is, there are applications that they don't support, in that, both Road Runner and Media One will discontinue your account for running a server. When I inquired about running servers with my sales rep., he specified that servers were no problem. When I asked about it while speaking to technical support, they replied as if it were the most unintelligent question in the world when they said "yeah, run all of the servers you want, it's your bandwidth". Review of the terms and conditions also mentions that servers are allowed.
I'm not necessarily defending their marketing crap, I'm just trying to explain.
-Jer
Thousands of people calling for help so they can download porn faster. Super.
In all seriousness, you really do need someone familar with computers to install broadband connections. With the majority people I know with fast internet connections, they're computer knowledge is lacking and they're knowledge of modem/TCP/IP software/hardware knowledge is even less. Ugh, I'd kill myself if I were a tech support person there.
The only thing that is a bit different with today's dsl providers (and perhaps cable soon) is their use of PPPOE. (ppp over ethernet). The reason? They bring things out to the home at layer 2 (ethernet), rather than the more traditional layer 3, but want to really give you a layer 3 anyway. In other words, they don't wanna waste address space building infrastructure.
This is actually a good thing.. it's just a bit different.
The main problem I had was that the modem was shipped from the other side of town via 2-day UPS, the day before the install date.
/24 netmask, not a /29! (My DSL is a bridged Ethernet link.)
UPS takes their 2-day shipping very seriously, so of course it arrives 5pm the day after the install. Fortunately, the SBC guy had one old Alcatel 1000 in the truck. I suppose self-install would help with this, because you wouldn't have to waste a day off from work if the modem doesn't show up.
A big problem while wiring things up was that the telco guy forgot to remove the half-ringer (a little gray block hidden under the phone jack thingy in the junction box) and I was getting a shit connection because of it. Another problem was that either the modem or the splitter or both expected the signal on black/yellow. So I just bridged the damn pairs in the dual phone jack I bought for the line.
The final problem was that while SBC was the "dialtone" provider for the DSL, they weren't the ISP. I had jump.net (which I am entirely happy with), and I had a fixed IP block. The telco guy was on a conference call with the ISP and the phone company for half an hour before I realized I had a
And there was a good part... when the telco guy tested my line, he said my maximum download (with the extra cost higher speed option, of course) would be 2.7 or so Mbps download, nearly twice a T1 and about half the maximum.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Rolling my own may save a bit of time, but I'd be willing to wait even a month to get a better service elsewhere. Anyhow, that's my person take on it. Your mileage may vary.
SWB = South Western Bell
SBC = Southwestern Bell Corporation
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
This is the same setup that came with my GTE DSL. They Fedexed me the modem, some line filters, a CAT 5 Cable and a CD. I personally didn't use the CD, but their service is setup to use DHCP. I easily installed my 2 Win98 and 1 Redhat machine (over a cheap 10BaseT 8 port hub). The service didn't complain about me using 3 IP's so I assume you can install multiple machines through GTE with no problems (or maybe my bill will be more than I expected!! :)).
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I installed my DSL a year ago.
The procedure they describe is exactly what I did.
All they sent was a box, no technicians.
They (USWest) activated the line from their
facility, I plugged in my Cisco 675, plugged it into my
hub and was running in less than an hour.
(Linux too. The 675 uses DHCP.)
How is this new all of the sudden?
-K
=-=-=
SBC is planning to have most of their major metropolitan areas upgraded for total DSL coverage by the end of 2001. I presume this will be done by putting DSLAMs in the sheds. (You know, the sheds with two doors that each have a five-button lock.)
This link has PDF maps of the planned coverage areas.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I have the dubious honor of being the first paying customer for Nevada Bell DSL -- now a part of SBC Advanced Internet Services -- in Northern Nevada (the Reno area). My service was installed over a year ago. At the time, I elected to go with "Nevada Bell Internet," a re-brand of PacBell Internet...and an unwanted step-child it was, too.
In the early days, NBI was using bridging mode instead of PPPoE, so it was no problem at all to shift the install from the Windows 98 system I stuck in front of the installer to the Red Hat Linux system that functions as my NAT firewall.
Because of a number of issues documented elsewhere (dslreports.com) I fired NBI and went with another ISP, a then-local company called Pyramid.Net.
One of the reasons I went with Pyramid.Net was the promise from the operator that they would continue to use bridging mode, instead of moving to something like PPPoE. They have kept their promise.
Pyramid.Net is not the only "partner" to SBC to provide briding mode access, which is a true always-on service (as opposed to the necessity of logging in a la PPPoE) with a surprisingly high availability.
Moral of this tale: go with a "partner", not the [A-Za-z]+ Bell Internet company.
The newsgroup comp.dcom.xdsl regularly carries postings from people with horror stories. Note particular those stories told by Bell Atlantic customers...
If buy DSL from anyone without checking dslreports.com you're an idiot. Anecdotal evidence on who sucks, but on a massive scale.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
So I've just moved down to CT, and qualify (through some half-truths) for self-install DSL from SNet, which is part of the SBC group. The apartment I moved into had DSL previously from SNet.
The problem is that it still takes them 15 business days to flip the bloody switch to turn on DSL for the apartment. So, while this will save several weeks of time to get an actual technician to come out here, and save me the typical "you can't run DSL on anything less than a PII/400" conversation, it doesn't speed things up that much.
Personally, SWBell's DSL installs have always gone quite wonderfully. I work for a company that does support for lots of area businesses, so naturally, as soon as they rolled out DSL here, we ordered it for lots of our customers. The longest wait we've had so far was two weeks, and that was the first one we did; at my boss' house.
The techs we've worked with all seemed quite knowledgeable, but then we set up the computers while they fucked around outside. However, when we would discuss things with them, they all seemed to have at least half a clue. Enough, certainly, to get a network card working on a Windows installation that wasn't blown to shit. They also said that people often complain after they leave about things being broken that were broken when they got there, just hoping to get money out of them.
Anyway, now that I've rambled for a month, I ought to get to my last points. First, if you don't want PPPoE, get the 5 static IP option. Secondly, before SWB moved the DSL installation to ASI (which the techs said they did because of the FCC bitching) everything was wonderful. Most of the experienced techs, however, chose to stay with SWB and go back to doing T1 installs or whatever it is they did all day before they started installing DSL. This of course, sucks for us, given that we now know only one person who still does DSL installs. Third, if you like lots of upstream, get the 6.1Mbps/384Kbps option.
Also, the DSL service has been generally reliable out here since they rolled it out, aside from a couple of times where they lost their link to their backbone provider. Of course, now that I'm saying this, their DSLAM just went south. What fun. In any event, overall I think SWB is doing as good of a job as one can expect. Personally, I've never seen them fuck up an install too bad, they've missed 1 appointment out of 60 or so, and were late exactly once, supposedly because some lady's Win98 was blown all to shit. Just remember, this is all new stuff still in a lot of areas, and with SWB moving it all to ASI, and therefore losing most of their experienced installers, of course they're going to be having problems for a bit, but they'll probably be smoothed out. Now if only Cox would roll out cable modems here so I could get some sort of better than ISDN connectivity, I'd be happier than a pig in shit.
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mine comes in on friday...i'm assuming its just all the hardware in some neat easy to plug in frob.
used to take weeks to get GTE to install DSL when i worked for an ISP...piss poor i tell you!
JediLuke
JediLuke
-Do or Do Not, There is no Try
I've ordered xDSL with the self install program from SWB in May! My install date has come and gone each new install date is cancelled the day before the scheduled install. SWB citing "Technical Difficulties" The copper down south here is junk, concentrators and the likes are really screwing them. They (SWB) provide an Efficient Network SpeedStream 5260 modem. and Yes they do support Linux I will be using a firewall/router running Mandrake 7.1 and rp-ppp0e! They use ppp! it is always on 24/7 don't know why people with this service actually log-off...duhhhhh...
Bell Atlantic aDSL in New Jersey emailed me a couple days ago to tell me that they changed their prices.. now it is $39.99 for a 640/90 line.. and an hour to setup? It took me 5 minutes to setup (You must use netscape on Win9x/2k to set it up)... but after that I just set up the rp-pppoe package on my linux box and it worked fine.
earthlink dsl (which is what i use in the san francisco area) has had self-installed dsl since it's inception i believe.. they'll send you out a box with instructions and let you do everything yourself. of course, their tech support people get pissed off if you call in and you aren't running 95/98 or macos 8+, but hey it's always fun to piss off tech support people anyway.
This wouldn't be newsworthy here in Canada; I self-installed my Sympatico High Speed Edition ADSL two years ago!
but I do agree that this will speed up DSL adoption. Now the question is, will the backbones keep up?
USWest RADSL has always allowed you to self-install, and though they only provide Windows and Mac instructions, chances are that if you have a *NIX box you have the knowledge to set it up in the first place.
You need to get the Cisco 675 external router instead of the Intel 2100 PCI card to use it with *NIX, but that's what you would want anyway. This uses PPPoverATM, which terminates on the router. Thus, it's very easy for the ISP to assign routed netblocks over it without having to jump through hoops! There are definitely times when I'm glad USWest is using CAP RADSL instead of DMT ADSL...
I have a friend who recently got DSL through NorthPoint. The USWest guy came out, climbed the pole, came down, scratched his head a few times, then repeated the process a few more times. He seemed really pessimistic about getting an SDSL setup in a fairly old home with elderly telco equipment, but on his second visit, he managed to get everything perfect. Two wires ran from from the pole to his house, and were bolted into a box on the side of his home. He opened the thing up, told him "you didn't see this", then unhooked one wire and connected it to the other bolt! All of a sudden, he had 416kb DSL 17k feet from the CO instead of a 24kbps modem connection...
What do those guys do all day???
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
BellAtlantic has a similar do-it-yourself installation. Unfortunately, their poor quality techs, require you to support it yourself. If the network and customer support structures aren't working, it doesn't matter how easy they make the installation.
I have Bell Atlantic (ugh) DSL, and they have these little "Self-install" kits they ship out. Takes w hopping 30 minutes to set up. Am I missing something here?
--
Matt Singerman
Matt Singerman
http://matt.vegan.net/
The big dsl provider on the west coast (pacbell) has been doing this "self install" thing for a while now. If you did it yourself you would save the $99 installation fee, but there is no support for setup :( They also said that you only could use win98 at first etc etc. But that just means they havnt made their proprietary software for those systems yet.
I subscribed to DSL in the last half of last year, and USWest just sent me a kit like this. It included a 3com 10/100 ethernet card, a Cisco 675 DSL 'modem', some phone line filters, an ethernet cable, and an RJ45->serial cable (for talking to the modem for configuration).
:)
Also included were a manual for the Cisco box, and a photocopied setup guide.
Setup was extremely simple, about 10 minutes if I recall. Strangely the installation caused me to become ill and call in sick to work.
Azerov
a network is almost always configured as a figgin' network. of course it will probably work with *nix, you get an ip, or you use dhcp, it is still delivering an address for the os to spew out ip packets with. thus, when they say win98 is all that's "supported" what they mean is that is all their technicians will "support". they don't probably don't want to be responsible for some *nix head who doesn't know how to configure their nic.
kick some CAD
Up here in the far north and frozen bits (aka Canada) we roll our own all the time. I haven't had a service guy out to my house both times I've moved. They just send the modem in the mail and give you some filters (splitterless ADSL).
Bell has to know what line needs the DSL card but that is at their Central Office.
Bell also has linux user space drivers available for free. I use the kernel patch though, initially there were complaints of the user space programs taking 30% CPU. I rarely hit 2 or 3 with the kernel patch.
News for UW students
Their support only includes Windows, so I let the tech do the install with my PC booted into Win98.
The access concentrator was offline so he could not finish the installation.
It was online when I got home that night and everything worked just fine.
Linux needed 5 minutes and pppoe from http://www.roaringpenguin.com/
OpenBSD needed 20 minutes and pppoe from http://www.thought.net/jason/
Hell yeah, I could go for this. Sure, it's hard work and in the middle of summer. But nothing I haven't done before.
How long do I get the DitchWitch for? There's some landscaping I've been wanting to take care of. Not to mention my neighbor's ugly thorn hedge.
But really, I'm in a semi-rural area and so far, this would be the only way for me to get DSL. And I'm only 1.2mi from the CO. (Wow, I could make a lot of patch cables with 2 miles of copper.)
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
Installation put off three times
They mis-ordered my equipment twice, the third time the installer just happened to have a DSL router on his truck.
The link was mis-routed for three weeks. Packes went out, but nothing came back. Testboard insisted that "I didn't do it right".
No one, no a single person, ever had one iota of an idea as to what, exactly, a network was.
It took threats of FCC and PUC complaints, and moving our phone service to a competitor to get them to fix the DSL route table.
I know it was the route table because I could hear the guy in the background say "Gee, this guys route is set up to leave on one DSLAM and arrive on another one."
I've also ordered DSL for five other people, and every single last one of them was put off at least three times. Every one of them.
Now that I've got the people that actuallyhave DSL installed working, I'm mostly happy with it. But I'm ordering from other providers now, not SBC. Too much like the keystone kops with SBC.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Thanks to the June Linux Journal, here's a link to the PoPToP home page. PoPToP is a free server implementation of the PPTP that works with MSCHAPv2. Not sure about compression.
My roommate and I subscribed for the PacBell (part of the SBC Empire) self-install DSL kit early June.
We have encountered NUMEROUS problems. We did not foresee too much difficulty as we were both computer savy, with my roommate being a PhD student in EE at a prestigious Silcon Valley / Bay Area university.
Our problems have mainly dealt with PacBell logistics - compounded by the fact the much of the total PacBell DSL service is outsourced to different outside companies. For example, PacBell (and I assume other SBC telcos) do not handle the shipping of DSL equipment themselves. Consequentially, when I received the wrong equipment, I had to call no less than 6 different phone numbers and speak to 10+ individuals until I was able to arrange a swap for the compatible equipment.
This compatibility problem could have been avoided if PacBell/SBC would just POST what equipment they use on their DSL Web Site. What is funny is that the "guidebook" that comes with the DSL self-install kit includes information on KNOWN CONFLICTS. I have no idea why they don't post this information. Would save both the customer and PacBell a lot of headaches.
They have also unilaterally changed the activation date on us. The latest news is that they plan to activate the DSL connection next week ... but we're not holding our breathe.
Basically, I agree that it's not too difficult to get the PacBell/SBC DSL connection compatible with a Linux based network. But getting that initial connection can be a nightmare ... people should keep in mind that you ARE dealing with a UTILITY and should expect the "quality" service you get from other utility companies.
P.S. On a related note, I've heard that people have had a better time subscribing to a non-teleco ISP for DSL service. Although technically the hardware is the same (the teleco owns the copper phone lines after all), I hear that some ISPs like Earthlink have better logistics ... probably because they handle a much smaller load than PacBell (easily the largest residential DSL provider in the Bay Area)
Self-install will become a far more widespread option when the so-called 'Splitterless' ADSL becomes more widespread. It is called so because, as the name suggests, no splitter is necessary at the demarc. The 'modem' extracts the necessary frequencies for its own use and ignores the POTS bandwidth. The practical upshot of all this is that you can plug the 'modem' into any phone jack.
Splitterless wiring, combined with a USB interface to the computer, results in an installation that even a brain-dead Windroid can complete. Look for this to become the norm.
--
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Self installs are news? I ordered DSL back in march from GTE, they gave me an appointment and never showed up. Only when I called the fourth time that day wondering where the tech was did they finally tell me all they guaranteed the tech would do was check at the pole to make sure the line was ready for DSL. If they bothered to come to my door and do the in home stuff, that was just an added bonus. Needless to say, I ended up installing my own in home software and hardware (not that it was an issue, but would have been nice if they'd told me when they scheduled the appointment or called to say line was ready).
Whoops--you did say client. I saw this while I was there--it's a PPTP client for Linux that appears from a cursory look at the docs in the tar to support MSCHAP.
I thought everyone did DSL this way... The providers in my area, Telocity, BellSouth and I think Covad too, all ship an external modem/router. The Telocity router has ethernet, USB, and parallel port options for connecting your computer. With ethernet, they could care less what OS use. It still took them a few weeks to set up the phone lines and ship the modem. The only problem is my DSLAM was first out of synch, which took two weeks and many long hold times to even get them to make a call to the CO to start fixing it. Now I get frequent carrier drops, and it will probably take a whole damn month to get anyone to do something about it. Sometimes it works, sometimes I'd have better luck with my old USR Password 1200 baud modem.
Yeah... but did you see the strings attached? Not only do you have to lock into a two year contract (with heavy severance penalties), but you have to pay a $200 "shipping and handling charge" . Come on. How stupid do they think their customers are? I hate it when a telco shows their true colors. (Want to bet they won't let me just "pick it up" from them to avoid the shipping fee?)
For a while now, Bell Atlantic (the only provider i can get) required the self install in our area, they no longer do home installs.
The process is a lot faster to get your order through too. You call, give them your telephone number, they test the line while your on the phone and fill out an order for the self install kit. Then they send someone out to double check the line...The new installs don't require the use of the splitter anymore, you just install a small filter on each phone jack to filter out the DSL signal. The only special attention needed was for multi-line phones which used a single cable for all the lines.
Southwestern Bell (SBC) came out and installed DSL for us last month, and it was a simple enough process. The hardware part was pretty straightforward: plug the DSL modem/router into your phone line, put filters on all the other extensions of that phone line and then hook up the modem to the NIC in your computer. And as it turned out, all the materials for the installation (router, modem, cables, line filters, etc.) had already been shipped to us a couple weeks before -- if I had known that we had had them (and this policy in place at the time) I wouldn't have had to wait nearly a month for the installation appointment.
The only part of the process that might have presented difficulties and made me glad that they sent someone out was configuring the DSL modem itself -- and this wasn't so much difficult, but foreign to me. I'm sure with a decent set of instructions and a help line phone number, I could have had it up and running nearly as fast as the installation techs.
(Semi-related note on my experience, thus far, with SBC DSL: speed and availability are pretty decent, but upstream is limited to 128k and there's no static IP. I wouldn't mind paying a bit extra per month to correct those two issues, but that doesn't seem to be an option. I'd recommend the service UNLESS you're at all interested in running some kind of server. Other than that, though, everything's good.)
-jay
If you're in my boat, and you get basic DSL from SBC thru your telco, you're goign to be using (as others have mentioned) PPPoE.
If youre using windows to control your router, this is probably an ok situation. however, there appears (at this time, anyway) to be a significant lack of quality PPPoE options for people running linux; people runnign openbsd (at least as of the time that I installed my DSL) are completely screwed.
the solution: the Cayman (www.cayman.com) 3220H. this little box is a very fullfeatured router that operates on its own - no need to have a computer control it, which means that you can reboot your gateway machine without losing your IP. all PPPoE negotiations are done by the router itself.
I have one of these; I don't work for or own any of Cayman, just thought I'd let you people knwo the option is available. usually your telco or sbc or whatever will charge you like another hundred bux or so for this box, but in my opinion, it's well worth it.
(note that you'll have to download the newest operating system image from the Cayman site and flash it onto your router in order for it to properly do PPPoE, but that took all of about 3 minutes to do.)
It seems (according to their site) that the self-install asks you to run some kind of setup software. It could be that one could run this using some kind of emulation (WINE, Virtual PC), but that seems like a bit of a stretch.
:).
So, it looks like whereas with the technical knowledge one might be able to set it up correctly, they probably lock you into using some proprietary app. Though I suppose you could always just dual-boot (for a Linux box)
just my blog and pix