![[Bytes Link logo]](../../../cgif/bytelnk2.gif)
New Technologies
by By Eric Saca NOCCC - January 21, 2001 at 23:21:22:
In January, Jim Sanders, our PC Q&A SIG Leader and a computer consultant, provided an interesting lecture on DSL Internet connections, with a little information on cable modems as well. Jim can be reached at: jsanders@ligasmicro.comThe meeting was opened by President Terry Warren. John Johnson, our Secretary, announced the Volunteer Party on Sunday, January 14th.
Jim Sanders began his lecture noting that advertisers claim DSL (really ADSL - Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) is “up to” 50 times faster than 28.8 modems. However, the emphasis is on “up to.” Jim said that the speed you get depends on how close you are to the Phone Company’s central office.
According to Jim, the Telephone Company is the only real provider of the DSL wire connection to your house, i.e. Pacific Bell or Verizon in Southern California. It is not available everywhere. He ordered his installation in March 2000 and it was actually performed in October 2000. Pacific Bell had told him the delay was because there were “not enough ports.”
A member asked if by central office, Jim meant the Phone Company’s big building downtown. Jim said that it can be that office or just a local switching office. The Phone Company has switching offices all over the place and they are usually no more than 25,000 feet from any given home. If your home is 17,000' feet or more from a central office, chances are that you probably cannot get regular DSL.
There is a website for DSL information at http://www.dslreports.com. It contains a huge amount of useful information on DSL providers, ISPs supporting DSL, prices and availability. It contains criticisms on the quality of service from various providers. It also has a distance calculator to determine how far a given location is from the phone company’s central office. You enter your address and zip code, and it will tell you the distance to your local central office.
The website even contains a DSL FAQ sheet that provides all the basic information, including the differences between DSL and cable Internet service. Home DSL prices are typically $40 a month. There are almost 800 DSL vendors across the country that offer their services over “Your Phone Company” lines. According to Jim, they all advertise unbelievable speeds, such as 50 times that of dialup, but, at any given time, the Internet itself may not be able to support these speeds.
There are several factors involved in connection speeds, including the speeds of web servers themselves. If any given web server is inundated with client connections, its speed will surely degrade. Jim then described his own DSL installation, with pictures for reference. He first showed a picture of the box installed on the side of his house. It receives the regular phone line from the phone company and splits the signals into voice and data lines. He also had a picture of the inside of this box.
According to Jim, that is the best method of providing DSL. Another, less desirable method, is provided with the “Self Installation Kit.” This kit gives you a bag of micro-filter modules to install between each phone device and the jack it plugs into. This device filters out the telephone signal from the DSL signal. This allows the DSL modem to receive and interpret the DSL signals without interference from regular telephone devices. Jim said that every phone, including the one in the guest room that is not being used, must have the dongle for this method to work.
Both types of installation kits include a DSL modem and an Ethernet network interface card (NIC). Gerry Resch mentioned the 100% Free Install-ation ads just refer to installation of the out-side box itself. Installation and config-uration of components to your PC itself are done on a time and materials basis by the provider (whose installers are often not all that computer savvy), by a computer consultant, or by you. DSL modems with a USB interface are avail-able, but do not work with a router/hub.
Jim showed us the inside of another box that is installed in the house and has a cable going to it from the outside splitter box.. The two pair of wires are divided and connected to two external RJ45 jacks, one for voice and one for data. He then had a picture of his DSL modem - a Westell Wirespeed modem, which Jim said is a top brand. This had four LEDs: Power, Ready, Link and Activity. When Ready is lit, you are connected to the DSL server. He also showed the back of the modem, which contained jacks marked Ethernet (to the NIC or router) and Line (to the phone company), as well as the power switch and power cord.
Jim also uses a small router/hub in his home to allow more than one PC to be online via DSL. He uses a popular brand called Linksys. It has six connections in back, one input, four computer nodes, and one hub expansion. He showed us pictures of both the front and back. According to Jim, the router can take an IP address from the DSL provider and sublet it to multiple other systems (network address translation).
Then Jim showed us the back of his dual Ethernet card with UTP and BNC connectors. Per Gerry Resch, a dual card is nice to have, but you usually just need a card with a UTP connector, which is less expensive.
Jim said that your download connection can be up to 1.5 million bits per second (BPS) maximum with ADSL (with the upload being much slower) but the speed also depends on your telephone line. When the installer comes out, he can use a test instrument to tell you what the maximum speed is on your phone line.
After the installer mounted the new box on his house, Jim performed his own installation on his computer. He said that it was pretty simple on a machine that had a fresh installation of Win98 and not much else installed. The only big difficulty he encountered was in trying to log on to Pacific Bell’s security server. It took him over three hours to do so. Jim mentioned that if you do not want to buy a router, you can use a computer as a router. The only drawback is that the routing computer has to be on all the time (or at least all the time anyone wants to use the Internet).
Throughout Jim’s presentation, the members had many questions, such as the following:
•· Have you heard of the Free DSL advertisements? Yes. That would be like NetZero, but I have only seen those ads quite a while back. Perhaps it didn’t fly. (Per Gerry Resch, they were probably trying to get marketing lists of people with those ads. If they had received enough interested people, they could have convinced advertisers to make it happen. They might not have succeeded.)
•· Can you connect more than one computer to a single DSL line? Yes. But, the agreement may say that you are licensed for one computer only. However, the provider will probably not question the amount of use that several home computers represent.
•· Do you get a static or dynamic IP address? Pacific Bell’s $40 per mo. offer is dynamic.
•· Does the Linksys router have a firewall? No, but a hacker only has access to the router through its IP address. They usually cannot go further to the sub-addresses.
•· When is a crossover cable used instead of a straight cable? When connecting two computers directly to each other. Be sure not to mix up your crossover cable with your straight cables!
• Is there a limit on the cable length from the router? Typical CAT 5 cable limits are 100 meters.
• Which is faster - DSL or cable modem? Theoretically, cable modems can be a lot faster, but are usually limited to 30-40% faster than DSL when everyone else on the block is asleep.
• What’s the main difference between the DSL and cable modem concepts? DSL is through a telephone line and cable modems come through the wire typically used for cable TV.
Next Meeting—John Krill , Windows consultant om Windows Tips and Tricks, Should I upgrade to ME?, What Version should I use? and all the latest for Windows.
(www.windowsassistance.com)
===========================
The Bytes review of Jim Samuelson’s December 2000 presentation of a new, all aluminum, mid-tower PC case neglected to mention that Jim is also a dealer for the case
He can be reached at jsanders@wdc.net.
![[------STRIPE-----]](../../../cgif/str1.gif){kind=small}
Site Disclaimer Suggestions? E-Mail to webmaster@noccc.org