[lug] no cable access, what about DSL?

[Chip Atkinson]

I've used USWest and haven't been too dissatisfied.  I have the 675 and to
configure it I either telnet into it or use a serial port and minicom.  I
have "dynamic IP" at home and static IP at my mom's house.  The dynamic is
kind of strange.  Basically what I do is turn off the DHCP but leave NAT
active (Network Address Translation, same as masquerading) on the
"dynamic" setup.  For the static IP, I turned off NAT as well.  The modem
sort of takes care of itself on the WAN side and I've only had to worry
about the LAN side.  

My biggest problem was getting the modem to connect.  I had to configure
it properly (duh) but even so, it would connect, attempt the
username/passowrd connection to USW, drop the connection and repeat.
Eventually I got a second line tech support person and he walked me
through the procedure of resetting the modem's memory.  This particular
procedure is undocumented but I can post it this evening if people are
interested.  Once I got this going all has been wonderful.  Download
speeds are phenomenal.  Better than here at work and they claim a T1
connection here. 

When I called their tech support I was able to get through pretty quickly
because it was 3 AM. :-)  I went through the Macintosh support people
because I figured they would be more available. 

Hope that helps.

Chip

On Tue, 7 Mar 2000, Michael J. Hammel wrote:

> The cable service to my apartment doesn't support cable modems, so I have
> to go with some form of DSL.  What are my options here?  I've looked at
> USWest's page, though it goes out of its way to say they don't support
> Linux (which doesn't suprise me - they barely support POTS).  I've also
> looked at Covad, Jato and Rhythms.  All of them appear to be able to
> support DSL to my home (probably all through US West, unfortunately).  
> 
> How does this external modem work?  I mean, once I get it, I plug it into
> the phone line (and add those microfilters to my voice lines) and then
> run an RJ45 from the modem into a NIC in my Linux box, right?  I turn on the 
> modem, and I'm online?  The modem, I take it, acts as a router?   What kind 
> of NICs can I expect from any of these services?  Is there a DSL HOWTO or
> is this really pretty straight forward?  I'm just paranoid about ordering
> the service only to find some stupid Windows specific crap that won't work.
> I don't have any Windows stuff ("...and it'll be a cold day, blah blah"), so I 
> can't boot into Windows to configure the modem, if thats one of the 
> requirements.  Is configuring the modem necessary?  If so, how do you 
> configure the modem?  Telnet into it?
> 
> After this, I guess I can then set up my Linux box with firewalling and as a
> gateway for the rest of my home LAN.  Can someone tell me if this is about
> right.  Also, let me know if you have any preferences with DSL providers.
> If I go with USWest I can stick to my ISP (Dimensional), but I know some folks 
> here have gone with Flashcom and Peak2Peak (I think thats their name).
> -- 
> Michael J. Hammel                               The Graphics Muse 
> mjhammel at graphics-muse.org                      http://www.graphics-muse.com
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Memory is a Net - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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