[LINK] Broadband

Tue Apr 29 11:33:04 EST 2003

If, however, you don't have the skill, time or enthusiasm for building your
own gateway, there are ADSL router/firewall vendors like Netcomm who will
give you a nice cheap all-in-one.

RC

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Craig Sanders [mailto:cas at taz.net.au]
> Sent: Tuesday, 29 April 2003 10:55
> To: Peter Hughes
> Cc: 'link at anu.edu.au'
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Broadband
> 
> 
> On Tue, Apr 29, 2003 at 09:15:41AM +1000, Peter Hughes wrote:
> > 1. I live in an old inner city house (in Melbourne) with blue stone
> > foundations and very solid brick walls -- making any new 
> wiring very, very
> > costly (cannot drop wires down wall cavities, and cannot 
> get under the
> > floor). I also have three computers in different rooms of 
> the house which are
> > currently connected to the phone line -- I want them to be 
> connected to the
> > broadband as well, so am considering a wireless network -- 
> Apple Airport.
> 
> if you have a phone line installed already, then converting 
> it to an adsl
> capable line is done at the exchange.  no new wiring needs to be laid.
> 
> adsl should be available to any house in inner-city melbourne.
> 
> your best bet is to do some research on sites like 
> broadbandchoice[1] and
> whirlpool[2] - you can find up-to-date information and 
> discussion from users
> about all broadband providers in australia and compare them.  
> take the user
> comments with a grain of salt, many are just kids who have no 
> idea what they're
> talking about and like to whinge if they can't leech several 
> GB per hour (if
> your bandwidth needs are modest/reasonable and you're more 
> interested in
> quality than quantity then steer clear of any ISP which seems 
> to be catering to
> the serious leeches - i.e. dirt cheap all-you-can-eat plans)
> 
> > 2. I use Macintosh computers (various models of iMac, all 
> using OS 9.x --
> > for cost reasons I'd prefer not to move up to OSX yet).
> 
> shouldn't matter.  all adsl service providers should work 
> with Mac whether they
> officially support it or not.
> 
> whirlpool and broadbandchoice should give you some idea about 
> which ones
> officially support Macintosh (see below for my comments about a
> gateway/firewall box though - support for linux may be more relevant)
> 
> > 3. I am currently using Telstra Bigpond, and would prefer 
> not to have to
> > change email addresses with the consequent hassles of 
> trying to remember all
> > those people and organisations who have a bigpond address 
> as my contact.
> > This is laziness on my part, but still a consideration.
> 
> it might be possible to get bigpond to forward your mail to 
> your new address
> (perhaps for a fee - the ISP i work for charges $50 for 6 
> months redirection)
> 
> 
> i wouldn't recommend bigpond adsl...IMO, it's far too 
> expensive.  also, they've
> got a lot more reliable than in the early days but still not 
> good enough.  i
> had bigpond adsl for about 18 months until about two weeks 
> ago.  i did a fair
> amount of research into alternatives and the best two, IMO, 
> for residential use
> were netspace and iinet adsl.  i chose netspace because they 
> offer free traffic
> to/from other sites at the VIX peering exchange, which is 
> very important to me.
> iinet is also associated with a peering exchange (can't 
> remember which one but
> it's not VIX) and IIRC offer free traffic to their entire 
> national network, not
> just the state.
> 
> there are slightly cheaper adsl providers around 
> ($10-$20/month cheaper), but
> IMO they're too cheap and likely to be in receivership within a year.
> 
> different ISPs offer different "free" (unmetered) traffic.  i 
> think they all
> offer unmetered access to their own servers (e.g. games 
> servers, sometimes news
> servers or ftp mirrors etc).  some also offer free traffic to 
> whatever peering
> exchange they are connected with (if any).  the larger ISPs 
> generally do not
> peer with anyone else (unless forced to by a court order from 
> another large
> ISP).  smaller and medium sized ISPs tend to peer with each 
> other to minimise
> bandwidth charges for local traffic.
> 
> anyway, the point of this digression about peering exchanges 
> is to figure out
> if there are any sites you need to reach regularly and if all 
> else is equal,
> pick the ISP that offers unmetered access to there.
> 
> 
> > However I have heard that Telstra's broadband service is 
> far from reliable
> > and that they especially have trouble with wireless LANs, 
> so I have concerns
> > about the reliability of using airport wireless connections 
> within the house.
> > On the other hand I am not keen to try to get an optus 
> cable through the
> > house, prefering if possible to use ASDL over the phone 
> lines already there.
> 
> the trick with connecting a LAN, wireless or otherwise, is 
> not to attach it
> directly to the broadband service.  build a gateway box (e.g. 
> using linux or
> freebsd) and have the broadband connection going to that.  
> then you have a
> second ethernet card (or wireless NIC) in the gateway box 
> which your LAN or
> WLAN connects to.
> 
> the gateway box acts as a border router and firewall for your 
> network.  it can
> also run proxying software (e.g. squid proxy to cache web 
> traffic on your local
> network for all users).
> 
> if you have or can scrounge an old 486 or pentium machine, 
> that will be more
> than adequate to act as a gateway/firewall box.  cost from $0 
> to $50 plus a few
> hours work (either your own or a friend who knows *nix - 
> there would certainly
> be people at local linux groups like LUV[3] who would be 
> willing to help out
> and build a linux box for you - they run regular installfests)
> 
> 
> 
> all dsl providers should work with linux whether they 
> officially support it or
> not.   in my experience, it's pretty easy to get dsl working 
> with linux,
> although you may need some help from users on whirlpool or a 
> linux user who has
> done it before.  i'd be willing to give you some advice on 
> getting it working
> if you need it.
> 
> > I am reasonably competent when it comes to trouble shooting 
> on my own
> > computers, but I know absolutely nothing about networking 
> so prefer a nice
> > simple system.
> 
> one of the nice things about a linux/*bsd gateway box is that 
> once you've built
> it, you can pretty much ignore it.  it just sits in the 
> corner and works
> (although, depending on what services it is running it can e 
> a good idea to
> keep it upgraded every few months just to keep ahead of the 
> script-kiddies - so
> use a distribution that is easy to upgrade like debian[4])
> 
> 
> > So my question is does anyone have comparable experience 
> they would be
> > willing to share with me to assist me in making decisions 
> about how to
> > proceed. For example has anyone had any experience with 
> iPrimus who are
> > currently being touted as the 'Mac Friendly' ISP?
> 
> i looked briefly at iprimus, but didn't chose them because 
> they're basically a
> mobile phone company that got into the internet a few years 
> ago.  i'd rather go
> with a long term internet company like iinet or netspace, 
> both of whom have
> been around since the early days of the internet in australia 
> (netspace
> starting in melbourne, and iinet starting in perth).
> 
> 
> > Any thoughts about ASDL compared to cable modem connections?
> 
> if you don't have cable already then DSL is your only choice.
> 
> 
> REFERENCES:
>  
> [1] http://broadbanchoice.com.au/
> [2] http://whirlpool.net.au/
> [3] LUV - Linux Users of Victoria, http://www.luv.asn.au/
> [3] Debian GNU/Linux  - http://www.debian.org/
> 
> craig
> 
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