Hi y'all

I finally have broadband access. After failing miserably to get a USB modem to work, I have installed a PCI ADSL modem which, so far, seems to be working very well. However, being a newbie to this technology I'm wondering if I would have been better off using an ADSL modem/router. I might yet be able to take this option for only a small financial consideration.

This has obvious advantages when used with my small network but the other 2 PCs (desktop and laptop) only rarely need access to the internet and I've managed to configure Internet Connection Sharing for the occasional times this is necessary.

Is anyone on this forum, with experience of these two technologies, in a position to offer advice please?

(Sometimes, like now, I really miss Mac Broughton and the CS Hardware Section <g>)

Paul Croft
10 miles south east of LHR

• RE: ADSL options,Stephen, 13:11z, 12-14-02
  • RE: ADSL options,PaulCroft, 17:24z, 12-14-02
• RE: ADSL options,James, 15:12z, 12-14-02
  • RE: ADSL options,PaulCroft, 17:33z, 12-14-02
    • RE: ADSL options,James, 12:48z, 12-15-02
• RE: ADSL options,Vulcan, 20:57z, 12-17-02
  • RE: ADSL options,PaulCroft, 03:44z, 12-18-02
    • RE: ADSL options,andrewluck, 20:56z, 12-30-02
      • RE: ADSL options,Emile, 07:53z, 12-31-02
      • RE: ADSL options,PaulCroft, 02:34z, 01-02-03
        • RE: ADSL options,andrewluck, 21:13z, 01-03-03
          • RE: ADSL options,Emile, 19:33z, 01-04-03
          • RE: ADSL options,PaulCroft, 20:36z, 01-04-03
          • RE: ADSL options,Ben_Chiu, 00:34z, 01-05-03
          • RE: ADSL options,Mike_Greenwood, 04:01z, 01-05-03
      • RE: ADSL options,Vulcan, 15:21z, 01-05-03
        • RE: ADSL options,andrewluck, 18:34z, 01-09-03
          • RE: ADSL options,vgbaron, 01:43z, 01-10-03
            • RE: ADSL options,Ben_Chiu, 04:21z, 01-10-03

Did the USB ADSL 'modem' feature an RJ-45 port for use with a network interface card? I've seen a few UK ISPs offering USB 'modems' which feature both USB and RJ-45 based methods of connection to a computer.

I've always found that the most reliable way to connect to a broadband service is using a good PCI network card connected to a 'modem' which connects to the broadband line. I know a couple of people who have connected to broadband cable connections using USB who had some serious problems as a result - problems relating to having to communicate with the modem using unsupported Windows drivers and problems with the device demanding too much power from the USB port, sometimes resulting in the system shutting itself down or in other USB ports shutting down.

If you want to share your broadband connection with several systems, my advice would be to build a cheap server (with two network cards - one connecting to broadband and one to the local network) and network all the computers you need to specifically for this purpose. However, this will obviously cost you in terms of both time and money but you do get the added advantage of having a machine dedicated to sharing the connection and you could even set-up a firewall on this system.

-Stephen.

Hi Stephen

>Did the USB ADSL 'modem' feature an RJ-45 port for use
>with a network interface card?

No, nothing fancy like that

>If you want to share your broadband connection with
>several systems ...

I don't on a general basis. 99% of the time all Internet access is from the one PC but, occasionally, it's handy for the other two to be able to get access for updating things like anti-virus libraries.

Paul Croft
10 miles south east of LHR

Hi Paul,

My self and Ray P have BT's ADSL (USB) connection. I'm unsure but I think Ray has just 1 pc where as I run upto 8.
It took BT's Engineer about 30 seconds to install drivers and get me online <S>. I have it on the Main pc with all the rest if needed running through that for their own connection sharing. Don't know if this will be of any help to you mate <s>

Regards,

James (CONman) Anderson
*** The plane in front is a Boeing ***

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Hi James

>My self and Ray P have BT's ADSL (USB) connection.

I've gone with Pipex and, initially, chose to use the Alcatel USB they supply. This is the same modem supplied by BT.

Initially I couldn't get a connection so I rang Evesham (my PC supplier) and the net result was that I opted to buy an internal PCI modem instead. After one or two minor set-up glitches everything now works very well but I was just wondering, with hindsight, whether this was the best way. Having only just got into ADSL I'm still learning about it and I just wondered whether, perhaps, an ADSL modem/router could be a better option.

One of the by-products of the internal installation is that the network card now shares IRQ 11 with the video card and, although I've not noticed any problems yet, I'm not sure that's ideal. I've tried swapping cards round in slots and this is the best configuration I can reach at the moment. At least the ADSL modem has its own IRQ.

Paul Croft
10 miles south east of LHR

Hi Paul,

>> I've gone with Pipex and, initially, chose to use the Alcatel USB they
supply. This is the same modem supplied by BT. <<

Correct.

>> Having only just got into ADSL I'm still learning about it and
I just wondered whether, perhaps, an ADSL modem/router could be a better
option. <<

Don't know any thing about routers sorry. I just have my network set up so that If I need to I can have as many web sites as I want up all at the same time <s>

>> One of the by-products of the internal installation is that the network
card now shares IRQ 11 with the video card and, although I've not
noticed any problems yet, I'm not sure that's ideal. I've tried swapping
cards round in slots and this is the best configuration I can reach at
the moment. <<

I wouldn't have thought that that would be ideal also <s>.

>> At least the ADSL modem has its own IRQ. <<

True.

Regards,

James (CONman) Anderson
*** The plane in front is a Boeing ***

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Hi Paul,

I went BB earlier this year with NTL so have a basic (very <g>) understanding and I do work with PCs, but so far that hasn't helped much LOL

From posts on the Nthell forum it seems most of their techies prefer routers with in-built firewalls, they consider them better than the s/ware firewalls. Also they are annoyed at NTL supplying USB cable modems because they find them a source of trouble unlike a network card, so your switch there was the right move.

If you only have one PC normally connecting to the 'Net I personally don't see the point in buying a router, I think it would just add another bit of kit to go wrong and possibly complicate things.

I use 2 PCs networked together using ICS on Win98SE and have had no problems although I know others have had stability problems with it.

The beauty of using 2 PCs, especially for flying with Vatsim is that one PC can run FS and virtually nothing else while the other, connected to the 'Net, can run FS Meteo, SB, RW and anything else you want.

The 2 PCs are connected with UTP cross-over cable and use Pete's WideFS to 'talk'.

Below are some links that may be of benefit.

http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks

http://www.networklab.co.uk/cmodem/

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/ics/ics.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d.h.walker/

Rgds

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Hi Vulcan

I've just received a Netgear modem/router so I've taken out the internal PCI card and connected the network up to the router. Everything seems to be working fine. Only time will tell if I've made the right decision but, atm, I think it's the easiest and best way to go. As well, one of my other considerations is that a modem/router is a sort of 'fit and forget' item. When I upgrade my current 'main' PC, all I'll have to do is connect it into the router with no fancy setting up required.

Thanks for those links to web sites. With your, and others, help, I've found a mass of info on the web. Just over a week ago I knew sweet fa about broadband but I sure as hell am learning fast.

FYI, here's another really useful site I found:

http://www.adslguide.org.uk

Paul Croft
10 miles south east of LHR

Paul

I'd agree with your choice there. If you want more than one PC connected to the Internet then a router is the only way to go. I use a Cisco 1603 here with an ISDN connection and Cisco's firewall software.

You'll definately want to take a look at what security you have. Network Address Translation (NAT) will provide some protection from people attempting to make connections into your network, but if you can do packet filtering then I'd recommend some anti-spoofing measures (basically block any packets on the ADSL interface which purport to come from or are addressed to your local IP addresses).

Also, a biggie, turn off any remote management that the router has, or severely restrict who can access it.

ADSL is not going to happen here for years (and that's an optimistic estimate). Satellite will be problematic because there are some high trees that I don't own interfering with my line of sight to where the satellites are. Cable - never. Looks like it's Frame Relay or Leased Line. Where's that checkbook

Wish me luck. Cisco CCNA exam on Friday.

Andrew Luck
18 SW EGSH

Hello Andrew,
>
>Wish me luck. Cisco CCNA exam on Friday.
>
>Andrew Luck
>18 SW EGSH

This must be a success ! What a good start of 2003
Cross the fingers!
Let's us know

Regards
Emile
EBBR Brussels
Belgium

Hi Andrew

I've had the router up and running for about a fortnight now and it's been as smooth as silk. Better still, since connecting, ZoneAlarm hasn't logged one attempt to gain access - before, the log of attempts was surprisingly large.

I'm certainly happy with the route(r) I chose <g>

Paul

Paul Croft
10 miles SE of Heathrow (EGLL)

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Paul

First off, I passed, which makes me a Cisco Certified Network Associate. Guess I could say I'm well pleased. All the work over Christmas and New Year was worthwhile.

The router provides a useful first line of defence against hacking. I presume you're doing NAT on the router and use a private address range (usually 192.168.x.x) on your internal network. With this setup, it's not possible for someone on the outside to make a connection to your PC. Therefore, the ZoneAlarm alerts disappear. Some provisos apply here which is why I suggested filtering on the routers external interface for any packets that appear to have addresses in your private address range.

If you're interested in more detail then shout and I'll do my best to fill in the blanks. Specifically, if you want to make services available to the outside world then you'll need to set up static port translations on the router.

Andrew Luck
18 SW EGSH

>First off, I passed, which makes me a Cisco Certified
>Network Associate. Guess I could say I'm well pleased. All
>the work over Christmas and New Year was worthwhile.
>
Congratulations

Regards
Emile
EBBR Brussels
Belgium

Hi Andrew

>First off, I passed, which makes me a Cisco Certified
>Network Associate. Guess I could say I'm well pleased. >All
>the work over Christmas and New Year was worthwhile.

I'm delighted for you. Many congrats.

>The router provides a useful first line of defence >against
>hacking. I presume you're doing NAT on the router and use
>a private address range (usually 192.168.x.x) on your
>internal network. With this setup, it's not possible for
>someone on the outside to make a connection to your PC.
>Therefore, the ZoneAlarm alerts disappear.

That's what appears to be happening. I'm still very new to this but the router sets itself to 192.169.0.1 then assigns whatever it wants to, to the PCs on the network, though they're always 192.168.0. something

>Some provisos
>apply here which is why I suggested filtering on the
>routers external interface for any packets that appear to
>have addresses in your private address range.

I understand the logic of what you're saying but don't know how to do this. I don't even know if I can with this router.

>If you're interested in more detail then shout and I'll >do
>my best to fill in the blanks. Specifically, if you want
>to make services available to the outside world then
>you'll need to set up static port translations on the
>router.

At this stage I don't need to make any services available so perhaps it's not necessary anyway. However, you may rest assured that I'll take advantage of your knowledge if I need to in the future .

Paul
10 mls SE of EGLL

Greetings Andrew:

> First off, I passed, which makes me a Cisco Certified Network Associate.
> Guess I could say I'm well pleased. All the work over Christmas and New
> Year was worthwhile.

Congratulations, Andrew!

Hard work pays off again!

Now we know who we can go to with router questions.

Ben

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Hi Andrew,

Congrats on passing the exam...well done!

I consider myself fairly knowledgeable on "home" networks, but I really get lost in the security precautions as of late. late. I have a linksys router serving DSL to 4 machines here. All sans one are wireless. I do have WEP encryption on the wireless portion of the network. I'm ALL EARS when you're discussing this stuff, so don't hold back <g>.

Thanks, and congrats again.

--Greenie
**6 miles SSE KSJC**

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Best of luck with CCNA exam Andrew, that should help the salary

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Thanks for all the kind wishes. Just waiting for the badge to arrive now .

Andrew Luck
18 SW EGSH

> Thanks for all the kind wishes. Just waiting for the badge to arrive
> now .

What BADGE??? We don't need no stinkin' badges!

Sorry Andrew, tried to resist doing that but failed miserably <G>

Congrats!

Vic

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> What BADGE??? We don't need no stinkin' badges!

ROFLOL!

I can't believe I missed that one!

For those that don't get it, that's more or less a quote from a famous Humphry Bogart movie.

Ben

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