Re: [PLUG] Verizon DSL

["William H. Magill" <magill@mcgillsociety.org>]

On Monday, May 12, 2003, at 11:06  AM, Edward M. Corrado wrote:
> That's what it looks like. I see no sign of anything that can be
> configured. As of now, I just have PPPoE running on my OS X install on 
> my
> iBook. It seems to work fine, but for various reasons is not the way I
> want to go. In a way, a "dumb" device is probably a good thing, if I 
> want
> to set up a Linux/*BSD box as a router.

I believe that with Verizon as your ISP, you are stuck running PPPoE. 
If you had DCAnet as you ISP with Verizon DSL (my setup), you would 
simply get 6 static IPs from DCA. Unless Verizon has changed policies, 
they still don't offer static IPs, even for their commercial setups. 
[Apple's PPPoE, however, does work correctly with Verizon.]

Unless you really want "a router," consider just getting an Airport 
Base station. I have my Westel connected to an ethernet hub, and the 
Airport and my "outside" server (an alpha running Tru64 or SuSE, 
depending on my mood) connected to that. The Airport then provides 
wireless connectivity for my iBook and iMac. Another 9600 with a G3 
card, also running OSX, sits on the hub, but is logically behind the 
airport.

> In what might be a dumb question, is there any reason why I
> can't/shouldn't use a second modem on a second phone jack (with the 
> same
> telephone number) in my house?

None at all. That's what the dongel is for. You can use any device 
compatible with POTS with a dongel, including modems, fax machines and 
answering machines.

If I remember correctly, standard telephone service is only 0Khz to 
kKhz. (total bandwidth is normally defined as 5Khz) The dongel is 
simply a low band-pass filter to separate the "voice" (aka POTS) 
portion of bandwidth from the "data". The QAM (Quadrature Amplitude and 
Phase Modulation) used by DSL is designed to run from about 30Khz up.

One of the primary purposes of the dongels is to maintain "life-line" 
services...if the power goes out POTS still works.

The dongels are passive devices, but occasionally you do get a bad one. 
Usually they either work or they don't work, never seen an intermittent 
one unless the connector is flakey.

Note that if you don't use the dongel, the device will "see" all of the 
"noise" from the DSL line and may or may not perform correctly. Just 
plug your phone into the jack without the dongel and listen.

One last comment. If you have an urge to use the second pair of a 4 
wire pair, don't. The high frequencies of the QAM does cause/have 
cross-talk issues.

T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
# Beige G3 - Rev A motherboard - 768 Meg
# Flat-panel iMac (2.1) 800MHz - Super Drive - 768 Meg
# PWS433a [Alpha 21164 Rev 7.2 (EV56)- 64 Meg]- Tru64 5.1a
magill@mcgillsociety.org
magill@acm.org
magill@mac.com

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