Re: [PLUG] Re: DSL she no go...

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

On 02 Dec, 2004, at 10:10, Doug Crompton wrote:
> Question... They assigned me an IP address. It will always be the same 
> BUT
> it will be DHCP assigned and linked to the MAC address. Technically 
> this
> is not the same as a static IP but functionally it should be the 
> same?????
> I am running servers and need a stable IP. They later will assign up 
> to 4
> additional IP's as part of the package to other MAC addresses if 
> needed.

Yeah... but.

DCAnet used to assign a real static IP, one that you had to manually 
configure.
They had to manually map your MAC address to that static IP so that you 
could clear the router. Any time you switched hardware, you needed to 
register the new MAC address to the appropriate IP. This was a security 
and control issue, primarily to prevent spoofing.

About a year ago or so they switched to using "mapped" DHCP addresses.
Your MAC address is always mapped to the same IP and you will always 
get it re-assigned to that MAC address (so in that sense it is still 
static), but your system must now use the DHCP protocol to initiate a 
connection.

The primary "problem" with a DHCP configuration is the fact that your 
lease does expire.
DCAnet is using a 7 day lease, so it's a while, but when the expiration 
occurs, the lease renewal activity takes "time" -- so there is a brief 
period where the connection is completely "down."

In one sense, this is a "benefit" -- you can move a NIC from one 
machine to another and it will carry the IP with it without you having 
to re-configure the box.

As a long time DCAnet customer, I happen to have a mix of the two -- 3 
"real" static-IP addresses on my original hardware, and 2 new "dynamic" 
static-IPs on upgraded hardware.

BTW: What is your line speed?

The old pricing scheme (based on Bell Atlantic pricing in 2000) had 3 
levels:

                  Downstream    Downstream    Upstream       Pricing
              connection speed  connection
                  Speed Ranges	vs. 56K      Speed Ranges
                                 Up to:

Personal      256 kbps-640 kbps  11x faster   90 kbps- 90 kbps   
$39.95/month
Infospeed DSL

Professional  960 kbps-1.6 Mbps  28x faster   90 kbps- 90 kbps   
$99.95/month
Infospeed DSL

Power         4.48 Mbps-7.1 Mbps 126x faster 384 kbps- 680 kbps 
$189.95/month
Infospeed DSL

The "professional" level is now: 1.5 X 768.



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
# XP1000  [Alpha EV6]
magill@mcgillsociety.org
magill@acm.org
magill@mac.com
whmagill@gmail.com


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