[ale] BellSouth ADSL

[Jim Kinney]

I have ADSL w/ Bellsouth.net. They are braindead about any other OS than
Mac or Windows. But don't tell them you will run something else. they will
charge you for a NIC so go ahead and take it. Here's the game:

They tinker with your phone line and install a high pass filter and run
the high speed line pretty much wherever you want it to go. They plug in a
"modem" (actually a protocol translator , async to ethernet) and connect
it through ethernet to your box. They will _not_ connect it to a hub since
the box needs to have an IP. The bummer is they only (currently) support
DHCP, no static IP's. They have also changed my IP _DURING_A_TRANSFER_ !!!
Even Linux didn't follow that nicely. Had to restart networking.

You have to have a "supported" OS that they can install to in order to
verify the system works before they leave. 

To get it to work under Linux, you need to compile your NIC's as modules
and use /etc/conf.modules to provide alias's to eth0 and eth1. This way
you can specify which card get local net traffic and which card get DHCP.
You will also need to set up some firewalling on your new gateway machine.
They don't tell the windows people this (Oooh, look at the people who have
file sharing turned _ON_)

In short, ADSL is generally great. It's fast, reasonably reliable and
relatively cheap compared with ISDN (I have a 3Com ImpactIQ ISDN modem for
sale $75 w/manuals) Drawbacks are DHCP, Bellsouth, and stupid OS
requirments. Also requires a 1 year contract. 

Oh, yeah, they filter port 25 stuff so sendmail can't send mail. It can
recieve but not send. I guess it's their idea of spam protection.

I'm waiting for Mindspring to get it together.

James Kinney M.S.Physics		jkinney at teller.physics.emory.edu
Educational Technology Specialist	404-727-4734
Department of Physics Emory University	http://teller.physics.emory.edu

On Wed, 19 May 1999, David Brooks wrote:

> 
> 
> Okee doke,
> 
> I think I may have asked this before, long ago, but I can't remember exactly
> what the response was.  I might be able to ask BellSouth this (assuming I
> didnt get a really misinformed/automated reply from them), but I figure this
> list is alot speedier. Here's my situation:
> 
> 1)  I've had it with dialup PPP connections,
> 2)  A modem connection just isnt very practical for the use my house gets
> (with the whole family on the 'net)
> 3)  I run Linux (d'uh)
> 
> Now, on BellSouth's website, they say I need either windows95 or windows98
> or Macintosh.  I refuse to believe that ADSL service requires this.  WIll
> they still provide me service if I dont run these OS's?  Will Linux (or some
> other obscure form of *nix, namely FreeBSD) scare them off?
> 
> Next,  I'm assuming they put a NIC in one of my computers, subsequently
> leading me to believe that the "ADSL modem" they provide is a seperate
> network device.  If I all ready have a NIC in every one of my computers, is
> this still necessary, and can this "ADSL modem" hang off my hub?  (ideally)
> 
> If this ADSL modem is needed to be connected to one PC directly, is there
> any sort of support for it under Linux?  Could I still use IP Masq to give a
> connection to all the rest of the PC's in the house? (not-so-ideally,
> however still usable)
> 
> Second issue - I would prefer a static IP address, because I have my own
> domain name and would prefer to host it locally.  Does BellSouth.net provide
> this?
> 
> Any information would be really helpful -- I'm looking to find another
> cheap, higher-speed solution than dial-up pretty soon here.  I appreciate
> your time.
> 
> -Dave
> db at trusted.net
> 
> --
> david a. brooks
> trusted net, inc. [http://www.trusted.net]
> voice: .. (770) 425.5700 x.280
> pager: .. (770) 379-2333
> :wq
>