[ale] OT: ADSL modem bottleneck

[Dow Hurst]

After some work by Earthlink, I went from IP changes like 
yours to many per day, every day.  Very annoying.  I've 
noticed this as a general Atlanta area change in sections. 
I went first in the Acworth area.  Next, was the Kennesaw 
area.  Last so far is the East Cobb area.  I get PPP 
connection logs from each home network of our researchers so 
can track changes like this.  We still get 1Mb down and 256K up.
Dow


Mike Murphy wrote:
> In the Telco monopoly's defense: I've had Bellsouth ADSL for nigh on 2.5 
> years now. I use my linksys home router for the PPPoE part, and a linux 
> box to keep my dyndns.org record updated. In all that time, I've 
> averaged about one IP address change a week (except for 2 or 3 times 
> where I've seen 2 overnight -- I presume they are doing some 
> maintenance), and only one extended period of downtime, about 8 months 
> ago for most of an afternoon and evening, when there was some issue that 
> afflicted most DSL subscribers inside the perimeter. Other than that, 
> its been troublefree. My only other annoyance has been their slightly 
> wierd MX vs A records for mail thing that's led to me having to use 
> [mail.bellsouth.net] with the brackets in my sendmail.cf to send all my 
> mail the "right" way.
> 
> I've got my trusty old A1000 too (its, geez, like 6 years old now), and 
> in all the time I've used it, I've never noticed any weird duplexing 
> behavior. And I do all sorts of crazy stuff, like heavy duty gaming, and 
> IPSEC and other sorts of vpn on that connection. I always get 1200+ down 
> and 200+ up though, too.
> 
> Mike
> 
> Dow Hurst wrote:
> 
>> How expensive are the ADSL cards to put in a Linux box? I've seen them 
>> in Sysadmin magazine now and LinuxFormat from some hardware provider.  
>> I've thought that building up the whole single purpose device under 
>> Linux would be nice for the control of the connection.  The little 
>> ADSL routers available never seem to be able to keep the connection 
>> from hanging which then requires recycling the power on the them.
>>
>> Also, we use Linux router/fw's based on Slackware from Fly-By-Day for 
>> hooking up to the ADSL ethernet based modems from Bellsouth, 
>> Earthlink, and the cable modems from CharterCable.  I've also got a 
>> SMC Barricade wifi ADSL router/fw box that works fine with Earthlink, 
>> but I've put the Fly-By-Day fw behind it to protect the research based 
>> home network.  I don't trust the wifi or home network in that case at 
>> all.
>>
>> The SMC Barricade series and the 2Wire series of multifunction 
>> router/wifi/HPNA/fw/ADSL devices seem to be able to be updated 
>> remotely by the respective companies for OS and IDS patches.
>>
>> Bob is always on top of the Fly-By-Day fw's so I don't have to worry 
>> about them.  He has some nice packages for email with spam control, 
>> and VPN solutions too.
>>
>> The most robust solution we have so far for uptime is the Charter 
>> cable setup where the cable modem gets a static IP and the Fly-by-Day 
>> fw router protects the home network.  The PPPoe stuff with BellSouth 
>> and Earthlink tends to have PPP downtime.  However, the Fly-By-Day 
>> fw/routers give us enough control to be able to troubleshoot 
>> effectively when stuff dies.  It is always the provider, never the 
>> Linux box now.
>> Dow
>>
>>
>> Mike Millson wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 2004-03-01 at 09:39, Bjorn Dittmer-Roche wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, 29 Feb 2004, Mike Millson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, 2004-02-29 at 09:41, Bjorn Dittmer-Roche wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> But DSL is only half duplex, so would a half duplex 10BaseT 
>>>>>> actually slow
>>>>>> you down?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Are you saying that DSL and ADSL in and of itself is only capable of
>>>>> half duplex? It's not just a pipe between the router and the central
>>>>> office? You can only be uploading or downloading at a given time? 
>>>>> Or are
>>>>> you saying that the router itself, like a hub, is half duplex?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That's what I read, but I'm having trouble varifying that now. Some 
>>>> sites
>>>> seem to think that duplex means symetric. Anyway, I will just say 
>>>> that I
>>>> *think* DSL is half duplex and leave it at that. Someone else know 
>>>> better?
>>>>
>>>
>>> I did some searching around, and I'm convinced that the ADSL that I have
>>> is full duplex.
>>>
>>> I'm not so sure about IFITL. It may be half duplex.
>>>
>>> And I found this in the Linux DSL HowTo:
>>> "Most DSL modems and routers typically are set to half duplex."
>>>
>>> No doubt the 10BaseT connection on my ADSL router is half duplex.
>>>
>>> It seems to me that the Alcatel 1000 router itself is the bottleneck.
>>> The ADSL connection my only be 256 kbps, but it is full duplex. The
>>> router can do 10 Mbps, but it's only half duplex.
>>>
>>> Anyone know of a full duplex ADSL router that they would recommend using
>>> w/ BellSouth ADSL?
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Ale mailing list
>>> Ale at ale.org
>>> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>>>
>>
> 

-- 
__________________________________________________________
Dow Hurst                  Office: 770-499-3428            *
Systems Support Specialist    Fax: 770-423-6744            *
1000 Chastain Rd. Bldg. 12                                 *
Chemistry Department SC428  Email:   dhurst at kennesaw.edu   *
Kennesaw State University         Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com *
Kennesaw, GA 30144                                         *
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