Newbie Broadband Question

[Dr Evil]

Hi All,

Using 56k dial-up at the moment, want to upgrade to broadband, but have some questions about it.

1. I have a gigabyte GA-8PEMT4 that has a RLT8101L Lan, it came without the cable, should I use this or a USB modem?

2. I like to manually setup my connection etc, can I do this with broadband or do I have to use there cdrom which would install tons of junk aswell, is it as straight forward as setting up a dial-up connection?

3. I know that this is "always on", once configured how do you as such then use the service, I am more prone to attack from hackers etc then using dial-up?

4. We have only 1 socket and one phone can I use the splitter downstairs so we can use the phone and run an extension upstairs and plug the modem into that?

Thanks in advance,

Dr Evil.

[kato2274]

Wow lots of questions.

Originally posted by Dr Evil
Hi All,

Using 56k dial-up at the moment, want to upgrade to broadband, but have some questions about it.

1. I have a gigabyte GA-8PEMT4 that has a RLT8101L Lan, it came without the cable, should I use this or a USB modem?

6 in one hand 1/2 dozen the other. I prefer using a ethernet port because it offers a little more flexibility if it comes down to sharing the connection later with something like ICS . when they bring you the modem, they SHOULD also have eithernet cable with them.

2. I like to manually setup my connection etc, can I do this with broadband or do I have to use there cdrom which would install tons of junk aswell, is it as straight forward as setting up a dial-up connection?

the difficulty level depends on your own level of compentency. to set up the connection manually, you are going to need some relevant numbers from the ISP like primary and secondary gateways, email incoming and outgoing server addresses etc. also the difficulty depends on which OS you are using as well the more current windows OS's (2k XP) have pretty intuitive wizards to help in the process.

3. I know that this is "always on", once configured how do you as such then use the service, I am more prone to attack from hackers etc then using dial-up?

short answer is yes. there are lots of things you can do to protect yourself better. foremost is to get a software firewall package like zone alarm (which is free) nortons personal firewall (which is not free) or if you are using XP you can use the built in internet firewall. (I have no experience with any of these products - my cable modem sits behind a smoothwall linux router / firewall) of course if your modem has a standby button you can put it in standby when not in use.

4. We have only 1 socket and one phone can I use the splitter downstairs so we can use the phone and run an extension upstairs and plug the modem into that?

DSL?
you'd really have to ask the installers. if they can't do that they'll run you another line. I don't have any experience with DSL but cable modems rely heavily on signal strength, so you can't always split the line. don't know if this is the case with DSL but as stated ask the installers.

Thanks in advance,

Dr Evil.

you're welcome.

[Stalemate]

In reply to question #4...

I use Bell Canada's Sympatico High Speed Edition (ADSL) at home and had to use a splitter for lack of phone jacks in my home office.

A line filter is then plugged into one of the splitter's ports (regular phone) and I have a 25' extension running to my DSL modem (no filter). I've had no discernable degradation in signal strength, but the ideal setup would be to have a dedicated wall jack close to the PC.

Welcome to broadband.

[NooNoo]

UK DSL.... its not always on. You can control whether it's connected or not because you get a dialup icon just like an ordinary dialup modem.

Do yourself a favour, dont go AOL broadband!!

If you go the ethernet card route, I am not sure that you will be able to use the onboard nic.

[Chris_MacMahon]

i know that dsl, and c/m's are different, but i setup my c.m and i don;t think there is an isp that runs static ip addresses, so if you have a nic, telephone line, and power plug the dsl modem in, to phone, power computer nic, set the nic to be a dhcp client (obtain ip address, and dns), no need for a gateway as thier dhcp server should send this to you...
if you are useing an 9x machine then you will need to reboot, but xp, and win2k you won't need to...

so setting it from your house is easy, if you know what todo..

no i konw that zonealarm was mentioned, but i prefer http://www.kerio.com as it has more features for the same price (free).

also i live by the following statement, ms security software is crap.