I'm halfway through installing wireless networking and so far it is going well. After several years on dialup (most of them on 28.8 before getting my new eMac with built-in 56k modem earlier this year) I decided it was time to get a faster connection. And get rid of the phone extension wires that are trailing about the place.
After ordering the upgrade from SDU [1] to wires-only [2] ADSL [3] on my ISP's website they took me by surprise by emailing me that my line would be activated before I had even gotten around to ordering equipment. After some delays caused by out-of-stock stuff and cancelled orders I got my gear last Wednesday at 2pm. http://www.draytek.com.tw/vigor2600_x_w_we.htm A Vigor 2600We. This amazing gadget combines an ADSL modem, a 4-port switch, a firewall and a wireless base station in a box smaller than a hardcover book. [4] I had it all unpacked, splitters in phone sockets, ethernet cables hooked up etc by 2.30 and tested that I had viable signal on a dummy account at my ISP. Then I had to set up the 2600 with my account info and visit my ISP's site via dialup to switch over from SDU to ADSL. At this point I discovered that although in theory I could use my old SDU password for my new ADSL account, in practise it wouldn't accept it because of restrictions about length, capitalisation and mix of letters and digits that hadn't applied several years ago when I originally set up the password. So I had to change the password and then go back into the vigor and change the password there again. Online and surfing the net at 3.10pm. Woohoo! Off to do all those high-bandwidth things I could never see before - full-screen streaming video etc. Downloaded ep 7.07 of Buffy and burned it to VCD. [5] So now that is working I am waiting for my Airport card so I can move the Vigor beside a phone socket and have fun configuring the wireless LAN. And get rid of the phone extensions. [1] Standard Dial Up [2] They test your line from the exchange and (if it passes) attach it to a card in the DSLAM. No engineer visits, and you source your own equipment to connect at your end. Then you plug your equipment in, and if it turns out there is some problem with your line after all, you are in trouble... [3] Asymmetric digital subscriber line. [4] There was even a Mac OS X set-up wizard on the CD in the box. [5] Which played perfectly on my UKP85 supermarket-special multi-region DVD player. -- William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
