On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 8:23 AM, Bernard Frankpitt <[email protected]> wrote: > In the end I went for the cable modem option: It is the option offered by > my Telstra, and I already have a cable connected to my house. > ... > When you go to a broadband connection, the ISP controls both sides of the > link since they provide you with a stand-alone modem that usually connects > to you computer via a TCP/IP link over Ethernet. That is a much easier set > of protocols to design to. In addition, it is easy to put a firewall router > between the modem and your machines to give you additional security.
Just be aware that with Telstra, by default you get a real external IP address bound directly to your computer; if you are not running a pretty aggressive firewall you will now be processing all attack traffic directly on your machine. Of course, the majority of this will be stuff that subverts Windows machines, but some if it will be valid attacks against other services too. Attaching a Windows computer directly to Telstra's service is severely negligent. :-) The Telecom ADSL solution, where there is a NAT layer between you and the Internet run on a separate piece of hardware, is actually nicer from that perspective. I strongly recommend a separate machine of some description between you and the Telstra connection. Just what that is, depends on what you want to do with your new connection ... -jim
