Yeah, granted that you can work around it to get BTMM working, but it’s an awful hack, and I’d really rather the AirPort does the routing anyway, because it’s just a truckload better at it. It is one thing that cable puts a shine on, because cable modems built to spec are generally trivial to put into a mode where they don’t interfere with the Ethernet traffic, and AirPort is easily compatible with that.
As for alternative modems, it looks like there are quite a few that support EFM/PTM although you will have to go fishing. I can well imagine why this was an attractive option for AT&T, but it definitely puts you—the consumer—at a substantial disadvantage. And finally, to the choice of technology: here in Blighty, the cable solution is the faster, but bursty satellite with constrained upstream and time-shared downlink; the VDSL (for which there are many different plans) is the slower, but more reliable and ubiquitous. I happen to have a choice, and I choose VDSL. My provider offers me native IPv6, I get to pick the VDSL bridge modem, and because it’s all PTM, the provider just bridges Ethernet over which I can do PPPoE from the router (a Linux box) of my choice. This gives everybody involved complete freedom, although unfortunately does require that terminal equipment support baby jumbo frames to handle a full Ethernet frame inside PPPoE. Sadly, the PPPoE support in AirPort is more than a little bit naff (in-band MSS clamping, no support for baby jumbo frames), so cable is really the better option if you want the complete, Apple-polished experience (which I highly recommend to those that want it). Anyway, the point is: know your options. :) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
