Just a few comments:
1] The Telstra guys who installed my ADSL gear were subcontracters. They
were running under Telstra orders to go by the book. They don't provide
tech support for the gear, they just install it. If things on people's win
boxes gets weird, then they have to work out how to deal with it. These
guys are not your Level 3 helpdesk technicians.
They had no problems with my software/PC installation - in fact, that went
flawlessly.
They did however have problems with the exchange being incorrectly
configured [I was only being terminated at 512/128, not 1500/256] - they
worked the problem by the numbers as they are required to by Telstra. This
issue was resolved by somebody at the Bigpond Cable Exchange.
The same teams/exchanges handles more Cable related services which do use
DHCP. You get lots of confusion in such places.
WHY?
Bigpond is a large organisation - you try getting enough field know-how into
the teams to deal with every situation, and you'll find its practically
impossible. You keep your specialists at home plate, and send out the
rookies.
2] PPPoE is a connection oriented service - it is [afterall] PPP
encapsulated over Ethernet. The implementation in Win9x as it stands now is
fine - in most cases, you don't want that link coming up automagically if
you machine reboots anyway. The way it has been implemented is to make it
function like any other PPP service under windows, which is appropriate for
the average user.
If you really think you can do a better job with the software, feel free to.
Nobody is stopping you. PPPoE is documented in the RFCs. You also have
several open source implementations you can refer to now.
Personally, I find your comments over this matter quite disturbing - you do
have to appreciate that the people who install on your site are just the
people who are sent to deal with jobs - they don't necessarily know much -
but its all they need to know [Telstra do not support Linux - therefore, the
field technicians need know now about it].
The guys who did my installation were not gurus - they had their
instructions, they knew what to do when walking into a situation which was
expected of ADSL customers. They did exactly what they were supposed to do,
which was provide and install the ADSL Modem, and configure a Windows based
PPPoE client that would provide me with 'net access. And that, they did
well. There is no cause to scorn these people.
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----- Original Message -----
From: George Vieira <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2000 2:31 PM
Subject: RE: [SLUG] ADSL
> I had the same problem.. The funny thing was that they convinced me that I
> needed DHCP on my machine coz' I actually was getting IPs from them... YOU
> DON'T (as people here have told me... thanks!).
>
> There software sucks too.. I could have written a better program for
them..
> even run it as a service so it starts as soon as you login cause you
machine
> might reboot and you can't get into it if you have to click their stupid
> icon....
>
> At least my linux box has it's own scripts and I have modified them to
> automatically update my DNS on restart or reboot...
>
> Telstra could only get it working on my W98 partition and then I got it
> working for the rest.. hopeless...
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