> -----Original Message-----

> Pacific Bell has finally come of age in my Central Office here in Los
> Angeles and DSL is now available. After weighing the cost of an ISP and a
> second phone line, I am just about convinced to switch. Granted the set up
> is not inexpensive.
> My questions are:
> 1. Is the NIC card something special, or could I get a hub and
> connect to my
> system that way? (system being Novell 4.11server and Win95SR2.1 WS.

Here in Boise, ID, the NIC that US West provided was a 3COM 3C905.  Since I
use Intel and Netgear NICs in the network here, I tossed the 3COM card in
the parts bin and just plugged the ADSL modem into one of the 10Base100TX
hubs.  US West's DHCP service assigns each computer an IP address based upon
that computer's hardware MAC.

> 2. Is the NIC PCI or ISA or either?

It was a PCI NIC because the interface on the ADSL modem is 10/100mbps.

> 3. Does anyone have any feedback on reliability of service for their DSL,
> and is it a worth while upgrade?

While I can't speak for PacBell, US West periodically has equipment failures
that cause service to go down for an hour or so.  The lengthiest outage was
for about 12 hours when some person in Denver was pasting the network with
smurf attacks on systems around the Internet, but that's not really US
West's fault.  Just from observing my network, I would say that their
downtime averages an hour a week.  Not spectacular for a business solution,
but pretty good for personal Internet.  Was it a worthwhile upgrade?
Without question.  The basic 256K service is just about double the cost of a
second phone line, but the speed increase is phenomenal.

> 4. Any pointers as to what to look for in a provider? I don't
> believe that I
> am limited to Pac Bell for this service.
> A cable modem, well, cable for that matter is out of the
> question. That plus
> I like the idea of increased security that DSL has over cable.
> Thanks for any input on this subject.

I chose the Telco as my provider because all of the other providers in this
area wanted to "meter" the service.  In other words, you had a set amount of
data that you could download outside of their network and then they started
charging.  I think that the average deal is 500MB per month, then a dollar a
megabyte after that.  Since I get things like Linux and other large programs
over the Internet, there wasn't any way that a service like that was going
to be cost effective.  On the other hand, US West charges a flat rate of
$29.95 for unlimited use.

Bear in mind that while you do enjoy somewhat greater security, as long as
your computer is on a network, you need to take care that you have closed as
many "doors" to your computer as possible.  Windows file sharing,
especially, needs to be configured with an eye toward keeping unauthorized
people out.

Just in case you're interested, the 512Kbps service that provides a bunch of
stuff for the NOSPIN Group costs about $60 a month, plus the $30 ISP charge.
That's supposed to drop by 20% or 30% shortly, so at least US West seems
pretty serious about DSL.

Drew Dunn

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