Check to see if you meet the following requirements for ADSL.
Select a Telco and ISP, and see what configurations they offer.
Call the Telco and order the service.
Once you have ordered the service, the Telco should provide
you with a Due Date. I was able to do the entire order
in one phone call through my Telco, and they coordinated with
the order with my ISP. I was given a due date that was one week
later, and everything was completed on time, with no problems.
The system (PC, workstation, router or hub) that will
be directly connected to the ADSL ANT .
Inside Wiring
You need inside wire (2 or 4 wire) from the Telco
Demarcation Point (the side
of your house) to your PC location. Your existing phone line
can be used. However, this inside wire can only be used
for the ANT, and no other phones or extensions can
be connected to this line. The Telcos or other companies can
be contracted to install a new wire for you as well.
Installation
Who will wire it up in your house?
You can do the splitter wiring yourself
(My local Telco provided a wiring kit and instructions for performing
the inside wiring ) or you can contract them do it for an additional fee.
You can save
around $ 150-250 dollars by doing it yourself, which I did, or
you can save yourself the hassle and have them do it. You can
decide what you want to do after reading the procedure
that I have included in this document. The bottom line is
if you are used to dealing with phone and/or network LAN
wiring procedures, and feel comfortable with doing this,
then you should consider going for it.
If you haven't, and your company is going
to pay for it, then have them do it.
The Telco will normally test your line
before you order service to see if it is can pass the ADSL signal.
You must be within 2-3 miles (11-16 kilofeet) of the Central Office, and have
a loop that has no loading coils, bridge taps, DAMLs, or other impediments.
Most of the
Loops that support ISDN can also support ADSL, but since ADSL is
more restrictive, this is no guarantee of success.
Your Telco will help you here.
ADSL Available from your Telco
Is the ADSL/DSLAM equipment is available at your Central Office?
Again, the Telco will check to see if it available in your
area. Every major Telco in the US, and many new dedicated ADSL
providers have announced plans for ADSL. I expect wide scale deployment
by 1Q99.
Bit Rate
ADSL is priced according to the Bit Rate -
Check with your Telco. You can usually order some combination
of 128k,256k,384k, or 1.5M speeds.
Your loop may restrict the bit rate you can be offered.
My Telco also prices the service differently if you're a Residence
or Business Customer.
POTS Service
Some providers (usually the big Telcos) offer POTS with
ASDL. If you choose this option, you will need to specify which phone number
(new or existing) you want assigned to it. You
will need to designation whether you want the ADSL to go
over an existing POTS service, or whether you want a new
phone number for the analog phone line. If you have ISDN
service, and want to use the same line, the ISDN service
must first be disconnected. Note that some Telcos (usually
dedicated DSL providers) do not offer this option.
Your ISP of choice must be presubscribed
with the ADSL Telco provider. Check with your ISP to see if they
are connected. If they are not connected then you must either
move to another ISP, convince them to connect up, or decide not
to use ADSL.
IP Subnet and Address.
First, you'll need to know whether your IP addressing will
be static or dynamic. Dynamic addressing is set through
the use of DHCP.
Additionally, for static addressing, ISPs will allow anywhere from
1 to 254 IP addresses to be assigned to an ADSL line, with
the corresponding Variable Length Subnet Mask (VLSM).
My ISP charges more money
as you get more hosts. I suspect that most applications
will use either 1 host (32 bit mask) or 6 hosts (29 bit mask).
If your confused, then read the IP-Subnetting HOWTO.
Also remember than multi-host subnets require 1 of the hosts
to be the ISP router address (meaning that the 6 host subnet
is really 5 hosts to you) and you can use IP Masquerading/ (see
the HOWTO) or Network Address Translation (NAT) to support
a larger number of addresses behind your LAN. If you request
more than 30 hosts, be prepared to fill out a justification
form for your ISP.
Gateway Address
The default gateway address. Normally, this is the first
host address in your subnet. (e.g. if your subnet range and mask
is 192.168.1.240/29, then your host range is .241 through .246,
with the default gateway assigned to the .241 address.
Number of MAC addresses
The ANTs can support a set number of
MAC addresses for bridging. For example, the ADSL
ANT that I use is limited to 16 MAC addresses. This
should be sufficient for most applications. However,
if you plan to support a large number of machines directly
off the hub of the ANT, you should check first to
see what your limit is.
DNS Servers
The ISP should provide you with one or more
DNS server addresses to support Domain Name Lookups.
Some ISPs also provide Domain Name Server hosting
(either primary or secondary server) for you as part
of the dedicated service packages. See your ISP for more details.
User ID and Password.
The ISP will normally assign you a
login/password for shell, mail, etc. access. My ISP also
provides web space, mail server, and some other goodies.
