Okay, network Guru's, does this exist?

[Shuxclams]

Russ,
You are hooking your customers up to your network to show them the internet but you want them to go the standard 56K that they will have when they get home correct? I know you have a Linux box, unless it kicked your a$$ and you gave up, why not use your back-up connection that your ISP gave your via a modem connected to the linux box or even better try FREESCO, and segment your LAN so that the demonstraition PC's would dial-up your ISP via the FREESCO machine. Then again.........


SHUX

 

[pyr]

Here is my idea: setup one machine that can access the network and have it set to a permanant IP. then have the modems in that computer and something like sygate running which would then supply IPs to the modems when a connection is made. that would give any remote users access to the net.

 

[Damaged]

Which, after further consideration, and after further considering barebottoms comments (only because I know he knows something), was why I suggested the Portmaster, WHICH WILL work. RS-232 serial is not one way. Well, not really. At least not any more that IEEE 802.3 is.

Why? Because I'm suggesting that Russ fsck the modem, per se, and use the machine's serial ports with a null modem cable and attatch those cables into the Portmaster. All you would need is a null modem adaptor/convertor. Want some?! I have a fscking ton of those. Why? Comes with every 3Com TC rack that we get (Actually I think it comes with every 3Com NMC and ARC, but what's the diff...I have a crap load of those things!).

Again, I say, after further consideration, that WILL work.

BTW barebottoms, I also think that one of those POS (Point Of Sale) cards would work, along with a server/router (aka any *NIX system could do it).

 

[IceStorm]

I've been under the impression that you need the "glue" of the PSTN, or a facsimile, to make a modem work (power on the telephone wiring, etc). I know short-haul modems don't need it, but I don't know about regular 56k modems. If it'll work without the glue in the middle, it's worth a shot.

Hmmm... I'll have to try it at home. I've got enough spare modems lying around, and a couple Amiga computers with no NICs.

 

[cot]

Icestorm : That's what I was talking about earlier.

I think that there is ~48V across the phone line. I am not sure that a modem will happily directly connect to another.

Try plugging a couple old rotary phones together - obviously that wont work!

Sure, your modem doesn't need power off the line, but if the presence of the voltage is taken into account in the modem's design, who knows if it'll work without it.

cot

 

[office boy]

I agree that Damaged has a good idea on this one.
But I have another idea, go with the USB NIC and buy an old managed 10 base hub (I see 16-24 port ones goinf for <100 all the time), you can throttle down the speed to 45-50kb/sec but use good old easy to set up NIC's and Hub's, then if you want to show the customer what DSL or Cable speeds are, just Telnet(or whatever it takes) into the hub and turn up the bandwidth.

er yeah cot's right
been to long since I picked up a 2600

 

[ChrisL]

As was said earlier, Modems WILL work without a real phoneline in between. They mearely must be set up to blind dial (ie don't check for dial tone) This is an AT command that can be added to the dialing sequence. Russ, you could set up your machines just as if they were to access the internet and have them dial blind into your remote access server (assuming you configure it in a compatible way). This will most closely approximate what you want to show and mean the least number of changes to the machines you are selling (dialing string and maybe dialup/TCP/IP settings. The only real work would be seetting up and configuring your remote access server. I am sure someone here could give you more suggestions on that, I have never had to setup a RAS. I hope this helps

Chris

 

[cot]

Oops! DP

 

[cot]

Office boy:

http://www.textfiles.com/magazines/UPI/upiiss4.txt


There's 48 VDC across the line while on hook, drops when the line is picked up.

I think the ringing voltage can actually be higher than that depending on the system, and is AC.

cot

 

[office boy]

Right you are cot, that?s what happens when my wife forgets to muzzle me in the AM :Q

and yeah, when a phone line rings, there's 90 V RMS AC at 20 HZ on the line.

 

[warcleric]

There is a cheap solution, well semi-cheap, assuming you already have a server class machine at the shop. Rocketmodem or Rocketboard makes a dialup access card for around $400 that allows 8 machines to access your server on a WAN link or PPTP link and utilize its resources as if it were on the LAN <which is what any true WAN link does anyway>. Meaning if you were routing your internet connection through a proxy that the dialup workstation would just use your existing internet connection. Now this does not make sense for you if you are just doing 1 or 2 systems at a time, because you can just put 1 or 2 regular modems in the server and do the same thing. It really only makes sense if you are doing many workstations at once.

 

[office boy]

what is the deal, all this complicated stuff for such a simple problem,

USB NIC = $35
Old managed hub <= $100

Boom your set, no complicated settings, no weird stuff on computers you will be selling (stuff you'll have to fix and or change before it's out the door), and no big cost, and you could resell the USB NIC's, and the hub will still be usable for a while...
have the modem setup, then leave it, Use the managment feature of the hub to throlle bandwidth down, and Russ you could use some of those extra hub ports for your &quot;crack rack&quot; too

 

[MrChicken]

Why not try a simple w9x box with a dial up server installed? You could pick a brand of modem that doesnt need a dial tone for connecting. I remember doing this on a 95 box a couple years of ago using the dial in server from the plus pack.
I dont remember it being all that difficult to setup, and I wouldnt run an ISP off of it, but for just showing a customer what a 56k connect is like, that should work.
Commercial stuff, you could look at what Ascend has for dial in equipment, I'm sure it's pricey though....

 

[UN1Xnut]

Russ:

Damaged has the right idea here. See if you can pick up one of the old Portmaster units (used to be an independant company, now owned/supported by Lucent). The Portmaster 3 is probably overkill at 30 ports, so one of the 2 series would be good.

Digi also makes multi port serial cards that you can put in a PC. Put one of their serial cards, say an 8 port, into an old Pentium class box and run Linux/FreeBSD on it. Full functionality of the Portmaster boxes, but not an intergrated solution and more of a pain to maintain.

Used to use both of these setups back in the day working for an ISP.

 

[Russ]

You know, big companies pay big dollars for all this expertise. You guys are the best, not doubt about it. Much to absorb and investigate.

Shux,

Nope, didn't give up on Linux. Have two dualie boxes running Mandrake and ten rack nodes running Freesco networked in to the main box pproxy. Just don't ask me how I got it all working.

Russ, NCNE