[plug] ADSL modem/switch

[Sham Chukoury]

On Sat, 2003-08-16 at 18:47, Quintin Lette wrote:

<snip>

> As for the pulsar PCI adsl modem, you may have issues with getting 3 pci cards 
> working together in the P166 (although maybe not, and you can use ISA network 
> cards too I guess) but it would make it possible to do things like proxy / 
> firewall (a firewall isn't much good if its just a node in your network you 
> really need the data to go through it).

Hmmm... What do you mean, 'issues with getting 3 pci cards working
together'? :P What sorts of issues?

/me thinks it's time for some ascii art..

Here's what I imagine the network topology to be, if i go for the custom
box:

                   +---------+                      +-----+
                   |         | 10/100MBps Ethernet  |     |
                   |         |--------------------->| [1] |
                   |  P166   |   (1 pci slot)       |     |
    phone line     | custom  |                      +-----+
------------------>|  adsl   |                      +-----+
 into Pulsar modem | gateway | 10/100MBps Ethernet  |     |
   (1 pci slot)    |(+proxy?)|--------------------->| [2] |
                   |         |   (1 pci slot)       |     |
                   +---------+                      +-----+

Notes:
- Diagram not to scale ;)
- [1] = Linux box
- [2] = WinXP box
- (1 pci slot) refers to number of pci slots taken up in custom box
- therefore, 3 PCI slots taken up (Asus VX97 has 3PCI + 1PCI/ISA slots)
- can add 1 more PCI NIC, up to 3 more ISA NICs, if needed
- [1] and [2] talk to each other via 'gateway' box acting as switch

> My personal preference would be to get the Billion Bipac 711 ($165 at Arach 
> Net) and a separate switch (cheap as chips now ie $59 for an 8port at Austin) 
> which works out cheaper than the 4 port Billion, gives you more ports if 
> people come over or you get more hardware... and you can then decide whether 
> you want to do your own firewalling / routing proxying or let the billion do 
> it for you.

Heh, talk about coincidence... I decided to check out how much the
option of getting an ethernet adsl modem + separate ethernet switch
would cost, worked it out, then checked my e-mail and found this. ;)

> By the way, for $11 more than anything but the 128k package you get an extra 
> 5gb of peak traffic, and 1gb really isn't that much (about 9ish hours of 
> downloading on 256k). Just giving you the facts, not trying to force anything 
> on you (by the way I have no affiliation with anyone in the industry ;-))

Yes, I do realise that... I primarily want ADSL so as not to keep on
tying up the phone line while online. Getting a second phone line
dedicated to dialup might work, but still incurs phone call charges. :P

Regards
§:)