On Thu, Jul 05, 2007 at 05:03:23PM +0300, Shlomo Solomon wrote: > 1 - He said Bezeq would charge for replacing it. Although this is off-topic, > I > can't see why I have to pay to replace the modem which is Bezeq's property > anyway. Would I also have to pay to replace a component in the Bezeq junction > box??
They only replace it if it is defective. (hint, hint, nudge nudge), if this was not a public list I would make a suggestion, since it is, you'll have to figure out what I am implying on your own. :-) > 2 - He hasn't "proved" to me that the modem is the problem, so I could end up > paying and not solving anything. Yes. That is a problem isn't it. You might want to borrow a Windows computer and check it out. If it still fails, they can diagnose that. To answer your later question, the 10 NIS charge is for supporting a router (of any brand and source) instead of a computer running Windows. >From what I understand the service person at their end can not diagnose the connection unless there is a computer running Windows at your end. If it's because they lack the equipment, or they lack the skills, I don't know. > 3 - The new modem he offered doesn't support pptp - only ppoe. I assume that > won't be a problem in Linux, but it's a matter of the chicken and the egg. He > wanted to take the old modem, which would have left me no internet > connection. And I need the internet to look for info on how to set up ppoe. Here's your chance to download it before you start. :-) > The technician offerd another alternative. He suggested getting a Rotal ADSL > router for 24 payments of 9.90 (total cost 238). He said that this would > solve my setup problems because (he claims) the router is a plug-and-play > always-connected solution. Just plug the cat-5 cable into the router and > you're connected to the internet regardless of whether the machine runs > Windows, Linux or whatever. Geoffrey wrote about Bezeq's 10 NIS (per month) > option to support a router on the ADSL line. I'm not sure if this is what he > meant, but as far as I could understand from the technician, I don't need any > special service - just buy the router and plug it in. As an extra "bonus", > the router also supports 802.11g WiFi, which I don't need and would probably > dis-able. This is a seperate issue, I ASSUME that uf you buy the modem from them when you call they support your connection with it. You may want to check, > > So here are my questions. I would be happy to hear any opinions before making > a decision. > > 1 - After 2 weeks of "shit" from Bezeq (but to be fair, 7 years of nearly > no-problem sevice before that), should I consider moving to HOT? I've always > understood that the advantage of ADSL is that the whole 1.5 is mine, whereas > the cable throughput depends on what bandwith my neighbours are using. >From what I understand, both BEZEQ and HOT give you 100% of the bandwith you poay for from your modem (cable modems are modems, aDSL modems are really HDLC PAD's (packet assembler/dissabler). aDSL is slightly different as the packets are stuffed into packets with 48 bytes of data (total packet length is 53 bytes). Either way your connection is to a network concentrator where your packets are combined (or split) with packets for everyone else. The combined data flow is combined and so on. Eventually everyone who sends or receives data from your ISP, has their data combined and sent to them. I know, it's VERY oversimplified. What really matters is not where you are in Israel, it's where you are connecting to and how it gets there. For example, if you download data from a server using the same ISP as you have, you are limited to their upstream bandwith (shared with everyone else). If the server is on their LAN and not busy, you are limited to your bandwith. >From my experience time of day and day of week does not seem to matter. Once your data has to travel outside of your ISP, things change. In Israel, you have two posibilites. One is via IIX (the Israel Internet Exchange) and the other is a direct connection. I don't know which ISP's connect to other's directly and which use IIX. IIX, like any other routing center has wonderful throughput at 3am Sunday, and as the week progresses, it slows down due to load. Outside of Israel is an even bigger problem, connectivity from any site to you is limited by the slowest connection and latency of the busiest link. If there is good connectivity to your ISP's ISP at the other end, then you will have good results. For example, using a speedtest website, I found that going to one server in Oregon gave me a latency (travel time) of about 130 ms (ping time 260ms) and a throughput of over 400k bytes per second. Going to a different server less than 100 miles away, gave me a latency of almost half a second (ping time over 900ms) and a throughput around 50k. One download I did (of Yellow Dog Linux 5), gave me 300k bytes per second at 3am, and 10k at 8pm. :-( > Is > this true? I'd especially like to hear opinions of people who have tried both > ADSL and HOT. I don't expect Lnux support from either Bezeq or HOT, but it > would be nice to know if HOT has better/worse support. I have not used aDSL since 2003. At that time, their support was ok, but reliability was not 100%. At home, I have a cable modem, and my connection goes down around once a week, but I have no idea of if it's the HOT or Netvision. I don't care it, rarely happens when one of us is awake (5 am to midnight) and the programs I run (rtorrent or wget) recover on their own. For example, last week I downloaded a 7 gig file archive (as I am afraid it will go away soon) using wget and it's random wait set from 2.5 to 10 seconds per file. It took three days, but I got it all. :-) To me that's reliable. Of course, I am not running a website or watching real time video 24/7. > 2 - If I go for the new modem, am I right in thinking that ppoe setup will > not > be a problem? Probably. However I would buy a router. My suggestion is the Linksys WRT54G-L (note the L at the end) and replace the firmware with a version called tomato. > 3 - Is the technician's description of the router's always-connected status > accurate? Does that really mean that I can just plug in a cat-5 and surf from > my Linux box with no script or software needed to connect? That's the whole point of a router. It makes and maintains the connection for you/ > 4 - If that's true, what about the rest of the network? Today, my Linux box > has an iptables firewall and via nat I allow the rest of the network to > access the internet. But if just connecting a cat-5 cable connects to the > internet, I assume all the other machines on the network would also connect > automatically, and so not be protected. So wouldn't I have to have a firewall > on each machine? No, you connect it like this: computers-------firewall box----router. You can use the router as a firewall too, if you want to. > 5 - Or would it be better/easier/enough to use the router's built-in firewall? Probably. Of course, if yours works keep it. :-) > 6 - Based on all of the above, (assuming I stay with ADSL), is the ppoe modem > or the router the better solution? I have an opinion, but would be interested > to hear from people who've used one or both solutions. The router is better because it puts out less heat, uses less electricity, takes up less space, makes less noise. The computer is better because you can have more functions on it, you already have it, and you understand it already. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED] N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/ ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
