Chris's hunt for bandwidth

 Feb 13th 2000 : So here's the story. I thought DSL was supposed to be the absolute bees knees, so I ordered it last Sunday. This week has already been a bit of an eye-opener, so I thought I would try and document the process. Here's how it's gone so far, events in reverse order.

Saturday March 18th 2000

I received a tip from a friend at work about Windows98's setup. Apparently it does not automatically adjust it's TCP/IP receive window correctly in the case of a high bandwidth, high latency connection. Well whatever the quality of Bell Atlantic's DSL implementation, (and I have heard less than uniformally positive things about it), going through a gateway machine has to increase the latency, so I applied the fix supplied at the Navas Group's Cable Modem/DSL Tuning Guide and it does seem to improve the situation. I can get a steady 300kb/s stream from MTV on a good day which is good enough for me.

Saturday March 4th 2000

After several more fruitless attempts at getting a new account setup, it's time to ring Bell Atlantic. Well, to cut a very long story short, Bell Atlantic can simply create a new account manually if you ring them and stay on the phone long enough. In my case it only took two hours on the phone (about 90% on hold) to get a new account (billed to my normal telephone bill) setup and then it worked quite nicely on the single machine like this (presented for your viewing in glorious asciivision) : 

Internet -- Bell equipment -- DSL modem -- Windows98 PC.

Download speed was immediately fast and I could bring the connection up in just a few seconds.

Of course that's not good enough for me, here's what I wanted 

Internet -- Bell equipment -- DSL modem -- Linux box
                                             |
                       Windows98PC -- hub ---
                                       |
                       NeXT cube   ----

But since I was already doing something similar with the Linux box having a modem and a dial-up modem attached rather than a DSL modem, it wasn't too hard. The Windows and next boxes talk the Internet via the Linux box which runs IP masquerading, which works very nicely.

I had bought a second Ethernet card several weeks ago, and with the help of Donald Becker's Mini-HowTo on using multiple Ethernet adapters with Linux I got my linux server to talk to the hub on two interfaces.

The next thing to do was get the Linux box to talk to the DSL modem. Here the Linux community again did all the hard work for me. I went to the Roaring Penguin's PPPoE Client homepage and picked up their PPP over Ethernet implementation for Linux. This was fairly easy to install and configure, and then once I remembered which ethernet card was which (i.e is the "one on the left" eth0 or eth1) it "Just Worked" (tm).

If you can see this page, you got it over a DSL connection from Bell Atlantic to a linux box running Slackware 7.0. Cool! It works with Linux!

Wednesday March 1st 2000

Installation time. The Bell Atlantic installation instructions are fairly complete, but very Windows/Mac centric. They clearly state that you _must_ have either Windows or a Mac and install their service, however this is simply not the case.

I installed all the recommended software on my girlfriends Windows98 PC. This includes a customised Netscape Navigator, the WinPOET package which handles the PPP over ethernet (PPOE) protocol, and their proprietary new account software. I also had to install the Microsoft VPN module. All in all a lot of rebooting and hassle, and when I was all done it didn't work. It picked up a connection first time, but the new account program simply couldn't connect to the new account server ("couldn't find dslreg.bellatlantic.net").

Tuesday Feb 29 2000

Received my DSL modem at my office. Had to go to a Fiona Apple gig though so didn't take it home and install it.

Friday Feb 25 2000

Yellow slip from UPS. They tried to deliver it, whoo-hoo!

Monday Feb 21 2000

Rang Bell Atlantic. No they don't have the modem yet, they tell me to ring UPS again. Rang UPS again, it's still en route to the sender. Doh!

Friday 18th Feb 2000

Voicemail from Bell Atlantic, the modem is with UPS. Rang UPS, the modem is headed back to the shipper.

Sat 12th Feb 2000

No equipment arrives. No phone calls.

Friday 11th Feb 2000

No equipment arrives. No phone calls.

Thursday 10th February 2000

Another email from Bell Atlantic. This is not good. They have shipped my modem to the wrong address, which they confirm as follows 
The Infospeed DSL equipment you ordered ADSL Modem DMT (Westell) has been
shipped via , tracking number N/A to this address:
Rang Bell Atlantic on the number left in the voicemail message. Getting through to the representative's voicemail. Left message with full details of the situation. Rang again later. This time the same number doesn't get me through to any voicemail, but this time some kind of customer service representative. "Did they tell you to ring this number?". ???? Eventually I seem to convey what's gone wrong. I wait on hold for half my lunch-hour. Luckily I can click on slashdot one-handed. "Shall I find out what's happened and call you back?" "Yes please" "Ok". No phone calls. I have voicemail at work and at home. No equipment arrives.

Wednesday 9th February 2000

No equipment arrives.

Tuesday 8th February 2000

Phone call on my voicemail from a Bell Atlantic representative. Apparently I should receive my equipment today and the service is confirmed for 14th Feb, I don't have to be home, whoo-hoo! Later on at work I have coffee with a couple of friends. Uh-oh! "Don't do it! Cancel your order!" "It just doesn't work". Well I've already decided this is just a trial and I can survive if I lose my $100. Doesn't sound good though, apparently I'll have to fiddle with my MTU values to even get it to work, and then allegedly Bell's peering and external bandwidth is pathetic... No equipment arrives.

Saturday 5th February 2000

Ordered DSL on the Bell Atlantic web site. There is only one speed available here in Carrol Gardens Brooklyn - 640k downstream, 90k upstream. $50/month and $100 initial fee including the modem. There is no support for Linux, but as far as I can tell the external DSL modem connects to an ethernet card and the protocol is "PPP over ethernet" which there is some kind of some support available for. My girlfriend has a Windows98 PC with ethernet card, so I figure I can get it all going with a simple one PC setup and then convert over to using my server as a gateway at my leisure. Can't wait! Received an email a bit later confirming my order. All seems well.
Created Feb 13th 2000