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In Part 1, we covered choosing your ISP and the relevant equipment, Here we'll look at the various ways the kit can be connected. I'm hoping to get a troubleshooting guide in here too. Click here for Part 1 of Obtaining
Broadband.... Step 5: Connecting a USB Modem. This is the simplest of all the operations covered here and is the main reason that you can get self-install ADSL for the average home user. Its no more painful than plugging any new USB peripheral into your computer. A good example of a cheap USB ADSL modem is the Dabs Value modem shown here:- As with all new hardware, the best bet is to follow the Manufacturers instructions for your operating system. Generally for USB devices, this entails loading the drivers, BEFORE you connect the equipment. Once the drivers have been loaded, connect the flat USB plug to a spare USB socket on your PC. (I'd suggest that you don't use an existing USB hub if you can avoid it as you could be introducing a bottleneck to your browsing speed..) If your new Modem creates a dial-up networking account:---- The computer should recognise the new equipment and activate the pre-loaded drivers. once this is done, you'll be in a position to load your ISP's 'dialler' software. (Although ADSL is an always on service, using an ADSL modem in this manner still requires a signal from the computer to activate it. This 'dialling' procedure only takes a split second, but allows you to control when and if you're internet connection is active. Once the software is loaded, you can connect the RJ11 cable between the USB modem and your Micro-filter, and then enter the authentication details into the dialer software as prompted by your ISP's install guide. If you new modem creates a network connection:--- If you're USB modem creates a virtual network device on your machine, then it aill assign the relevant IP addresses for you. The key difference this modem has over the D.U.N. (Dial-Up Networking) device, is that you don't activate the link at all. Its done for you when you switch the computer on. In theory this method requires a lot less interaction on your behalf and is the more suitable method for those of you who wish to just plug and play. The basic method of how this works is as follows, The modem becomes an IP gateway that is assigned an IP address of its own. At the same time, it creates a network interface on your machine with an IP address in the same network range. (You don't have to understand this, but if you want to, it will be in the tutorials section soon..). Communication from your PC to the internet is handled by the gateway on your behalf. This is what is known as proxy gateway working. Ok, the modems connected, the drivers are all loaded.. What now.. well as usual due to the fickleness of computers, its going to depend on what type of modem you got, so lets give you the basics.. First off, if your installation required you to set-up a dial-up networking connection, then we're going to have to tell the computer to connect to the Net.. Those of you using Windows XP should have a short-cut by clicking on the Start menu bar, then selecting Connect-To.. (For those of you used to dial-up 56K connections, this will be very familiar..
A very short connection message will be shown and then your computer will be connected to the Internet. Should you have any problems connecting, I'd advise you to check the passwords that you entered very carefully. ISP's always give you passwords that are a mixture of Letters and Numbers, and it can be quite easy to mix them up. For those of you that have a proxy gateway style modem, then you will not need to do this, as your machine should already be connected. To verify a connections to the internet, click on the start menu, then select the run command and type the following:- ping www.harrietsham-online.co.uk and press return. You should see output similar to this:- Pinging www.harrietsham-online.co.uk [213.171.193.86] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 213.171.193.86: bytes=32 time=443ms TTL=239 Ping statistics for 213.171.193.86: If on the other hand you receive this, then we're not quite there yet... Pinging www.harrietsham-online.co.uk [213.171.193.86] with 32 bytes of data: Request timed out. Ping statistics for 213.171.193.86:
26/11/2003 That'll do for today.. Can only fit so many updates into one day.. If you are having problems tho, drop me an e-mail or leave a post in the forum.. For the pedants out there, I'm assuming the user still has access to a dial-up account, else they wouldn't be reading this guide now..! Paul. |
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