Computer, internet, network question

[Don Farr]

Hey Don,

Is Cox Communications in your area?

Jackie

Never thought about them. I know they own the local radio station that I listen to. I'll check into it. Thanks.

[dennis thompson]

Don
I don't know anything about all the technical aspects of your problem.
I'd just mention that Verizon had an ad in yesterday's Wall Street Journal that said " high speed internet plus phone for business starting as low as $59.99/month".
Don't know:
-if Verizon is in your area
-if they can satisfy your needs
but it is probably worth a phone call, number is 1-888-691-1175

Also note carefully the "as low as" part of the ad.
Dennis

[Scott Conners]

Don, for the uses you mentioned a simple business level DSL line should be plenty of bandwidth. The telcos will get all pissy if you mention the words "server", and in your case your "server" is completely internal to your business and doesn't effect them at all.

I do some tech support for a very small non-profit doing great work. When I used the word "office" once on the phone, the cable rep got very upset that they were running a "business" (3 computers in the office, email is the nearly the only web use) on a non-business account. She ended up raising thier rates by putting them on a "business" account, with NO change in actual service - same connection speed, no fixed IP etc. The town is far oversold on connections anyway, so the speeds are dismal, and basically non existent when the town is busy.

[Matt Meiser]

My employer has a DSL line for our entire corporate office. Only one person is there full time and I'd guess there are 4-5 others there on any given day (I'm rarely there since it is 600 miles from home) but the rest of about 40 of us VPN in several times a week for anything between submitting timesheets to all-day connections to database and other servers in the office.

Our email, public web site, intranet, and extranet are hosted elsewhere.

[Randal Stevenson]

Don, for the uses you mentioned a simple business level DSL line should be plenty of bandwidth. The telcos will get all pissy if you mention the words "server", and in your case your "server" is completely internal to your business and doesn't effect them at all.

Another reason for at least one Nat box, you can block the server from accessing the web. Your server (especially with financials) shouldn't be connected to it.

[Mike Henderson]

If you're hosting your own web site, remember that DSL is asymmetric - that is, the speed from the network to you is quite fast, but the speed from you to the network is fairly slow. This works fine when you're accessing the network, because you only send a small amount of data to the network and receive a lot back.

But when you're hosting, someone else is accessing your server and they expect to get a lot of data back from you. Unfortunately, that all has to go through the slow "upstream" DSL pipe, so your web server will appear to be pretty slow to people accessing your site. That's why people who host usually use a symmetric service (like T1).

If you're going to put voice over your DSL, you need to have a router that understands that certain ports are voice and prioritizes that traffic (upstream into the network). Otherwise, you can get unacceptable delays in the voice conversation.

This is all true for residential cable service, also. The upstream link is pretty slow compared to the downstream link.

Mike

[That said, if you're not hosting, a DSL link will support a bunch of computers because of the statistical nature of the access (not everyone tries to access the network at the same time).]
[This is way overkill, but back in 2000 I wrote a paper that analyzed voice over ADSL.]