Question on DSL and use around house...thanks

Get yourself an external ethernet style DSL modem when you sign up. Add to that a wireless router such as Netgear WGR614. Then get a wireless adapter for your laptop, either PC Card or USB type. I'd suggest Belkin F5D7010, powerful and easy to use. -Dave

If you want to use dialup. For DLS you hook in through the DSL modem.

Thanks all. Firgit about the RJ56 connection but thought I would need WAP around.

Thanks Patty

You are somewhat in luck. Having friends and family on cable, this DSL connected guy does hang out here; but, you will get better answers in a group where DSL modems are the topic. So I cross posted to that group, and set the follow up to so the thread will be shifted.

No. You can't use the laptop with any phone jack in the house. The DSL modem, like the cable modem, uses a different connection to the computer than the telephone RJ-11 jack connector. Most modems use an Ethernet connection; CAT5 patch cord with RJ-45 connectors. A fair number of ISPs try to push USB modems on their users these days; I think because telephone support is easier; Ethernet can be a bear to get configured properly.

If you want to use a laptop around the house, get a wireless access point. One by the modem, one in the laptop. For that, I am unable to offer better advice because I use a wired LAN.

You'd have to move the modem to where the laptop is, unless you don't mind running wire around your house or get a wireless "router" and park it near the DSL modem.

The computer plugs into the modem, and the modem into a phone jack. Any jack you intend to use for a regular phone needs a filter.

...Note that if you use a cordless phone, you likely DON'T need a filter, as cordless phones are already filtered for their own purposes.

--Gene

Thanks all. Good advice. Hopefully it will be seamless when I install it next week. It is a Westell modem and Win 2K on the laptop. Hope I do not need to install one of the third party Raspppoe drivers found on the web. I assume Bellsouth will have all I need.

Perhaps I will need a reg entry to turn off the Use Proxy setting when the laptop is used at home as opposed to work (at a bank).

Thanks, Patty

Had no problems except a dead phone jack that the phone company installed-dopes. Used a nother one. Did not know DSL appears to work on 2 wires as opposed to 4.

Thanks very much. Patty

Excuse me for butting in, but I'm facing similar issues.

For more than a year, I've synchronized data files between a Win XP desktop and a Win XP laptop with a crossover ethernet cable, using TCP/IP with a DHCP setting on both computers.

Today I installed a DSL modem for my desktop machine, using an ethernet cable to the computer. It works fine and apparently is confitured with a DHCP setting too.

If I temporarily disconnect the ethernet cable from the desktop and plug it into the laptop, should it work as well there without upsetting anything?

If I then want to disconnect the modem from both machines and connect the machines to each other with the crossover cable, as before (to try to synchronize data files,) will that create any problems?

These cable-switching steps are to be a temporary arrangement until I have time to put together a significantly less kludgy LAN. Are any of the cable switchings outlined above likely to create problems with either of the two computers or the DSL modem?

Many thanks, Joe

Pop for a wired router with a 4-port switch (unless you have wireless NICs). For $0-$20 you're set (get a Netgear or Linksys on sale).

When you were able to connect the two XP systems via crossover cable, you were using "link-local" addresses in the 169.254.0.0/16 range. If you just move the cable, without first releasing dhcp on the desktop and then renewing on the laptop, you will likely not have a usable address on the notebook.

The best thing for you to do, is buy one of those cheap firewall/router boxes. Then you can have both computers connected to the internet and each other, at the same time.