Fast(?) Internet - ADSL/Cable Modems

• Many times we hear lately about the promise of "fast Internet" in Israel.
  
  
• Fast Internet, today, includes a lot of hype, and 2 major types of connections: cable modems and ADSL.
  
  
• In each case, we first install an Ethernet card on our system, and place some device at our house, that connects our tiny home LAN to the network of the communications provider.
  
  
• Since these networks are intended to be very large, they use dynamic IP address allocation - usually using the DHCP protocol.
  
  

• A cable modem is more like a small gateway, that connects to an Ethernet LAN on one side, and to the cable t.v. data socket on the other side.
  
  
• These devices (at least those used by Nonstop) are very slow to start up, but after they have finished their setup process, can supply a bandwidth of up to 400K bytes(!) per second.
  
  
• A cable t.v. network normally has plenty of available bandwidth in the down connection (from the network to the end-user) but very little bandwidth the other way around (from the end-user to the network). This implies that this network is good for consumers, but not good for running servers.
  
  
• Connecting to nonstop's network (the one I'm familiar with) requires the usage of a regular Ethernet card and a CROSSED Ethernet cable connected directly into the cable modem.
  
  
• IP address allocation is done using DHCP, and is easily achieved using the 'pump' command.
  
  
• Connections down to nonstop's site are extremely fast. Connections to the international Internet are much much slower (12K bytes - 16K bytes per second, on a test conducted some time ago).
  
  
• Connections to netvision's cable service use a process similar to ADSL, explained below.

• ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) connections are done using ADSL modems, over regular phone lines.
  
  
• ADSL modems supply a bandwidth of 1.5M bps (or sometimes more) in the down direction, and 64K bps (or sometimes more) in the up direction. The exact speed changes with the distance between the end-user and Bezeq's local communications exchange.
  
  
• The actual Internet service is provided by Israeli ISPs, not by Bezeq, which dictates a very strange setup.
  
  
• In order to have the connection working, there is a need to first install an Ethernet controller in the computer, and connect it to the ADSL modem.
  
  
• Software-wise, there is a need to run a PPP connection over the LAN, to Bezeq's network, and run it over a PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) connection. This means - not trivial!
  
  
• The latest version of the Bezeq-ADSL-Howto with detailed instructions on how to set up ADSL can be found at http://www.mulix.org/adsl-howto.txt http://damyen.technion.ac.il/~dani/adsl-howto.txt
  
  
• Lately Bezeq started to use USB ADSL modems and internal (PCI) ADSL modems. We do not have concrete data which modems are supported under Linux and which aren't, and recommed getting an external ADSL modem, all of which are known to work.