[TriLUG] broadband in the Triangle area

Faheem Mitha faheem at email.unc.edu
Sat Aug 23 14:20:39 EDT 2003


Hi,

Thanks for the information and suggestions.

On Sat, 23 Aug 2003, Joseph Tate wrote:

> Take a trip to dslreports.com, then come back and ask the questions you
> couldn't find out for yourself.

I've already looked at dslreports.com, among other sites. The user reports
are helpful, but not very linux specific.

I've already done some searching on the net, and it left me feeling more
confused than enlightened.

The reason I wanted to hear about people's firsthand experience using
Linux with broadband in this area was to guide me in a specific choice,
along the lines of "if it works well for you, it will work well for me".
I've found such info surprisingly hard to come by on the net.  Before
dealing with possibly Linux hostile corporations, it is nice to be able to
arm oneself beforehand.

> My advice given the undetermined amount of time you will be in the area
> is Cable

My impression is that cable is easier to set up too.

> (Since DSL requires a year contract).

Is this generally true across all providers?

> Modems (whether DSL or Cable) are provided by the carriers in this area,
> and some don't even allow you to connect your own equipment to the
> lines.  (If anyone wants a spare DSL modem, I've got one (the old
> Fujitsu)).  You may find http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/DSL-HOWTO/index.html
> useful.

Yes, I was just looking at that.

> Time Warner's setup is trivial, and if you have cable already, you can
> pick up a self-installation kit at any of their mall kiosks.

A few questions about Time Warner.

1) Is it true about limiting email attachment sizes?

2) Does the setup require a login demon? Debian has a package called
rrlogind for use with roadrunner. My impression is this is somewhat
area-specific.

3) Has anyone got experience of the differences between Time Warner and
Earthlink? What are the other main options as far as cable go in this
area?

                                                         Faheem.




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