ISDN wireless

I'm looking to set up a wireless (or mains) network but as I can't get ADSL
it's proving a bit awkward. I have BT Home Highway ISDN and want to connect
two or three PCs and a laptop via a router to the internet and also, if
possible, to share files between PCs. I currently subscribe to two
different ISPs so ideally, I would like to be able to utilise the 128K
bandwidth for the PCs sharing the network. One additional requirement, if
possible, would be that one PC could monitor and hog/allocate the available
bandwidth to the others connected to the network if required.

PCs and laptop are running XP, ME and 95 if it's relevant.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

"SAMP" <SPAM&**spam*@dontclickhere.co.uk> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I'm looking to set up a wireless (or mains) network but as I can't get
ADSL
> it's proving a bit awkward. I have BT Home Highway ISDN and want to
connect
> two or three PCs and a laptop via a router to the internet and also, if
> possible, to share files between PCs. I currently subscribe to two
> different ISPs so ideally, I would like to be able to utilise the 128K
> bandwidth for the PCs sharing the network. One additional requirement, if
> possible, would be that one PC could monitor and hog/allocate the
available
> bandwidth to the others connected to the network if required.
>
> PCs and laptop are running XP, ME and 95 if it's relevant.
>
> Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Not sure what your problem is, You will need an ISDN router which can be
found V cheaply on ebay, a 4 or 8 port Switch and a if using Wifi an access
point. The connection to the internet makes no difference to the internal
network. As to bonding two ISPs it depends on the router.
I would check that you definately cant get ADSL as the limits have been
increased, and also using a 128K isdn will cost more.

Ian
www.cyber-cottage.co.uk

On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 14:22:35 +0100, Ian wrote:

> As to bonding two ISPs it depends on the router. I would
> check that you definately cant get ADSL as the limits have been increased,
> and also using a 128K isdn will cost more.

You can't bond two ISDN calls to different ISPs. The calls have to be
joined back again at the other end.

Depending on the ISP, you can sometimes bond two calls to the *same* ISP -
call the same number twice. Some support it, some don't, and those that do
sometimes don't do it very reliably. When I used to use ISDN as my primary
Internet link I used Demon and they weren't too bad at it, if you used the
right number, but I could never get compression and bonding to work at the
same time which made it more expensive per byte than a single call with
compression. How much more expensive depends on the data - files which are
already compressed generally don't compress any more so most downloads
benefit from bonding. Text compresses very well.

If the router supports it, you can do "bandwidth on demand" - where the
second line is only raised if the first becomes saturated for more than a
defined interval, and then dropped again if the utilisation goes down.
This is what I used to use and it was quite effective. I don't know which
routers support this - I built my own with an old PC running Linux. But I
have seen "black box" routers doing it so it's possible.

I still use Demon and ISDN for mail (their mail service is very good) and
backup, but when the original Linux ISDN router's motherboard failed I
didn't bother to implement bonding on the replacement as I had the NTL
cable service as my main connection by then, so I don't know how well
Demon's bonding works nowadays.

Regards, Ian

Ian Northeast wrote:

> On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 14:22:35 +0100, Ian wrote:
>
>> As to bonding two ISPs it depends on the router. I would
>> check that you definately cant get ADSL as the limits have been
>> increased, and also using a 128K isdn will cost more.
>
> You can't bond two ISDN calls to different ISPs. The calls have to be
> joined back again at the other end.
>
> Depending on the ISP, you can sometimes bond two calls to the *same* ISP -
> call the same number twice. Some support it, some don't, and those that do
> sometimes don't do it very reliably. When I used to use ISDN as my primary
> Internet link I used Demon and they weren't too bad at it, if you used the
> right number, but I could never get compression and bonding to work at the
> same time which made it more expensive per byte than a single call with
> compression. How much more expensive depends on the data - files which are
> already compressed generally don't compress any more so most downloads
> benefit from bonding. Text compresses very well.
>
> If the router supports it, you can do "bandwidth on demand" - where the
> second line is only raised if the first becomes saturated for more than a
> defined interval, and then dropped again if the utilisation goes down.
> This is what I used to use and it was quite effective. I don't know which
> routers support this - I built my own with an old PC running Linux. But I
> have seen "black box" routers doing it so it's possible.
>
> I still use Demon and ISDN for mail (their mail service is very good) and
> backup, but when the original Linux ISDN router's motherboard failed I
> didn't bother to implement bonding on the replacement as I had the NTL
> cable service as my main connection by then, so I don't know how well
> Demon's bonding works nowadays.
>
> Regards, Ian

I'm on home highway highway here in dorset, I use a smoothwall box as my
router, which works very well and is very reliable and so easy to set up.

I don't have wifi set up yet, but adding that is as easy as sticking an AP
into the 4 port hub I use.

Most ISP's only support single channel dialup (we're on a £15 a month 0800
connection with virgin net) but there are quite a few no-register ISP's out
there that will offer two channel at an 0845 rate.

hope that helps,
Hugh

"SAMP" <SPAM&**spam*@dontclickhere.co.uk> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I'm looking to set up a wireless (or mains) network but as I can't get
> ADSL
> it's proving a bit awkward. I have BT Home Highway ISDN and want to
> connect
> two or three PCs and a laptop via a router to the internet and also, if
> possible, to share files between PCs. I currently subscribe to two
> different ISPs so ideally, I would like to be able to utilise the 128K
> bandwidth for the PCs sharing the network. One additional requirement, if
> possible, would be that one PC could monitor and hog/allocate the
> available
> bandwidth to the others connected to the network if required.
>
> PCs and laptop are running XP, ME and 95 if it's relevant.
>
> Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>
>

I use 4dInternet 64K/128K ISDN for 18.99 per month and network 3 PC's though
a Draytek 2600 router