Wireless Access, LAN, ADSL & v90 and AOL???

Hi,

This is going to sound like an unusual request, but here goes.

My brother uses AOL as an ISP. I know, dont hit me. Where he lives he is
also unable to get broadband since its quite rural (although the other
telephone line appears hopeful at first glance). He would also like to
be able to use his laptop around the house.

So, criteria:

I need to find somekind of Wireless LAN Access Point with v90 modem and
ADSL connection that will connect to AOL.

I figure it would be more cost effective to try and acquire a combined
unit, rather than a separate dial up unit, then replace it with an ADSL
unit. Is such technology available for any ISP? Is such technology
available for AOL?

The other idea I had, would be to get an access point with ADSL (or just
get an access point) and then stick a smoothwall (firewall) box on. Only
darn trouble, I dont think Smoothwall supports AOL yet!

Cheers
Simon

"Simon Dean" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:c13ed4$8er$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> This is going to sound like an unusual request, but here goes.
>
> My brother uses AOL as an ISP. I know, dont hit me. Where he lives he is
> also unable to get broadband since its quite rural (although the other
> telephone line appears hopeful at first glance). He would also like to
> be able to use his laptop around the house.
>
> So, criteria:
>
> I need to find somekind of Wireless LAN Access Point with v90 modem and
> ADSL connection that will connect to AOL.

He will *have* to move away from AOL when he gets ADSL (if thats what your
suggesting will). Take a look at the Vigor range for routers (inc wireless)
which support ISDN fallback as well (i.e. to use until then).

Other than that, if he wants to use dialup then a spare pc? diverse dect
modem?

3 com do a very nice and cheap office connect Access point and PCMIA
wireless card for about £80 I think (not sure excatly, see dabs).

Sam

>
> I figure it would be more cost effective to try and acquire a combined
> unit, rather than a separate dial up unit, then replace it with an ADSL
> unit. Is such technology available for any ISP? Is such technology
> available for AOL?
>
> The other idea I had, would be to get an access point with ADSL (or just
> get an access point) and then stick a smoothwall (firewall) box on. Only
> darn trouble, I dont think Smoothwall supports AOL yet!
>
> Cheers
> Simon
>


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>
> He will *have* to move away from AOL when he gets ADSL (if thats what your
> suggesting will). Take a look at the Vigor range for routers (inc wireless)
> which support ISDN fallback as well (i.e. to use until then).

Yes, I am suggesting that if and when AOL becomes available to him, he
will move across. He only has standard dialup at the moment.

Would I be right in thinking that its AOL's authentication system that
is the problem with using a wireless access point/router? if so
presumably that would apply to both dialup and adsl?

As for fallback ISDN, wouldn't that be useless unless he actually had ISDN?

> Other than that, if he wants to use dialup then a spare pc? diverse dect
> modem?

Unfortunately, what do you use on a spare pc? my understanding, is that
Smoothwall (the Linux firewall implementation) doesn't yet support this...

>
> 3 com do a very nice and cheap office connect Access point and PCMIA
> wireless card for about £80 I think (not sure excatly, see dabs).

he already has a wireless card built into his laptop. Its a Toshiba
Satellite machine of sorts. I can't stand the keyboard layout on it.

Cya
Simon

In an usenet message, Simon Dean <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Yes, I am suggesting that if and when AOL becomes available to him, he
>will move across. He only has standard dialup at the moment.
>
>Would I be right in thinking that its AOL's authentication system that
>is the problem with using a wireless access point/router? if so
>presumably that would apply to both dialup and adsl?
>

I think you will still have a problem on the dial up side, as AOL's dial
in mostly requires their client for the VPN, however I am told this may
change shortly. I use an SMC Barricade Cable/DSL router to overcome this
problem in the past, which had a serial port for a modem and I used an
ISDN device attached to this, although not with AOL.

On the broadband front though AOL now works just fine with most routers,
and you no longer need to use their software for broadband connection.
The connections are simply like most other Broadband ISPs. There is one
"hangover" issue and that is the need to use a lower MTU than usual
(1400 or less).

I have a Belkin WAP which works fine with my AOL connection via an
Alcatel based router, although a BT Home Network 1200 with a wireless
card would not (this is because the MTU cannot be set manually). If you
set the MTU at the client you can overcome this, but I prefer to do it
at the router.

AOL offer a guide to using Thomson routers and support these and there
is a wireless option available. Here's the URL for the setup -

http://www.aolsvc.co.uk/help/Speed570.htm

You can see from this how the setup applies to most routers on the
market.

Note that you need to have an appropriately set up screen name on AOL,
but this is the only reason you need an AOL client during setup.

AOL now also offers IMAP mail collection and SMTP delivery, and so there
is no practical reason to need the special software any more.

Incoming email server address: imap.uk.aol.com

Outgoing email server address: smtp.uk.aol.com

You need authentication for both servers.

Hope this helps.

--
John
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