The ABCs of DSL: Options Abound in Fast Internet Access Service
Whether you work from home or from a small office, it makes sense to subscribe to a broadband service for faster Internet access and easier sharing of a connection among multiple users.
A number of technologies are available, but the one that’s catching on fast for small businesses is a digital subscriber line. Cable modems are available in some communities, but DSL service is more widespread.
To use DSL, you have to be within about 18,000 feet of the phone company’s central office. Even then you might not be able to take advantage of the DSL’s full speed. After about 8,000 feet, the speed of the signal starts to decrease, although any DSL service is still faster than a dial-up connection.
One way to determine whether you are within range is to visit https://www.2wire.com, select DSL and then DSL Lookup Service. You enter your phone number and address, and the Web site tells you how far you are from the central office. That same Web page, by the way, also has a “bandwidth meter” that tells you the speed of your current connection.
There are different types of DSL. Asymmetric DSL, or ADSL, typically offers more speed coming to your office and less going from it to the Internet. This is fine if you mainly use the Internet to surf the Web or access e-mail, but it is not appropriate if you have a busy Internet server at your office with a lot of incoming traffic.
A symmetric DSL line gives you the same bandwidth in both directions. Beyond these distinctions, you’ll find an alphabet soup of options such as IDSL, VDSL, G.Lite DSL, etc.
I won’t bore you with details, but suffice it to say that each has its own pricing plans, speeds and options. Rather than worry about the initials, ask your DSL provider to explain the benefits and drawbacks to each option. Pacific Bell and other local phone companies offer DSL, but there are numerous other providers.
Some are better than others when it comes to responding to customer needs. Covad (https://www.covad.com) doesn’t offer service directly, but its Web site will refer you to resellers that provide its services.
On a personal note, I was one of thousands of people who received a call from Pacific Bell offering me DSL service for my home office. I agreed to subscribe, but the company never got back to me.
Many DSL vendors offer different packages for homes and businesses, but if you operate a business from your home, you still get to choose which option is best. Just because a service is advertised for the home doesn’t mean it won’t work well with a business. I have a home package from Covad that I use for my home-based business, and it works fine, even when several people are accessing the service at the same time.
One distinction between home and business services is that business services often will give you multiple e-mail addresses and let you connect multiple computers. But there are ways you can (legally) accomplish that with a less expensive type of service.
If your company has a Web site with a unique Internet domain, the company that hosts your Web site might be able to provide you with multiple e-mail addresses even if it doesn’t provide you with service to your office.
Another option is for your employees to use a Web-based e-mail service such as Microsoft’s Hotmail or Yahoo mail. You can find many such services at EmailAddresses.com or by searching for “free e-mail” on Yahoo.
The biggest problem with low-cost DSL services is that they typically connect only one computer at a time. That may be OK if you work alone and don’t need to share your connection, but even if you work at home, you might want to share your DSL line with family members or housemates. That can be done, regardless of what type of service you have, by adding an inexpensive router to your system.
There are various types of routers, but the one that I have (an MIH-120 xRouter) from Macsense (https://www.macsense.com) is relatively inexpensive, easy to install and extremely reliable. Costing about $180, the device allows a network of up to 252 users to share a single integrated services digital network (ISDN) or cable modem connection.
Although the company has “Mac” in its name, the device is “cross-platform,” so it doesn’t matter whether you have Windows, Macintosh, Unix or any combination on the same network. You connect it to your DSL or cable modem via an ethernet plug.
Most users won’t even need to use the floppy disk that the router comes with. You can configure it using Netscape, Internet Explorer or any other browser. The manual gives you an Internet protocol address that you type into your browser that gives you immediate access to the router’s configuration screens.
Once you configure the router to work with all the machines in the office (via what is called DHCP), there is no need to configure individual machines. As a bonus, the router also has a built-in firewall that helps protect your network from prying hackers.
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Technology reports by Lawrence J. Magid can be heard at 2:10 p.m. weekdays on the KNX (1070) Technology Hour. He can be reached at larry.magid@latimes.com. His Web site is at https://www.larrysworld.com.