On 13 June 2014 08:36, <zlinw@mcmedia.com.au> wrote:
I recently shifted, although still very much in rural Victoria I am now in ADSL range of an exchange (just over 5000 metres cable distance). I am considering getting the Telstra S+ bundle, this being a phone and ADSL broadband with a 50g alocation a month on a 24 month contract.
Is there any issues with this, will it work OK into a Linux system. For instance I found with Virgin moble broadband this system had to be enabled on a Windows system, something I do not have with network access.
Do you have to go with Telstra, or can you go with another provider? I just mention this because Telstra is usually terribly poor value for money; yet other providers out there are just going to be reselling the same actual service, so wouldn't be any better or worse for you. As far as ADSL goes -- it's standardised and will be fine. The issues you're likely to encounter relate more to your choice of ADSL modem and/or router. ie. Some of them are shitty and require Windows and special USB drivers -- and some provide an ethernet port and use RFC standard protocols. Personally, I use PPP-over-Ethernet (pppoe), which is where the modem is setup to just bridge ADSL to Ethernet, and then your Linux box does all the authentication, routing, firewalling and so forth. If you're going to do that, something like the $21 TP-Link TD-8817 would be fine for your purposes. If you are going to go the route of using the modem as the router as well, then make sure you pick up a decent unit, not the TP-Links. Someone else can advise. (In that case, you end up with the router doing the firewalling, NAT/Masquerading and so forth) -Toby