Not a whimper or a bang - just here: it’s broadband
The email I got last week said that broadband would be set up on my phone line on Tuesday, by 5pm at the latest. To be precise: ADSL activation has been provisionally appointed for: 2005-06-21.
But on everyone’s advice I’d bought a Netgear DG834G and was itching to get it set up. And I thought, well, hell, there might be someone else on this phone circuit who’s already got ADSL, or is getting it today, so I could at least get everything ready for the Great Day.
Microfilter - check. Plugged into ADSL modem/router/wireless access point. Power - on. Hey, the ADSL light is coming on. I wonder…
I plugged in the Ethernet cable and logged in, and set it up. Doing the ADSL bit was easy - username, password.. the Netgear did its autodiscovery very neatly. Hey, it’s broadband, and we’re on it! A day early!
The wireless stuff… hmm. Clearly, using Apple’s Airport [Express] has spoiled me. There, you choose an alphanumeric password, input it as the WEP password, and off you go.
On the Netgear thing, you choose your password, which is then turned into hex, which you then have to paste into your Apple system. I kept getting “There was a problem joining..” Which is frustrating until you learn that you have to prefix hex keys with $ when entering them on Apple Airport systems. Then there’s firewall rules (rule 1: don’t bother with rules), changing the admin password…
Overall, it all felt like your second time gutting a fish. You know basically what you’re doing, and where the bits should be, but you keep coming across stuff and going “Uh?” Using Apple gear really spoils you when it comes to this sort of bit-wrangling.
And there it was, working. Broadband! At last! Perfection! Oh, hang on, can’t send email. Aagh! No, it’s just a DNS problem - phew. Sorted.
So what’s it like? Not, on reflection, like the dramatic arrival of the Spanish Inquisition. It’s more like the lifting of a curse - the curse of worrying that by being online you’re preventing someone from calling your landline (we get lousy mobile reception indoors), of looking at the modem’s elapsed time and thinking “If I start that download now, it’ll cut out before it finishes..”, of sloooooow page loads (which then ties up your machine as it waits helplessly for adverts to refresh themselves from servers that are beyond reach). It’s really not important what the speed is. What is, is ending the reliance on the plain old telephone line for your internet access. And that’s really where the future ought to be.
Plus it’s nice being among the majority again. Though I’ll have to change the page now..
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- On Ballmer and Media Centres, BT's Broadband Voice and how sight kicked off evolution's Big Bang (12 October 2004; score: 52.13%)
- Dialup is a pain (5 July 2006; score: 50.14%)
- Underpromise and overdeliver: thanks, Freedom2Surf (8 July 2006; score: 44.17%)
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June 20th, 2005 at 11:55 pm
Congrats!
The lack of difference between different broadband speeds makes me wonder what the ‘killer app’ to sell higher grade connections will be… what would drive the average user - surfs a bit, emails a bit, no massive downloads of movies, etc- to grab a higher speed connection? Video on Demand seems the most likely candidate I suppose; but I would think that telecoms companies will end up just gradually racheting up speeds to keep thier margin at the same level; like NTL/Telewest and most ADSL ISPs are doing at the moment.
June 21st, 2005 at 9:08 am
Congratulations!
The other big advantage of Broadband, of course, (and probably the greatest for me, most of the time) is the fact that it’s just there.
You’re doing some work, and want to check a fact - Google, Wikipedia et al are available, without the hassle of waiting for a dial-up connection to set itself up.
You’re doing something else entirely, and want to see what’s on at the cinema, or check your mail, or whatever, and it’s as simple as finding the Powerbook (usually involves looking somewhere higher than a three year old can reach), lifting its lid, and just getting on with it.
Then you travel, and stay in some barbaric British hotel without a network connection, use dial-up, remember how awful it is, and forget to disconnect… :-(
June 21st, 2005 at 10:03 am
Yeah, I think that broadband is its own killer app. Its convenience is the compelling reason to have it. The killer app for the Net is generally reckoned thought of as email (though spam is strangling that for some people); or perhaps the Web, or even Google on the Web.
But broadband generates recurring income for the ISPs. For them, it’s a killer app in its own right.
June 21st, 2005 at 2:54 pm
(reposting here from earlier personal email)
Charles
Your points about the configuring of the Netgear are partly why I suggested earlier in comments about going for 2 devices (one of which is your existing airport).
To me, the modem/router and the wireless access point are two different beasts. The first is my gateway to the internet and my protection. The second is how my LAN works. Can they be all in one? Of course. Is that a good thing? Well, it’s neater and cheaper. But (a bad?) analogy is like having a washing machine and dryer combo or a separate washing machine and a separate tumble dryer. Sure, the former IS neater. And I agree, it’s not valid to say you can use one without the other (a tumble dryer is not much use w/o the washer; a wireless LAN is not much good w/o the internet). But typically separates give you better performance and more flexibility. For instance, you can still use the washing machine if the tumble dryer is broken. And you can use the internet if you have a separate modem/router and the wireless device is broken. More relevantly, you can upgrade one device without being forced to upgrade the other. So, if you subsequently want VoIP, you just change the modem/router (Netgear can give you SOME VoIP, but not much choice of service or features). Or, if you upgrade to 802.11n, you would just change the wireless access point. Or if you wanted to extend your wireless LAN or do wireless audio (airport express) you could use a WDS-compliant device (Linksys, Apple, but not Netgear). IMHO the Netgear is really a decent washer/dryer combo. It is not particularly full-featured or best-in-breed at each activity. As you found, it is not as easy to configure as the apple wireless stuff. What you haven’t found yet, (and I hope you don’t have to) is that if it ever gets corrupted (as happened to me when doing a friends house), you CANNOT restore the Netgear using a Mac - you get a special .exe file from them. Furthermore, the devices are a bit prone to failure (again IMHO), so they often have to be exchanged. And, also Netgear’s support is woeful. You CAN speak to people, and the cost is not unreasonable, but the service is terrible (mostly in India of course). I honestly think it costs them silly amounts of money to do this rather than get it right in other areas. For instance, when getting some PC friends on broadband, I ordered an ethernet card for their Win98 SP2 machine - a mere snip at £10. Do you know how many hours on the phone, and how many cards I got from them before I gave up and got a PC wizard friend to put in a very old 3Com card? It was supposed to be plug’n'play. It cost ALL involved (inc Netgear) a lot more than £10.
I DIDN’T contradict some recommendations in the blog (though I DID try to encourage separates), because to be honest, you could have a flawless experience with the Netgear. I know it works with Macs too for the most part. And its price is decent. Of course, now I’ve gone and said what was on my mind anyway, so perhaps I should have explained earlier! But I do think the separates approach is a better bet long term (perhaps the hi-fi component versus all-in-one boom box is a better example? - And I’m obviously in the camp of the hi-fi snobs!).
You’ll (probably) be fine for some time. But when you get itchy to try real VoIP or get doing some real iChat AV stuff (not sure about the Netgear for this - it may/may not work), you may want to look at the separates approach. (Incidentally, I don’t believe in the home market that you need 3 devices - modem + router/firewall + WAP - a good combined modem/router will do as the two functions go hand-in-hand) Plenty of advice (and similarly contrarian views over at the macforum on adslguide).
Anyway, glad to have you “always on”.
Ian
ps Killer app for speeds? Not sure - it probably has to be video, or maybe multiple VoIP lines etc. However, some of this may drive a need for more synchronous services. For instance on an 8Mbps downstream service where upstream is just 1/20th, just acking the fast downloads almost uses up the full upstream! Try uploading a photo or video when you’re downloading a streaming video!
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:12 am
Adverts? I thought you recommended Firefox? Surely not without Adblock? OK, so sometimes you have to tell it; but I wouldn’t be without it, for the annoyance factor, quite apart from the load time, broadband or no.