[Herefordshire] OT: Broadband questions

[Ralph Jones]

Hello all, 

I'm taking the liberty of posting these OT questions regarding
broadband. This is not because of my laziness to look up the information, but because of too many sources and too much
information available.

I've decided to take the plunge and 'go broadband. I've tried to
research as much as possible, mainly from adslguide.org.uk, but also
various ISPs and hardware suppliers websites, and have ended up with
more questions than I started off with.

1) Microfilter or pre-filtered/dedicated DSL socket? 

I'm looking to go with a DSL socket to replace the standard BT plug-in
socket, for sake of neatness. Unless you folks have experiences to the
contrary.


2) How to connect my PC to the ADSL-enabled phoneline?
 
Am I right in saying that my options are: 
a) PCI modem, which I slot straight into my mobo, and then telephone
cable into the socket at the rear.
b) USB modem, where the modem plugs into a USB socket on my box, and
with a phone cable into the phone line.
c) ethernet modem/router combos, (and variations thereof), where I
presume I would need a PCI-based '10/100 ethernet NIC', which plugs into
the router/modem, which itself then plugs into the phoneline.

 At the moment, I'm happy to go with either of the first two options, as
I will only be going on-line with one PC, and it won't be switched on
24/7. There might be a possibility that I might build myself a
collection of PCs later in the year, in which case I would get myself a
4-port router/modem combo. My question is, are the first two plug in and
set up, or will I have to start tinkering with kernel modules et al to get
them up and running?


3) As I mentioned above, the PC will not be switched on, or on-line,
24/7. Would it be just a case of disconnecting from my broadband ISP,
pretty much as I do now with dial-up? And when I re-connect, will my
settings be remembered?


4) Using other ISPs/SMTP servers
If I want to send mail from ISPs other than my BB ISP (i.e. the one
whose SMTP server is forwarding this message on), would I still need to
keep my dial-up modem connected to the PC, and plug it into the voice
channel of my phone line to be used as required, or is it a case of once
a phone-line has been 'DSL-ed', that's it - you can't use dial-up
anymore. I don't particularly want to transfer all my mail accounts to
one address (provided by my BB ISP) purely because I can't access various SMTP servers as
required.


5) I see one ADSL modem/router (Zoom X5v) also has a phone port for
VoIP. I had intended to use Skype with a headset/microphone combo that I
already have plugged into the sound card. Is this option still available
to me? It would be interesting to see, if Chris brings Asterisk to the
next meeting, whether that is similar to Skype, or a case of overkill
for my needs.


As I mentioned above, these questions are off-topic, for which I do
apologise if it offends you. Otherwise, your comments/opinions/past
experiences would be most welcome.

Regards
Ralph