[Malvern] Is there life in BT Broadband?

[Steve Cashmore]

At 20:25 06/10/2004 +0100, Guy Inchbald wrote:
>The main thing for online gaming is apparently that NAT address
>translation is bad news, so I plan to give my son's PC the "official" IP
>address and my PC's local ones.
>The Westell Proline 6000 ADSl modem/router/firewall has a special IP
>Pass-through mode for just this purpose, all for fifty quid. But: how do
>I check its compatibility with Linux?
>Do I even need to? It connects via Etherenet and has a web interface for
>setup, so what could be Windows-specific?

Since it's a router IT will have the Internet address allocated to you by 
your ISP.  Your internal machines will have a local subnet.  It will have 
the ability to be configured to pass incoming traffic on certain network 
ports to a nominated machine on your local subnet.  Otherwise TCP packets 
with the SYN flag set (and unsolicited UDP packets!) will not travel 
inwards via a NAT router.  Do be careful - if you just open a nominated 
machine to incoming packets, and especially if it's Windows, it will very 
likely be compromised over time.  If Windows, DO apply any Windows Updates 
regularly.  To configure a firewall to allow only specific traffic is a non 
trivial affair if you're not network savvy.  You need to understand the 
nature of the traffic in BOTH directions to selectively allow only the 
desired traffic.

There will be no Linux specific thing to worry about.  It's a router so is 
OS ignorant.  The only conceivable issue would be if the web interface used 
Internet Explorer specific extensions - highly unlikely.

>BTW, satellite is not an option for gaming - the downlink suffers from
>latency and the uplink still uses the phone line.

True.

>I am definitely on the borderline for distance, so I need the BT
>engineer's check all right. I won't go for the Yahoo option though. When
>its up-and-running I'll replace the freebie modem and Windows OS with
>decent stuff.

The way it works is that when you order ADSL from an ISP, they place an 
order on BT to supply the ADSL line.  If an engineer visit is required BT 
organise it.  There is no other way to buy ADSL here except via an 
ISP.  The ISP MAY be a BT affiliated one - or it may not, it doesn't 
matter.  Either way you don't order ADSL directly from BT.

Good Luck,

--
Steve