After enduring an often failing and 4 yr old modem, I ordered a new one from SBC. It came, but I dreaded installing it, anticipating hours on the phone with them to massage it into operation. I waited for almost a week.
So I plugged it in. And it works without any setting changes.
Am I missing some important thing I was supposed to do? I mean, it works, but surely I was supposed to trip down the path of helplessness for hours or days, listening to endless muzak while I traversed the levels of technicians from bombay up to, oh, i don’t know, maybe Phoenix.
They sent me a bunch of new filters too. Am I supposed to swap out all the old ones or do they not wear out?
Well, it’s faster anyway. I went from an old Motorola 4000 Speedstream to a Siemens 4100 Speedstream. Big deal. But, it’s half the size!
When I installed my earthlink DSL, the modem itself was pretty much plug and play. I had to change some settings on the computer, and that took a couple of phone calls – one to India and one to Nebraska after I refused to deal with the person in India. Yours probably went so easily because the computer was already set up for their DSL.
I don’t know about those filters, but it can’t hurt to have extras.
Now you need to try an advanced skill project – order the wireless router and connect it to an X-Box.
Well, when I first got DSL, the tech came and set it up and seemed to do something. That was four years ago.
The modem was not reconnecting after sleep mode, so I would have to turn off the computer, unplug the modem for 30 seconds, replug, reboot and it was fine (the famous “power cycle”). The tech told me that the modems last about 2 years, so mine was 2 over. After the rebate, the modem is basically free and I got faster service for $10 less per month for the next year, when it is scheduled to go up to $4 more than what I was paying (fwiw, I pay $20 a month for DSL “Premium”, bundled with my house phone and calling plan, which are additional. I think its probably a good deal. I used to be a cable guy, but when I moved to this house, it wasn’t offered in the 'hood. So I don’t want to change my email addy yet again…
Evidently they want my business.
As for firewall, I believe SBC Yahoo (or whatever they call themselves now) do have something up and I am a Mac user so I think I am only on the NSA snoop list. I blew it and revealed my email address just ONE TIME, and it opened the floodgates of spam to my email account. They filter a lot of it, about 2/3 or so but I still get a lot.
NEVER click on the screen to “get a free Ipod” okay??? It’s not worth it.
Anyway, Dale, if you ever have to use the infamous power cycle on a semi-continuous basis, it might be time for a new modem.
Filters shouldn’t wear out…they basically take the large pipe of your DSL phone line, and filter out all of the data portion using solid state components, leaving only the data portion. That’s why you hear static if you don’t use them.
All solid state electronics can burn out eventually, but it’ll be a rare thing in this case, I think.
I threw DSL over for fibre optic service 2 years ago…at 20 times the speed for $10.00 more a month, it can’t be beat I can download an entire windows service pack in about 3 minutes
Seriously, folks, you need some kind of hardware firewall. For less than $100 you can do so much towards protecting your computer and yourself.
A computer, no matter what kind, that sits on a broadband network is a nice, juicy target. In a recent study, it took 6 minutes for an unprotected fresh install of Windows XP to be detected and compromised, not running a browser or anything, just connected and sitting there.
A hardware firewall sits between your computer and your modem and stops your computer from being visible to or responding to any attempt to compromise the computer.
There are software firewalls, for instance Zonealarm, and they are much better than nothing, but no software firewall is as secure as simply a good hardware firewall.
Several companies make them, and there are pros and cons of different models, but none of that is as important as simply this: you need one.
In all seriousness, your computer may be functioning as a spam relay or porn repository and you’d never know.
This is as serious a post as I’ve ever made, and I’m being very straight up.
wow, what scaremongering! you don’t need a hardware modem. get zonealarm for free, get a decent virus scanner and an anti spyware package and you’ll be fine. As long as you keep everything up to date you shouldn’t have any problems.
I agree with the scaremongering. I have a hardware firewall and a popup blocker. I detest most anti-virus software. They are intrusive to the point of madness.
It’s not too hard to avoid unwanted crap. Don’t open spam. Avoid sites known to download filth. The worst sites are free screensaver sites, joke sites, free game sites and some others. Run Ad-Aware frequently. I also use Window Washer to keep my hard drive and registry squeeky clean.
The worst thing I’ve gotten in three years of DSL use is Winhound which Ad-Aware wiped out.
The only genuine DSL modem problem I have ever seen is where the class of DSL modem you have does not match the type of line card at the telco end of your phone line. If you got your DSL modem through your telco, or purchased a brand/model to their specification, there should be no problems.
As for the concerns about hardware firewalls, that is what I use my DSL modem for - I turn it off when not in use. This means I am instantly protected from evil hacker armies of darkness. Also, I run the full McAfee suite of tools/protectors.
The line filters keep the data frequency spectrum from intruding on the voice frequencies so that you don’t hear them and they don’t hear you. They do not wear out. One per line. They don’t change just because you changed modems. Data frequencies are still data frequencies regardless of DSL modem type.
I’m far from naive, I work in the IT industry and specifically in web development and support. Part of my job is server security.
My personal view is you can’t have enough security and hardware firewalls would be a part of that (I have one in my wireless router). However for most home users a software solution coupled with sensible surfing is more than sufficient to stop their computer being raped by virus zombie hordes as they surf.
Most people I know don’t have a hardware firewall yet none of them have ever had any serious problems with their computer due to being on the internet. At least no serious problems that didn’t involve them downloading things they shouldn’t have and saying yes to things they should say no to.
A software firewall is fine, but be sure it allows you to disable notifications that you’re being attacked. I used a software firewall for six months and at least twice per hour a warning message would pop up to inform me that it was fending off a Trojan Horse or some other attack. There was no way to turn off those warnings. Eventually I bought a router and it fends off everything while letting you work in peace.
If you’ve got more than one computer at home you’ll probably want to use a router anyway.
That said, my experience with the software-only firewall taught me that if you are connected directly to the Internet you WILL be attacked very frequently, and if you don’t have some sort of firewall in place your computer will be infected within a matter of minutes.
Windows XP with Service Pack 2 has a built-in software firewall that does a good job; the firewall built into OSX is equally good for Mac users.
Thanks, Brad. I was waiting for somebody with a Mac to address this specifically. If my computer is asleep or off, but modem on, I don’t exactly understand how I could be hosting porn…hmm… or perhaps the server who handles my service account is the host via the IP??
I can download an entire windows service pack in about 3 minutes