multiple users on internet

[Gurndigarn]

I've got an interesting problem. My children had been doing school via internet for a while, but they've all gone back to standard public schools starting next year. Cable internet was required for their internet school.

Well, we go along just fine on dialup before, and the price difference is enough to make me want to switch back now that the school isn't subsidizing us. The only problem is that by now, we have five computers in the house (well, six at the moment, but I suspect the school is going to take back the one they gave us). And it's quite common for all of them to be in use at a time. Is there any way to get a wireless network going on dialup? Yes, I know that it will be slower, but most of what we do on the internet is not bandwidth intensive. But it will be done slowly from three or four different computers at the same time.

If it makes any difference, two Macs with built-in wireless, two without (currently tied to the router via ethernet cable) and one Windows with a wireless card.

Thanks in advance!

[Forgreatjustice]

possible yes, easy no.
might be easier to see if your internet provider has a slower speed avalible.

[lordlundar]

Possible? yes.
Easy? no.
Worthwhile? doubt it.

You have to remember 3 things:

1. It's SLOW. About 5kbps on one machine, and you're looking to do 5. Hope they don't need it for any streaming content.

2. It occupies the phone line. DSL and cable use an unused prtion of the line to transfer the signal, it's fairly recent tech, and was never backfitted to dialup. So being online uses your phone line exclusively.

3. It is difficult to setup. You need to be able to remote dial the connection from any machine, which rules out a router and external modem. As well, because of that you need to set up file and print sharing to do so, which makes for a GLARING hole in security.

I'm with Fgj on this, contact who you have a connection with and see if they have an economy connection. It won't be very fast, (typically 10-15kbps), but it can work with multiple machines, is always on, and you won't have to change your configuration any.

[LostMyMind]

There are routers that are smart enough to use dial up modems (external ones). But they're not cheap. However, like it's been said. It's not easy nor is it maintenance free. Short of turning one of the computer into a internet share computer (which of course opens up alot of security problems. unless you do it with linux or another os that isn't common), it will be a pain to deal with.

Also, my parents went through this. You'll find after having the faster internet connection. It's quite painful to go back to the slow dial up. Talk with the provider. If there no budge room, talk with the kids or go back to only one computer on the internet.

Just to add, wouldn't the cost of adding an second phone line cost just about the same as the service you're getting now?

[RichS]

Yes, it can be done. That's what I have at home. Why? Because there's no cheap high-speed around here. There's wireless, but its $200-$400 in equipment/setup, then $26.95/month for 512k up/128k down. No, thanks - I'll wait for AT&T high-speed to get out here (they're talking late this year ).

Granted, if you have all the computers at home going at the same time, then it's going to be a lot slower than what you've had before. Plus there's a bit of setup involved.

My setup: U.S. Robotics 56K serial port modem connected to a CNet CN904 Internet Sharing Hub. I have that hooked up to a D-Link wireless-G router with DHCP turned off, so the CNet router (yes, they call it a hub, but it's a router ) serves out the 56k connection to the wireless.

I'm using ancient equipment that probably can be found on ebay, but there's a modern equivalent here. This takes place of the USR modem/CNet router I have, then I'm assuming you have a wireless router which can be used to serve out the 56K connection.

I hope this can help you!

EDIT: I almost forgot! You cannot use this setup for any dial-up service that requires proprietary software, like AOL, NetZero, PeoplePC, etc. Best to go with a local service if possible. I have AT&T's dial-up service, which works OK.

[Gurndigarn]

Yes, it can be done. That's what I have at home. Why? Because there's no cheap high-speed around here.

Granted, if you have all the computers at home going at the same time, then it's going to be a lot slower than what you've had before. Plus there's a bit of setup involved.

EDIT: I almost forgot! You cannot use this setup for any dial-up service that requires proprietary software, like AOL, NetZero, PeoplePC, etc. Best to go with a local service if possible. I have AT&T's dial-up service, which works OK.

Thanks! I also have no cheap high-speed, which is why I'm looking at it. $10 per month dialup, $50 per month cable. I don't do streaming essentially at all-- the closest I get is listening to music samples. And AOHell, ZeroNet, etc., just aren't my thing. I'll go where I want to on the net, not where some corporate suit thinks I should go.

[Anriana]

If you tell your cable company you are going to leave because of the price, they may be able to give you a discount for at least a few months. And since you actually are, it's not SC behavior!

[Gurndigarn]

If you tell your cable company you are going to leave because of the price, they may be able to give you a discount for at least a few months. And since you actually are, it's not SC behavior!

Oh, I know that. But I don't want to have to call them up every three months, wait on hold, and have them weasel around trying to get me to stay. I figure if the local phone company ever gets DSL in the area it'll probably be in my price range, and I'll do that.

[JLRodgers]

There is one thing you might need to know though too: websites are designed for broadband anymore.

Almost every site I visit takes 5-10 seconds to load (with broadband), it could be 25-50 seconds with dialup assuming only one computer. MSN homepage would take an estimated 25seconds. It's not just streaming, everything will take considerably longer -- especially since a modem doesn't always have a perfect 56k connection (in my town, that has cable & DSL type of service), a 56k modem is lucky to get a 33.6 connection speed.

Just telling you so you know -- everything you do now will take a lot longer. So either you'll be spending more time online, or you won't be online as much if you have fixed internet times. Sometimes the extra cost pays for itself, if you do a lot of things online -- in both time, and phone charges (unless you have free calling... we don't really where I am).

[PCGameGuy]

I started out sharing dialup in my house, I used an older machine and ran a prgram called Freesco on it. It is a free Linux based router program that supports using a hardware modem as the main connection. We had four computers on the one connection and it was very slow for anything but email usage with more than one user at a time. The only advantage was that it allowed everyone to use their own machine instead of the 'internet' computer.

For someone who has no choice but to use dialup it is an option, but after experiencing any form of high speed internet it will be painful. Another option, if available, is wireless internet from either a local ISP or cellular carrier. The new cellular stuff is very high speed, and can get to places that wireline is still ignoring. Just another alternative.

[Rapscallion]

Almost every site I visit takes 5-10 seconds to load (with broadband), it could be 25-50 seconds with dialup assuming only one computer.

I'm curious - how does this site compare? I make sure to keep graphics to a minimum. It's also the reason we encourage people to warn of heavy graphics threads.

Rapscallion

[SteeleDragon78]

I'm curious - how does this site compare? I make sure to keep graphics to a minimum. It's also the reason we encourage people to warn of heavy graphics threads.

Rapscallion

this site is pretty zippy on both my home(dsl) and work(t1+) and only a little laggy on my laptop when i use my cell for the modem, but i blame that on my cell company. have noticed that around 15:30 to around 16:10 cdt the site is unavailable, but that may be my corp it farking something up

[JLRodgers]

I'm curious - how does this site compare? I make sure to keep graphics to a minimum. It's also the reason we encourage people to warn of heavy graphics threads.

Rapscallion

Forum main page is completely loaded in like 5, but final touches (i.e. the menubar background) takes another 2. It's pretty quick overall. And that applies to most threads. Basically, I don't notice page loads, so it's quick.
Non-forum pages are similar.

Of course that's actual times with my location, browser (firefox 2), etc. It's probably actually about 2-3 seconds quicker to actually send the info.