ADSL overview

How to set up an ADSL line

Basically, to set up an ADSL line you must:

1) Check if ADSL is available in your area (ask your ISP or your telephony company)
2) Get one analog line
3) Get one ADSL modem (USB or Ethernet)
4) Get one or more splitters: as many splitters as phones you need (one for each point on the same ADSL line that you intend to use a phone with)
5) Get an ADSL account, of course

You can get an USB modem or an Ethernet one. What are the differences between them?

- Platform dependent (USB)
- Platform independent (Ethernet)

- Drivers needed (USB)
- Drivers are not required (Ethernet)

- PPPoA protocol as default (USB)
- PPPoE protocol as default (Ethernet)

- Slightly better performance. Better ping time (USB)
- Slight worse performance. Worse ping time (Ethernet)

- Subtracts CPU time from your computer (USB)
- Does not affect CPU load of your computer (Ethernet)

- Easy to install (USB)
- A little bit hard to install (Ethernet)

- Not so good for LANs (USB)
- More suitable for LANs (Ethernet)

USB modems need drivers that are OS (operating system) dependent whereas Ethernet modems do not need drivers at all, so you can use them with any OS without having to worry about drivers. USB modems are easier to install than Ethernet modems because you have not to configure them and you have not to worry about IP addresses. A USB NIC (Network Interface Card) has to emulate an ethernet card in software. This uses system resources which a hardware NIC doesn't need, as the card has its own buffer, handles collisions/retries on its own. USB modems have ping time slightly faster than Ethernet modems (if you are not an online games player you can avoid to worry about that). You could set up a standalone workstation to connect to the Internet only or even a home LAN (a small LAN, Local Area Network).

If you would like to set up a small home LAN, you should use an Ethernet modem or, better, a router. In fact, to have Internet sharing available, you need 'something' forwarding packets to each computer that is connected to your LAN. This 'something' is the router. The best option is setting up a hardware router with firewalling features. Sure, you could use software firewalls, but hardware firewalls are more reliable than software ones. If you don't want to use a hardware router, you can set up one PC as a router but the other side is that it has to be always powered on.

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