2Apr il 2003, 17:00:47 The Complete FreeBSD (isp.mm), page 315
18
Connecting to the
Internet
In this chapter:
• The physical
connection
• Establishing yourself
on the Internet
• Choosing an Internet
Ser vice Provider
• Who’sthat ISP?
• Making the
connection
In this chapter:
• The physical
connection
• Establishing yourself
on the Internet
• Choosing an Internet
Ser vice Provider
• Who’sthat ISP?
• Making the
connection
To implement the reference network shown in the previous chapter,weneed to do a lot of
things that interface with the outside world. Theycan takesome time, so we should look
at them first:
• What kind of physical connection should we use? We’llconsider that in the next
section.
• We may want to register a domain.Manypeople don’t, but I strongly recommend it.
Find out about that on page 317.

FreeBSD point of view, the cable modem looks likejust another Ethernet device.
• DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)isthe telephone companies’ reaction to cable modems.
Until recently,the L stood for Loop,not Line.Aloop is the telco term for the pair of wires
between the exchange (or Central Office)and the subscriber premises.
There are a number of variants on DSL: ADSL (Asynchronous Digital Subscriber
Line)has different speeds for the uplink and the downlink, while SDSL (Symmetric
Digital Subscriber Line)and HDSL (High-speed Digital Subscriber Line)hav e the
same speed in each direction. Speeds and capabilities differ widely from one location
to another.Bymodifying the way theytransmit data overnormal phone wires,
including the use of special modems, ADSL can get speeds of up to 6 Mb/s
downstream (towards the end user), and about 640 kbps upstream. HDSL has similar
speeds, but the speed is the same in each direction. In contrast to cable modems, you
don’thav e to share this bandwidth with anybody.Technical considerations limit the
loop length to about four miles, so eveninbig cities you may not be able to get it.
ManyDSL services are plagued by technical problems. There are a number of
different ways to connect to a DSL service, but most of them involveaconversion to
Ethernet.
• In some parts of the world, satellite connections are a viable alternative.These
usually use a telephone line for outgoing data and a satellite receiverfor incoming
data. Pricing varies from very cheap to quite expensive,but if you can’tget cable or
DSL, this might be your only choice.
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317 Chapter 18: Connecting to the Internet
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Establishing yourself on the Internet
The first thing you need to decide is the extent of your presence on the Net. There are
various possibilities:
• Youcould get a dialup service where you use your computer just to connect to the
ISP,and perform network functions such as reading mail and news on the ISP’s
machine (a shell account). It’salot faster to perform these functions on your own

assume you takemyadvice and apply for an organizational rather than a geographical
domain.
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Establishing yourself on the Internet 318
2April 2003, 17:00:47 The Complete FreeBSD (../tools/tmac.Mn), page 318
Preparing for registration
Once upon a time, registration was handled by InterNIC, a professional body.Since then
it has been delegated to commercial companies, and the quality of service has suffered
correspondingly: theydon’tevenappear to knowthe technical terms. Forexample, you
may find them referring to a domain name as a ‘‘Web Address.’’ Things are still
deteriorating at the time of writing: additional companies are being allowed to register
domain names, and the field seems to attract a lot of cowboys.
Registering a domain name
The only prerequisites for registering a domain name are:
• The name must be available, though there are some legalimplications that suggest
that, though you might be able to register a domain such as microsoft.edu,itmight
not be good for you if you do. In fact, microsoft.edu wasonce registered to the
BISPL business school in Hyderabad, India, presumably not in agreement with
Microsoft.
• Youmust be able to specify twoname servers for it—see Chapter 21 for further
details about name servers.
First, check that the name is available:
$ whois dunham.org
No match for "DUNHAM.ORG".
The InterNIC Registration Services Host contains ONLY Internet Information
(Networks, ASN’s, Domains, and POC’s).
Please use the whois server at nic.ddn.mil for MILNET Information.
Next, try to find a reputable registrar.Immediately after the transfer of registrars from
InterNIC, the only companytooffer this service was Network Solutions, but nowthere
are many. I do not recommend Network Solutions: they’re expensive and incompetent.

seen a market opportunity and have grabbed it. Other ISPs were small companies run by
not-so technical people who have jumped on the bandwagon. Still other ISPs are run by
large companies, in particular the cable TV companies and the telephone companies.
Which is for you? Howcan you tell to which category an ISP belongs? Do you care?
You should care, of course. Let’sconsider what you want from an ISP,and what the ISP
wants. You want a low-cost, high-reliability,high speed connection to the Internet. You
may also want technical advice and value-added services such as DNS (see Chapter 21)
and web pages.
The main priority of a small ISP (or anyother ISP,for that matter) is to get a good night’s
sleep. Next, he wants to ensure the minimum number of nuisance customers. After that,
he wants to ensure that he doesn’tgoout of business. Only then is he interested in the
same things that you are.
In the last fewyears, a large number of ISPs have gone out of business, and manymore
have merged with other companies. In particular,large companies frequently bought out
small techie ISPs and then ran them into the ground with their incompetence. Fora
humorous viewofthis phenomenon, see the ‘‘User Friendly’’cartoon series starting at
/>Questions to ask an ISP
So howdoyou choose an ISP? Don’tforget the value of word-of-mouth—it’sthe most
common way to find an ISP.Ifyou knowsomebody very technical, preferably a
FreeBSD user,who is already connected, ask him—he’ll certainly be able to tell you
about his ISP.Otherwise, a lot depends on your leveloftechnical understanding. It’s
easy to knowmore about the technical aspects of the Internet than your ISP,but it doesn’t
often help getting good service. Here are a fewquestions to ask anyprospective ISP:
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