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Des del 2000 compartiendo sobre…

Tag: adsl

A history of connectivity in Torrelavit: from 1.200bps using packet radio to 1Gbps on fiber optics

Reading time: 6 – 9 minutes

This is a chronology of my history using the Internet, and no-Internet, connections. I never thought this is going to be possible; currently, my Internet connection is faster than my local network. The best speed test that I’ve got so far is the one that you have in the attached screenshot using an old Dell Studio XPS with Linux Mint. The paradox is that more modern computers get the worst performance than this one and all of them synchronize the network card to 1Gbps with the Mikrotik CloudSwitch which acts like a gateway applying NAT rules before the fiber optic bridge.

By the way, that news at home makes me spend some time remembering all the Internet connections I had at home since 1992. During Barcelona Olimpic games I was on Netherland with a holidays’ family trip in that trip we met a guy who told me how to connect two computers using a ham radio station, this technique is called packet radio. I was 15 and my life changed at that instant. The idea was using a radio station of 145MHz, or 433MHz (there were more frequencies, but they are unusual) connect the speaker and mic of the radio station using an audio jack to a TNC (Terminal Node Control), or a Baycom, which are at the end of the day like a modem that converts analog audio signals to digital serial port signals. Using the serial port connected to the computer a terminal application was run for user interfacing with the network. Protocol used for the WAN network was AX.25 a variant of X.25, used in the past on most ATM networks, the packet radio network had not only client stations, also BBS (Bulletin Board Systems), Weather Stations, email, FTP, nodes (repeaters), and gateways to other WANs like Fidonet, and Internet. How to get those resources without a searcher like Google, it’s another story.

Exchange data was a nightmare because communication was at a bandwidth of 1.200bps on a shared media, the air, using a simplex (half-duplex)  communication. In plain words, this means to send a 10 KB pictures could take an afternoon and usually, terminals weren’t multi-task so you had the computer busy doing that all the time. The first time that I run a browser was for Gopher service which inspired Web service at some point, I had two use two computers one of them running as TCP/IP to AX.25 gateway and the other with Windows 3.1 running Mosaic and using IP over parallel port (PLIP) for exchanging data with those two computers. Mosaic was the first graphical browser of the story as far as I know. Finally, I remember that I developed a small implementation of TCP/IP stack over AX.25 on an EPROM for a TNC, it was very basic but good enough for mapping ham radio IDs and TCP/IP addresses. BTW, my ham radio ID was EB3EWH.

This part of the story lasted about 5 years, I remember the late 90s when good enough plain old telephone line (POTS) was installed at home and a super modern 9600bps telephonic modem which evolved very fast to different speeds up to 56K was the only option for connecting to the Internet. We used Infovía and Infovía plus a Telefonica service for getting data network instead of regular calls to the ISPs, really painful part of the story. Slow speeds also and expensive services for what we get. Maybe the most fun thing about this part of the history was when someone at home pick up the phone and data connection was interrupted. Other roughly 5 years with this connectivity pattern.

In the early 2000s, I installed an ISDN line at home with two 64kbps at home, on those was permanently connected to the Internet and the other one was available for voice calls. ISDN was an exciting and very stable technology I’m out of the market currently but I think it’s still possible to buy links using so old technology.  This part of the history was shorter than the previous ones and the funniest story was a thunderstorm and lighting day when the TR1 exploited in front of me I scared a lot.

At the end of 2002 a 256Kbps ADSL was installed on top of a new POTS line installed again at home. It was like a dream, finally, I was navigating with broad bandwidth. ADSL speed up to 2Mbps it was impossible to improve the speed to higher speeds than that because I’m too far from any ADSL distribution point. I remember in 2012 I was paying for 6Mbps internet connection which was the smallest possible to hire and my maximum speed was 1.9Mbps measured with the proper equipment for quality lines test. 

At the end of 2013 I installed a Wi-Fi link with a guy who re-sell fiber optics connection in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia using a link to the Ordal which is a mountain that I can view from home, about 10 km link using 5GHz frequency. Speed was 6Mbps/300kbps. This link was active until two days ago, but since August 2014 the main Internet connection was using another Wi-Fi link with a company called XTA (Xarxa de Telecomunicacions Alternatives), a.k.a. WifiPenedes which is part of the Guifi.net project. This is the same company which installed fiber optics at home the day before yesterday at home. The Wi-Fi link that I had with WifiPenedes was 20Mbps/1Mbps and currently, with the fiber optics I have 1Gbps/300Mbps and there is no backup link with any other technology. BTW, I have a 4G subscription which can be used for emergencies.

At the end of 2013 I installed a Wi-Fi link with a guy who re-sell fiber optics connection in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia using a link to the Ordal which is a mountain that I can view from home, about 10 km link using 5GHz frequency. Speed was 6Mbps/300kbps. This link was active until two days ago, but since August 2014 the main Internet connection was using another Wi-Fi link with a company called XTA (Xarxa de Telecomunicacions Alternatives), a.k.a. WifiPenedes which is part of the Guifi.net project. This is the same company which installed fiber optics at home the day before yesterday at home. The Wi-Fi link that I had with WifiPenedes was 20Mbps/1Mbps and currently, with the fiber optics I have 1Gbps/300Mbps and there is no backup link with any other technology. BTW, I have a 4G subscription which can be used for emergencies.

Of course will be nice to go deeper with each of those points, finding anecdotes I lived with those 26 years of history connecting to wide area networks (WAN) maybe one day I’ll find the priority for sharing so amazing moments and people that I met thanks to those networks. I have to admit that networking changed my life, it enables access to broad knowledge. Thank everyone and every company which makes this possible, it has been a pleasure to enjoy this fantastic processes. I finish accepting the challenge to improve my LAN for getting the best from my new Internet connection.

PDF and DOCX version.

Reducció ADSL a 1Mbps

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

Després de molts anys pagant uns 170€ d’ADSL per tenir menys de 2Mbps i després de que em canviessin els 512Kbps de pujada per 300kbps fa uns mesos, he decidit reduir la meva ADSL de 2Mbps a 1Mbps. O sigui, que ara ja només tinc 300kbps de pujada. Això suposo que ja ho estareu notant amb la web. Em sap molt de greu per vosaltres però ara només pago 44€ al mes i la diferència és ampliament substancial.

adsl.jpg

Pel que fa al blog, fa dies que estic pensant en canviar-ho tot a oriolrius.cat on fa temps que hi tinc un WordPress en proves amb un lifestream. Realment estic completament peix amb el WP però estic més que cansat del blog:cms i no descarto començar un blog de zero mentre em decideixo a migrar tot el que tinc aquí cap al nou motor de WP. Així doncs, en els propers mesos notareu força canvis en el tema.

Ara que surt e tema del blog, comentar una curiositat ahir l’Alfredo em va passar una web on et diuen el nivell que han de tenir els lectors del teu blog, en funció de certes paraules claus de les que parles. Doncs aquí teniu el nivell que representa que heu de tenir per llegir el meu blog:

blog-reading-level.jpg

Per cert, la web en qüestió és The Blog Readability Test. What level of education is required to understand your blog?.

Conmutar VPN (ADSL) / LAN2LAN (RDSI)

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

Per variar degut a problemes en una empresa de la feina, m’he vist a programar tot un sistema de vigilància de la VPN q fa temps ús vaig comentar, per tal de comprobar que això funciona, en cas de que no funcioni he de fer q automàticament és commuti a trucada RDSI…

Bé la idea és que la VPN que tenen montada a l’empresa funciona sobre la ADSL d’infonegocio que tenen cada oficina pel seu costat. Com tots sabem l’ADSL avui en dia no és precisament una garantia de funcionament i he montat una xarxa paral·lela via RDSI q aquesta va sense encriptar (sense IPSec) ja q la trucada és directa i considero que ja és prou segur.

Així doncs el document q publico és un resum de com implemento aquesta vigilància de la connexió de la commutació entre la sucursal de Barcelona i la de València. En aquest cas el q fa la trucada en cas de caiguda d’alguna de les dues ADSL és València.

Espero q a algú li sigui útil pq la tonterieta q sembla trivial m’ha donat més de 16h de feina i encara no estic al 100% segur d q vagi bé. Malgrat q totes les simulacions de caigudes de les linies m’han
funcionat.

Si voleu simular q cau una ADSL jo l’únic q faig és prohibir al firewall l’entrada de paquets de l’altre xarxa i llavors aquest es pensa q ha caigut l’altre ADSL.

El document el podeu consultar a:
http://oriol.homeip.net/Documents/commutacio_vpn_rdsi.pdf