
Build your own dial-up ISP in 2019 - waffle_ss
https://dogemicrosystems.ca/wiki/Build_you_own_dial_up_ISP_in_2019
======
sebst
I've built something like that from a bunch of used hardware in my teens. DSL
connections were just available (in Germany) and came with a data flat rate. I
was in the lucky position that I could convince my parents to get such a
contract.

A friend of mine, who could not get a DSL connections because back then he
lived in an uncovered area, could at least get a telephone "flat rate" for
free telephone calls on Sundays.

So, he dialed in my Pentium 133 server and used my DSL connection behind a NAT
every Sunday.

~~~
znpy
This is friendship.

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cure
I operated something like this around 2005 in a big hotel building (~400
bedrooms and various offices) with a dinky internet connection and no wifi yet
(very thick walls, up in the mountains, limited budgets...).

So I built a dial-up pool on an internal number (this place had its own PBX
with ~500 phone lines) hooked to a Debian box, served by a bunch of USR
Courier modems. Good times :)

~~~
xd
Please, one day, do a write up on this!

~~~
52-6F-62
I second!

~~~
kwccoin
I third

~~~
opless
forth

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hexmiles
This article came at just the right time. Maybe the HN crow can help me with
this one.

I have a lot of old hardware that i want to connect to the to my network. Most
of them have a 56k modem the rest a 14/28k modem. What can i use to bring them
all online at the same time. I tough to use some voip adapter (from pots to
ethernet) but from what i understand there are not good for modem/fax style
signal, also i need something that can handle at least 8 client at the same
time (the number of computer to connect is 22 at the time but i don't know how
realistic is to connect all of them at the same time using this method).

When i searched (i couple of month ago, so i might get wrong some terminology)
i only found some enterprise pbx that were awfully expensive (1000$) i hope
for something more cheap. I didn't find anything that work. EDIT: Also i'm not
sure how to understand if the hardware that i plan to use can do what i need.
What do i need to look in a pots to voip converter to work as modem "server".
If i sound confused is because i am.

I have a plan B, that consist of using serial port and emulate old style Hayes
modem by a central more powerful (and modern) computer using a lot of
usb2serial adapter, but i would rather avoid that since some computer have
only 1 serial port and is already used for other hardware forcing me to choose
between connectivity and the other device. Also some of the hardware it's not
compatible with serial modem. I've already test this approach and (expect the
aforementioned shortcoming) it works quite well.

Thank you all in advance

~~~
icedchai
You need a terminal server: it has multiple serial ports on one side, ethernet
on the other. You will need serial cables going from client devices to the
terminal server. The serial cables should be the "null modem" variety, so no
actual modem is needed. Hopefully you have spare serial ports, or can replace
the modems on the clients with serial cards.

Take a look on ebay for "terminal server", "console server", etc.

~~~
hexmiles
I planned to use a lot of cheap usb to rs232 converter. I didn't know about
console server. They seem very neat! I have only two question:

1- They seem to all use RJ45 i'd imagine that i would use a cable
RJ45<->RS232. I found some on amazon, but i don't know if they are standard or
i need to look for some specific type of cable.

2- Do they allow the "master" ethernet port to talk to all serial port at the
same time? I found some conflitting information about it. If not the
usb<->rs232 seem a better solution.

Thank you a lot!

~~~
icedchai
1) Yes, you will need those cables... The RJ45<->RS232 cables are not
standardized. You will need to buy the exact cable, or do some research to
make your own: Example:
[http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ajkunen/wiring.html](http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ajkunen/wiring.html)

2) The ethernet port can communicate with all serial ports. Depending on the
model, you can program the serial port for PPP, SLIP, telnet, SSH, etc. Back
in the old dialup ISP days, we connected modems to these terminal servers and
users could either telnet to a host, or initiate a PPP session.

And yes, you can basically build your own terminal server with a bunch of
those USB<->RS232 adapters.

~~~
hexmiles
Thank you, i will look into it. I found some on ebay, now with a bit of
researchi should be able to find one that fit my need!

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howard941
> Note: You will have a lot of trouble using a softmodem/winmodem! You are
> much better off using a hardware-based modem.

Some things never change

~~~
nategri
Yep, I definitely remember the 'winmodem' as the primary villain in my early
attempts to get my first linux box online ca. 1999

~~~
setquk
Been there. Had to reboot into windows to download half the missing deb
packages, then find out there were more missing ones!

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giancarlostoro
Back when we used dial-up I couldn't outright switch to Linux because I
couldn't get on AOL from Linux (or I didn't know how) I tried everything too.
Then once we had a normal router it was wireless drivers that was my issue,
nowadays it's mostly my GPU drivers. I have used Linux more exclusively now,
but if I can't get online out of the box that's the biggest deal breaker for a
distro for me.

~~~
MBCook
I remember the fun of trying to get PPP working in Linux the first time.

Dial in. Search for instructions. Print them out. Reboot into Linux. Try it.
Doesn’t work. Write down error. Reboot into Windows. Dial up again. Search for
error. Repeat until you hate yourself.

Wait, you need a new package. Go back to Windows and download it. Stick it
somewhere Linux can see it. Reboot into Linux. Install the package. Find out
it has missing dependencies. Go back to step one.

Got all the dependencies. Start at the top again.

I don’t remember if I ever got PPP working before I had Ethernet based net
access and no longer needed dial up.

~~~
morpheuskafka
I'm working on a project that will be using PPP or SLIP to sync CouchDB over a
serial-based RF link. It's really weird to see code in the slip.c file that's
older than I am:
[https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blame/master/drivers/net/s...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blame/master/drivers/net/slip/slip.c).

~~~
voltagex_
Whoa, sounds like that project will make a cool write up one day

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roel_v
But what's it like surfing the web on 56k6 nowadays? It was painful 15 years
ago, doesn't seem like it would be feasible today. ('feasible' as in 'would
actually use this for something', not as in 'technically works')

~~~
Cerium
Chrome DevTools has a feature that will let you try it out. I am right now. On
the Network tab there is a throttling option. I added a profile for 56k, and
based on some research set it to 6kb/s upload and download as well as 100ms
ping. It is painful. Loading this thread's comments page took about 23
seconds, though loading the form I am submitting this comment on only took
about 4 seconds.

I think it could be workable if you were to set uBlock to block all images and
scripts.

~~~
shampster
I'd do 56kbps download, 48kps upload, at 100ms. Still loads this comments page
fairly fast!

~~~
kalleboo
Kilobits or kilobytes? A 56k modem is max 56 kilobits/s, a.ka. 7 kilobytes/s
(although realistically I never synced over 50k, and more common something
like 48k)

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bitkarma
I quickly went from "what a fun weekend project" to "where on Earth would I
find two landlines to test with?"

~~~
mbreese
The article didn’t even use them. They hacked a single voip ata with two ports
and connected _those_ together. That’s a pretty elegant (albeit impractical)
solution to that rather unique problem.

~~~
dag11
Internet over phone over internet :D

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tegansnyder
Ah the dial-up ISP days. As an young enterprising middle schooler 20+ years
ago I started one with the help of my father. I remember stringing together a
bunch of modems to a Postmaster and getting a rollover PRI line from the local
telco. If my memory serves me it had 24 lines and would roll over if one was
busy. We even made some of our own installation floppy disks and placed them
at the local video rental store so people could self install. Fun times!

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int_19h
Back when we used dial-up for Internet access, and it was charged by time, we
used P2P dial-up connectivity to share downloaded stuff - one person would set
up a dial-up server (Windows had that capability even in 9x days; still does,
I think), the other one would dial in, and then we'd use IRC and FTP on the
resulting intranet, chatting while the data was transferred.

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janetacarr
Nostalgia aside, can a network without border gateway peering be considered an
ISP? It seems like a more apt term might be dial-up network provider.

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kwccoin
I wonder as many do not actually use the mobile phone as a phone and we have
sometimes 1000 min free, can we use mobile phone as a kind of isp. It can
connect to internet via calling?

Not sure any notebook with sim card can do as not sure they take call.

~~~
Johnny555
You might be able to, but you won't be happy with the results -- cell phones
use low bandwidth compression codecs, around 12kbs if I remember correctly,
but for use as a modem, you'd be lucky to get half that or less.

Browsing the modern internet at 6kbs sounds painful.

~~~
gsich
Depends, GSM codec is indeed low bandwidth, G722.2 is not.

~~~
Johnny555
Even G722.2 is low bandwidth compared to speeds you'd want: to surf the
internet at:

 _When used in mobile phone networks, there are three different configurations
(combinations of bitrates) that may be used for voice channels:

    
    
        Configuration A (Config-WB-Code 0): 6.6, 8.85, and 12.65 kbit/s (Mandatory multi-rate configuration)
        Configuration B (Config-WB-Code 2): 6.6, 8.85, 12.65, and 15.85 kbit/s
        Configuration C (Config-WB-Code 4): 6.6, 8.85, 12.65, and 23.85 kbit/s*

~~~
gsich
Oh, I'm sorry, I had a different bandwidth in mind, the audio bandwidth.

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xutopia
Wouldn't it be cool if you could use your cellphone instead of using a data
plan?

~~~
jolmg
I was actually thinking of this recently. People have:

* unlimited minutes,

* limited mobile data,

* many don't use their home phone, and

* their home internet is rate limited instead of data limited

So, what's stopping anyone (besides know-how) from getting unlimited (albeit
slow) data by making a call to one's home computer, and using it as a proxy to
get access to one's home internet service from anywhere?

All one needs is something to hookup their home computer to a phone-line.

~~~
Arbalest
Fair use agreements usually. You'd probably have someone asking "Are you using
your personal plan for business use" or similar.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Are they listening to the content of my phone calls? Because if not, I'm just
a guy who has talks on the phone a lot.

I know people who talk on the phone for hours and hours. Doing so should be
well within the realm of normal consumer use!

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kwccoin
A related question when Putin ask to cut off Russia from the Internet or
China's eGreat Wall, can the BGP with your own ISP can override it.

