ADSL for residential development

C

Cloudgazer

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I recently moved into a residential development with 48 units.
One of hte selling poinyd was that the complex had lightening fast internet access.
However, I discovered that the development had only a single 64k Leased line.
For 48 units!!!!

We've just fired the Service Provider, and want to get 2 uncapped ADSL connections from Internet Solutions.
But IS tell me they do not provide SMTP relay and that we either use thier mail servers or get our own.

Is there a way around this?

Does anyone know of a cheap way to balance (manage) the ADSL connections between the different units?

any help will be great!
 
Try this.

Don't know how to do the SMTP server thing (Get everyone a GMail account?? :-) ) but as far as the user/data management goes I've seen variations of the question posted a few times on the forums and I think I may have found a reasonably painless solution. Especially if you're uncomfortable using Linux.

First you'll need a Linksys WRT54G or GS wireless broadband router.

Once you've got the router, configue it to get the ADSL connection up and running.

Now head on over to this site , http://www.dd-wrt.org/ , and get the latest firmware (currently v2.2 R2) for the router and do the upgrade.

Now under the Administation tab of the routers web interface, enable the rflow protocol with the default settings. I'm not an expert on this but it seems that what rflow does is send out information about the data being routed by the router to any host that it listening.

Now download the rflow collector program from the same site, configure it and run it according to the instructions. In theory you will get all the lovely graphics of traffic usage by IP address for everyone in your complex.

The pre-requisites for this solution are that:
- You have a dedicated windows machine that is up all the time collecting data from the rflow messages on the router.
- Everyone in your complex connects wirelessly. (the router only has 4 wired ports anyway).
- You assign static IP addresses to everyone based on their MAC addresses, so you can always link the IP address to a specific user.

Also, if you want to cut off people who use up their allocation of data then you will have to do it manually. The rflow collector just collects data and displays it.

Hope this helps.
 
Um... er.. yeah.. right....

Most of what you said went straight over my head....
and scared the **** outta me

While wireless sounds good, we already have a network built in, with switches cabling, etc.

I'm only getting involved in this cause I'm part of the Body Corporate.

Does anyone know anything about 'hotbricks'?
 
Cloudgazer said:
We've just fired the Service Provider, and want to get 2 uncapped ADSL connections from Internet Solutions.
But IS tell me they do not provide SMTP relay and that we either use thier mail servers or get our own.
Click to expand...

i'm sure you can get 2 uncapped accounts.. you'll just have to tell everyone that they'll need to get a eg. hotmail account, as you won't be able to have 42 email addresses @ is.co.za ... then you can just link up the eg. hotmail addresses to outlook (express).. easy.. just need smtp and pop3 addresses..
 
PostmanPot said:
i'm sure you can get 2 uncapped accounts.. you'll just have to tell everyone that they'll need to get a eg. hotmail account, as you won't be able to have 42 email addresses @ is.co.za ... then you can just link up the eg. hotmail addresses to outlook (express).. easy.. just need smtp and pop3 addresses..
Click to expand...

From what I gather talking to IS, is that they wont be able to relay any SMTP traffic.

We're not interested in providing people with email addresses, but i figure they should be able to access their existing accounts, where ever they are (mweb, polka, uunet, etc).
and we can not tell residents what email address they should get.
We just want to provide the access to the net for them, and not worry about the actual services such as email, etc.
 
Why not just rent some webspace, that way you get a mail relay server, lots of email addresses, and some web space to boot. If you get an international host, you probably would only have to fork out 20 or 30 dollars a month for that.

With regards to the ADSL usage, the best solution would be a Linux box of some sort, with iptables. Otherwise, get an IPCOP box, does QOS, you can then prioritise certain ports over others.
 
Cloudgazer said:
But IS tell me they do not provide SMTP relay and that we either use thier mail servers or get our own.
Click to expand...
So get your own domain and name it after your development - I pay less than $8 (r50) per month for hosing in the states and they give me 650 email addresses as well as all the usual hosting stuff - good excuse to have a community bulletin board as well as other stuff. Many, mine included, offer alternate ports in case IS decides to block the standard smtp ones.
 
bwana v.3 said:
So get your own domain and name it after your development - I pay less than $8 (r50) per month for hosing in the states and they give me 650 email addresses as well as all the usual hosting stuff - good excuse to have a community bulletin board as well as other stuff. Many, mine included, offer alternate ports in case IS decides to block the standard smtp ones.
Click to expand...

yeah, I'm beginning to think that is a good idea.
but even if i setup a domain and email accounts for all.
what about the people who have accounts with mweb, polka, iafrica, etc?

I've used a company overseas called webhosting.net, do you think they offer alternate ports?

Please excuse my ignorance here, but this is all new to me.
 
Speak with DataPRO I'm sure they have a solution that would/will be perfect for you ;)
 
bwana v.3 said:
So get your own domain and name it after your development - I pay less than $8 (r50) per month for hosing in the states and they give me 650 email addresses as well as all the usual hosting stuff - good excuse to have a community bulletin board as well as other stuff. Many, mine included, offer alternate ports in case IS decides to block the standard smtp ones.
Click to expand...

Bwana, who do you use for hosting, seems like you have a pretty good package?
 
Cloudgazer said:
yeah, I'm beginning to think that is a good idea.
but even if i setup a domain and email accounts for all.
what about the people who have accounts with mweb, polka, iafrica, etc?

I've used a company overseas called webhosting.net, do you think they offer alternate ports?

Please excuse my ignorance here, but this is all new to me.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure the majority of those will let you set up an autoforward to other email addresses - Mweb (and therefore iAfrica) do. Otherwise there's always webmail.

Buster - I use powweb - I used to use webmasters but they jerked me around like crazy.
 
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