Posted on

Using AOL with a Router

Why does everyone hate AOL (America On Line) so much? Probably because it allowed Joe Public access to the Internet, and Joe Public didn’t know how to behave. AOL also provides a simplified service at what has often been a premium price. And their marketing makes the technically literate cringe with embarrassment.

However, people do use AOL Broadband, using a modem. Today I had to get ADSL running for a small charity that happened to have a live subscription to AOL, so why not use that? No information on if or how it would work with a router, that’s why not.

However, some experimentation, judicious guesswork and a polite but firm telephone call to an overseas call centre produced the following results:

First off, remember this is for England only. Secondly, AOL calls the user-ID a ’screen name’. Make sure you get the case exactly right – it’s sensitive!

So, to make AOL work with your router as follows:

  • PPP User ID: [screen name]@aol.com
  • PPP Password: [usual password]
  • PPP Authentication: CHAP (or PAP+CHAP)
  • VCI: 38
  • VPI: 0
  • Modulation: G.DMT
  • Dynamic IP address
  • Encapsulation: VC Mux (Multiplexed)
  • Protocol: PPPoA

This assumes you know what PPP is, and how you program your router. If not, I hope you’ve got a good router manual. Set this lot up and away you go – LCP will provide the necessary IP address, DNS and so on – filtered down to the machines on the LAN by DHCP automatically. Well it worked for me!

AOL doesn’t provide a full-on two-way Internet connection, but it probably does what most domestic users want and if they’re caught in a twelve-month contract there’s no sense in cancelling early.

Posted on

Beefeater – what do you expect?

I’d normally give any chain of eateries with a name like Beefeater a very wide berth. About ten years ago I went with a group of friends to and Angus Steak House, and it was the vegetarian starvation zone you’d expect – with an attitude to match.

Today I was looking for somewhere to eat near Borough Green with Barry (a devout, but discriminating carnivore) and he was very keen to try the Beefeater. To be honest, there wasn’t any choice in the area and we’d been suck in the M25 traffic for what seemed like eternity and we had a lot of work ahead of us, so I went along with it.

As it turned out they didn’t have much that was pure veggie (a side order of chips?) but if you each cheese or fish you’d be okay. But at least they didn’t have the attitude.

Posted on

E7Even

I’ll try not to say “I told you so”, but e7even (aka e7broadband) has ceased providing any kind of service to its customers. Has it gone bust? No. It seems to have done a deal to let Mr Marrocco (186k) take over their customers – they won’t give the MAC to anyone else. For another ADSL provider to take over a line from another provider you need a MAC (Migration Authorisation Code) and guess what? E7even aren’t providing one of those either. It seems doubtful that the customers that paid up-front will be receiving a refund.

E7even was the cheapest ADSL provider by quite a large margin. When they launched their customers felt they had a bargain – it did work quite well. The rest of us figured out that they’d either be unable to provide proper backup at that price; had swung a fantastic wholesale deal; or had found a sure-fire way of going bust.

As time passed there were signs of disagreements and problems with E7even’s wholesale suppliers (yes, they had more than one) and the whole thing started to fall apart.

Now E7even’s customers are faced with either losing their service (their money already seems to have gone) or sign up with Mr Marrocco for a high-priced alternative. I’ve seen nothing to prove that 186k is capable of supporting retail ADSL users. As a company it’s seems to be going around with a pot of money and buying everything it can.

This story will, no doubt, roll on for some time to come.