Homemade Dial-Up Server

[cooljoe04]

I've got a problem here that I would like to see if anyone has encountered, or has anything I should check.

My father lives about 5 miles from my house. I have T1-speed DSL at my house. Where he lives, is a broadband deadspot. Cable company wont give him cable, and telephone company wont give him DSL, and the wireless internet company in our area says there isn't a line-of-sight to their tower, so he can't get that either. Basically, dial-up or nothing.

Both he and I are running Windows XP. We both have 56K modems. (I have verefied this)

Through Windows XP, I have set up my computer to accept incoming connections via the telephone line. I made a separate username and password for my father, allowed him a remote connection to it, and allowed him access to the LAN so that he could get to the Internet.

From his house, I went into the dial-up account setup wizard and manually set up my connection. I put in my phone number, his username, and his password. Everything went in smoothly. The problem is, when he connects to my house, he only connects at, or near, 26.4kbps. Every time.

As I said before, I have verefied that both he and I have a 56K modem. I would think that with us being only a few miles apart, we are running off of the same switch at the telephone company, which I would have guessed would have made the connection that much faster. Yet it connects at only 26k every time. When I had dial-up as my ISP, I never connected as consistently as what he connects to mine. I also realize that a 56K modem will realistically only connect at the high 47Ks usually.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why it is connecting so consistently at such a slow speed? Or do you know of anything I can do to make it faster? It shows that it already has some compression on the packets. Is there a 3rd party program I can use to compress the transmitted data more?

The only thing that I could come up with, as a possible solution, is that the telephone company is somehow limiting it, since it is a voice line, either through some device in-line, or from the physical wiring to my father's house being old and not able to handle faster speeds. Neither of which seemed like they could be possible since you can use 56K dialup to another ISP and have it connect much faster.

Does anyone have any suggestions or things I should check?

Thanks,
Joey Phillips
http://www.apartment3wifi.com

[Jawsh]

First, check both of the modem's speeds. Go to control panel. Click on "Phone and Modem options." Choose the Modem tab. Click the modem and click Properties. Make sure the speed is at about 115,000. You probably wont get much higher even if you tried. You should do this at both points. You may also want to check the "Enable Compression" box. The FCC (I think...) regulated phone line speeds to be no more than 53K.

Next, if that does not help, make sure you have the latest drivers for your product. Make sure to make a system restore point in case something goes wrong.

Also, make sure that his computer is not infected.... You never know what malware can do :) It can make you BEG for 56K!

You may want to call the phone company and see if what you thought was true, about them limiting speeds. Has he ever connected to a dialup ISP with that same hardware? He should try one if he (or you, I guess...) has a friend around that uses it, just ask to borrow the line while you connect with your father's computer. then you could also try connecting back to your server at the same line. This will help eliminate possible causes.

I probably wouldnt do this, but you can always get yourself some higher speed modems.... 64k and 128k, if you can find them :) ... Also, if you want to have fun, you could set up directional 2.4GHz satellite antenna thingies... of course you would WPA and password it though :)

Hope this is of help....

[Tuttle]

56K modems aren't a true symmetric 56K. The end result of that is that if you take two regular 56K modems and dial from one to the other, your absolute best-case performance is only 33.6K. Even when you're dialling an ISP, you're only getting the higher speed downstream, and your upstream is limited to 33.6K.

ISPs use ISDN at their end rather than 56K modems in order to avoid capping all their customers at 33.6K.

From a consumer point of view, ISDN modems let you connect at either 64K or 128K. It's certainly worth you investigating (either between you and your dad or from him to an ISP), but I suspect you'll find it too expensive in both cases.

[Desert Sky TECH]

ISDN modems.... unless you can think of a way without using a phone line.

[Train]

And do not be surprised if the telco has capped there lines.
I have run into that many a time!

[cooljoe04]

Ok, to reply:

Jawsh:

-Both modem speeds are at 115,200.
-There is not a box that I can find to enable compression.
-The driver for my modem I just got off the net. It is an old card, but Windows XP recognised it and loaded it as a "Gensoft56K" The driver in my father's computer is brand new. (He just got the computer from Dell a couple days ago.)
-I am sure I do not have any malware on my computer. I am extremely anal retentive about crap on my computer. After doing 10-15 service calls for just to fix that, I tend to keep it very clean though current anti-virus scans scheduled daily, ad-aware scans frequently, and Spybot scans frequently. With my father's computer being direct from the factory, I am sure it's clean as well.
-No, neither he or I have connected to different ISPs with the same setup. With me having broadband, I have never had to use dial-up. With him not being able to get anything, he has not used any other ISP either. I will have to check to see if I can borrow someone's dial-up ISP info for a few min.
-I might check into the ISDN modems, but will more than likely have him just buy it from eslewhere.
-I was planning on calling the phone company and checking on my suspicions, but I figured I would get my facts straight and make sure it wasn't any fault of mine before I called them ranting and raving. I figured that's better than making an ass of myself.

Tuttle, Desert, and Train:

Thanks for the information. I will take in under consideration.

Thanks for the help. It makes sense with two 56Ks connecting to each other, and the ISDN modems ISPs have. As I said, I will check into it, but more than likely, just have him spend the $10-$20/month and just buy it from someone else.

Thanks,
Joey Phillips
http://apartment3wifi.com