In article <jir*9z+-r@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>Desk Rabbit <nospam@example.com> wrote:
>> What you need is one of these
>> http://networking.ringofsaturn.com/R...Portmaster.php
>
>A bit more than I wanted :) And doesn't it require a POTS or ISDN line to
>operate?
>
>> Seriously though, what are you *actually* trying to achieve? If you want
>> to connect to your PC then use any one of the many remote control
>> programs. Are you wanting to give a dialup service for clients and
>> customers? If so use one of the many free dialup numbers such as
>> http://www.adial.co.uk/
>> http://www.free-dialup.net/
>> http://www.nocostdialup.co.uk/
>
>'Free' dialup comes from the same school as 'unlimited' broadband - ie it
>isn't. If you use it for anything more than trivial lengths of time you end
>up with a very large phone bill.
>
>I'm wanting a dialup with a geographic number. I'm also wanting one that
>doesn't become engaged or congested at busy times (which rules out GeoISP
>and similar). It's an advantage for it to terminate in my network because
>then I have control over onward routing, rather than at some random ISP. Of
>course I could tunnel, but then I'd waste precious dialup bandwidth on the
>encapsulation.
>
>Now it seems to me that an ATA is more complex than a modem, so I can't see
>why the PSTN-Internet interface couldn't accommodate a modem too. And get
>better rates than an analogue-analogue connection because a device
>synchronised to digital PSTN can do 56K.

I think you'll struggle to get 56K.

So, PC (digital) -> Modem (analogue) -> PSTN (digital) -> ITSP (maybe
same digital?) -> Internet -> ATA -> Modem (analogue)

I think that because you've got a 2nd analog link in there that 33K6 is
the best you could expect.

In paractice because of the nature of the Internet, jitter, packet loss
then maintaining a modem signal might be tricky...

Saying that, I've experimented with sending FAXes over the Internet (fax
machine -> ATA -> Internet -> Asterisk -> email) and it's generally
worked OK, but I'd not like to rely on it.

>I suppose the problem is the business model - Sipgate only make a tiny
>amount from incoming calls and most of their revenue is from outgoing calls.
>Such a system wouldn't have anything outgoing. But I'm not averse to paying
>an up-front fee.

You've nothing to lose (well a few pence) by connecting a modem to a BT
line and dialling your Sipgate number with an ATA connected to a modem
(connected to eg. a Linux box running PPP) and seeing what happens...

Good luck!

Gordon