The Small Business Consultancy

Wireless A-O-Hell

Posted on 31 August 2004 by Weblog in Business
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RSL spent some time today attempting to get wireless broadband working for a customer. They had recently upgraded from AOL Dial-up to Broadband Silver at just under £20 per month. The immediate benefit was having the internet always on and still being able to use the telephone. This is the first occasion that we have used AOL Broadband, never mind installing and configuring it. As usual AOL’s proprietary systems and software ensured this wouldn’t be a simple operation.

Before going along to the customer site, some simple research on the Internet revealed very little about AOL Broadband. No one seemed to know anything or were placing comments with a pre-amble of, “I assume ….”. After a little trial and error, and taking the help information available to AOL subscribers we managed to work out how to get “home networking” working with Broadband Silver,but with a major contraindication!

  • Use PPPoE (Point to Point Protocol Over Ethernet), not PPPoA as indicated by AOL help
  • Enter the username as accountname@aol.com and set the password
  • Set MTA to 1400 or less
  • Set VPI to 0 (zero)
  • Set VCI to 38
  • Set-up AOL application to use TCPIP protocol as per details on AOL
  • Remember to add the router IP address to the TCPIP protocol gateway

    • Simple!

    Here it is, the big BUT ….

    AOL Broadband Silver does not support home networking. This means AOL will not offer support for any set-up using broadband routers. It also means you can’t have two outgoing connections on the same AOL account. Their systems spot when you attempt to use more than one instance of AOL and disconnects the older one! Fix for this is to pay an additional five pounds per month for AOL Broadband Gold. This allows the creation of multiple screen names and solves the issue of connections from various computers.

    We had a great deal of trouble getting the DLink wireless kit to work. After uninstalling network drivers and all versions of AOL from the laptop, the install went much simpler. The wireless networking was set-up and tested before reinstalling AOL 9. Allowed Windows XP to manage the wireless networking to ensure it connects without any user intervention and the option were defined to ensure best practice wireless security.

    If you only want to spend £20 per month on your broadband then don’t chose AOL, chose an alternative provider who uses the standard internet protocols. It will make your life much simpler. Try to chose a provider with a one month termination contract, not the 12 month term of many of the big boys. Think about why they might want to lock you into their service for 12 months!

    Job done.

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