[RndTbl] Really old MTS Internet drop?

Kevin McGregor kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com
Thu Feb 6 08:14:16 CST 2014


As I suspected, it was Cat 5e, misidentified by the owner. The line comes
in from outside and connects to some kind of enormous VCR-sized Motorola
box which (I'm told by the owner) uses an inordinate amount of power. I was
able to insert a Linksys WRT54GS between that box and their computer
transparently. Alas, I couldn't configure OpenWRT properly to get the
wireless working. It kept reporting "Wireless is disabled or not
associated" even though the wireless was enabled. I had limited time and
couldn't find a solution before I had to leave. Bummed.


On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 12:15 PM, Kevin McGregor
<kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com>wrote:

> Yeah, I worked with Thinnet in the early days. I'm planning to drop by
> this evening to take a look myself. I'll post a picture of what I find. :-)
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 11:24 AM, Sean Walberg <sean at ertw.com> wrote:
>
>> Here's a pic of the first DSL modem they rolled out to customers.
>>
>> http://24.77.241.77/~sean/escape/adsl.jpg
>>
>> I'm pretty sure it was RJ-45. In either case, if the cable plugs directly
>> into the card it's probably cable, if there's a T it's Ethernet.
>>
>> Sean
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 11:18 AM, Gilbert E. Detillieux <
>> gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> On 05/02/2014 10:59 AM, Hartmut W Sager wrote:
>>>
>>>> I do consider it quite possible that this is simply a 10Base-2 NIC, and
>>>> that MTS supplied such NIC's at one time (to match some ancient DSL
>>>> modem), even though I don't distinctly remember this from my MTS past.
>>>>
>>>
>>> While I'd have no trouble believing MTS supplied 10-Base-2/T combo cards
>>> in the early days, I'd have trouble believing their early DSL modems
>>> actually used coax only.  But that could be the case.  (I'd say you'd have
>>> to go back quite a bit more than a decade, though.)
>>>
>>>
>>>  A hub isn't needed - 10Base-2 has all the stations (computers, etc.)
>>>> along a linear cable with T-connectors at each of them, even the two end
>>>> units, and a terminating resistor on the otherwise open-ended
>>>> T-connector at each of the two ends.
>>>>
>>>> Man, I hated wiring the connectors onto those 10Base-2 cables!  Anyone
>>>> out there old enough to have handled the even older 10Base-5 stuff?  You
>>>> gotta love RJ-45!
>>>>
>>>
>>> Ah, memories!...  In my first few years in my current jobs (almost 25
>>> years ago now), I did work with some (inherited) 10Base-5 nodes, with the
>>> old external transceivers and stinger taps.  I don't remember having to
>>> actually install one myself, however.
>>>
>>> We did run 10Base-2 thin coax for a number of years, and I did install a
>>> number of external transceivers on that, as well as BNC T connectors for
>>> interfaces with internal transceivers.  This would include running a
>>> temporary bypass cable (which we affectionately called the "hyper-space
>>> bypass") between two points, so that we could splice into a section of
>>> previously "live" cable to install new connectors for new drops.  We got
>>> comfortable enough with doing this that we could add new drops on a wire
>>> without anyone on that segment even noticing an outage (except for maybe in
>>> the room where we were working, which was being bypassed).
>>>
>>> Fun stuff...  I don't miss it at all, though.  :)
>>>
>>> Gilbert
>>>
>>>  On 5 February 2014 09:50, Colin Stanners <cstanners at gmail.com
>>>> <mailto:cstanners at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     Likely: PC TV-capture card, or they're really confusing an ethernet
>>>>     cable.
>>>>     Very unlikely: ancient 10base-2 NIC to a hub somewhere with their
>>>>     DSL modem.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 8:40 AM, Kevin McGregor
>>>>     <kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com <mailto:kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>         Friends of my parents have had MTS Internet service for a decade
>>>>         or more (probably more).
>>>>
>>>>         They told me that they have a coax cable in the room with their
>>>>         computer (an IBM Pentium 4 3.0 GHz, to give you an idea of the
>>>>         age of this setup; they had MTS Internet service before that in
>>>>         an older computer) AND that this coax cable plugs directly into
>>>>         their PC.Has anyone seen this sort of setup? I didn't look at it
>>>>         myself; this is just what I got from them over the phone just
>>>> now.
>>>>
>>>>         Are they mistaken, or did MTS in the past provide a PC card with
>>>>         a coax connector for Internet access? It's possible that they
>>>>         didn't recognize an Ethernet cable, but I did explicitly ask if
>>>>         it was connected to the computer with a screw-on type connector
>>>>         which they confirmed it was.
>>>>
>>>>         Kevin
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Gilbert E. Detillieux           E-mail: <gedetil at muug.mb.ca>
>>> Manitoba UNIX User Group        Web:    http://www.muug.mb.ca/
>>> PO Box 130 St-Boniface          Phone:  (204)474-8161
>>> Winnipeg MB CANADA  R2H 3B4     Fax:    (204)474-7609
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Roundtable mailing list
>>> Roundtable at muug.mb.ca
>>> http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sean Walberg <sean at ertw.com>    http://ertw.com/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Roundtable mailing list
>> Roundtable at muug.mb.ca
>> http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
>>
>>
>
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