This message may have been posted twice. If so, sorry.

It sounds to me like he is asking about DSL equipment so he can connect two computers or offices like one can easily do with two modems.

There was a link on slashdot.org or linuxtoday.com a few months ago to an article where a guy outside the U.S. wanted to setup a DSL connection between two offices and the local telco wasn't offering xDSL yet. He got a leased line between the two offices, bought two ADSL bridges from Alcatel, hooked em up, and his offices were connected. Well, it wasn't that easy, but he accomplished it with the local telco only helping him with the physical line. Unfortunately I don't have the link.

Greg

Yes, you got my drift. Sorry for my lack of clarity, it was just laziness. I really just wanted to learn about how ADSL worked. I will seek out that link. Another way of asking my question would have been, what does the phone company need to do to make my DSL connection work? (Bear in mind I know nothing about networking.) My general guess was that my phone line must connect directly to some kind of router in the phone company's 'switchbox' that directs my phone number to the machine that provides me with an IP address etc. The problem is then, if two private individuals (remote wrt each other) want to establish such a link via their phone lines, how do they do it? It seems obvious that there has to be some kind of router that can connect one machine to the phone number, if we assume that the first machine isn't on the internet and so isn't able to resolve IP addresses etc. So my intuition was that without a leased line, such a link would be impossible, unless the phone company made it possible. This intuition seems to be confirmed by the story you refer to. But since the idea was to cut the phone company out altogether... Presumably, of course, the phone companies could enable modem-like xDSL dialup capability if they didn't stand to lose lots of money that way, by allowing phone subscribers to use all the frequencies available on the phone line. Or am I wrong? A much simpler case of my question would have been, given two computers with Alcatel bridges in the same room, what further technology (if any) would be required to connect them (possibly via a third computer) via xDSL? (Nevermind that in that case it would not be necessary to use xDSL.) Corvin -- Corvin Russell <corvinr@sympatico.ca> -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq