dialup.worldJul 19, 2023

#introductions We cobbled together a free-to-use dialup ISP out of trash and spare parts. dialup.world is composed of four modems for simultaneous connections delivering speeds up to 33.6K.

This is currently a bunch of USR Sportsters hooked into Linux, but we are currently working on setups with Cisco gear, as well as some musings in 56K, other weird dialup appliances, and retro networking.

Check our website http://dialup.world for more information about the setup and how to access! In addition to the PSTN, you can also connect through PhreakNet (https://portal.phreaknet.org), a sort of telephone hobbyist/phreaker/collector darknet.

We also supply dialup access to the WebTV Redialed project (http://webtv.zone) which means if you dig your WebTV out of storage and hook it into a phone line, it *just works* with the original toll-free number and no modification needed on your part!

I invite you to watch our bad ideas become reality.

#modems #dialup #retronetworking #webtv

Show threadMichael RichardsonJul 19, 2023
@dialupworld Oh my. Retro-computing has reached the dialup era?
Show threadAGMSJul 19, 2023
@mcr314 I think NCF still has some dial-up equipment in Ottawa. Yes, now down to 23 lines in the 613 area code. https://www.ncf.ca/en/high-speed-internet/dial/ They’ve been running since 1993.
Dial-up Internet - National Capital FreeNet

National Capital FreeNet is an Internet Service Provider committed to digital access. We sell Internet, offer community services and support digital literacy across the National Capital Region.

National Capital FreeNet
Show threaddialup.worldJul 19, 2023
@AGMS00 @mcr314 That's incredible!
Show threadAGMSJul 19, 2023

@dialupworld @mcr314 That made me dust off the modem and attempt to get it working. After finding the right serial cable…

Anyway, an hour and some screeching noises later, I got it working as far as logging in - my NCF password doesn’t seem to work. Sigh.

Show threadAGMSJul 22, 2023

@dialupworld @mcr314 Several more hours later…

Got things working better, did a few dial-up Internet PPP sessions.

Turns out Bell Fibe telephone service is VOIP and doesn’t do the full frequency range of a real phone line, but if you cut the modulation scheme down to the older V.34 speeds, it’s useable.

Also Fedora Linux now has a DNS stub resolver so /etc/resolv.conf doesn’t work, instead there’s a resolvectl command to manipulate things.

And of course some telephone lines were broken too.

Show threadMichael RichardsonJul 23, 2023
@AGMS00 @dialupworld no voip system is going to have the frequency range of a POTS. I'm surprised you got anything working. In theory, though, if you can mark the line as *FAX*, then the VoIP system will actually terminate the V.34, etc. for you and give you a digital channel to the other end.
Show threadAGMSJul 24, 2023

@mcr314 Why not as good as POTS? Because they’re cheap? POTS evolved to digital telephone exchanges which sampled the signal at 8khz. What does VOIP do? Seemingly always worse, using compression to get lower bit rates.

Someone needs to invent VOIP-HD, with better than POTS quality. Bandwidth is certainly cheap enough now. Maybe even do stereo.

Show threadAGMS
Actually maybe that’s what Apple FaceTime, Zoom, Skype et al can do?
Jul 24, 2023 at 5:06pmWeb