In this country, most ADSL providers use "set up your own web-server" and "Fixed IP address" as a slogan, and that's also what I have seen in reality. But of course, they might change the IP address eventually, but that is also the case for webhotels.
Additionally, most ADSL solutions use a Cisco router (mostly ATM based), which makes multiple computers on one connection very, very easy and no software required. Only Ameritech operates with a modem-based solution, which is the main reason not to choose Ameritech over here.
Setting up a home network requires you to be able to connect to a share on a Windows 2000. I haven't found a way to do without setting up the username of the Windows 9x computer on the Windows 2000 as a user. Maybe it is easy, I just haven't heard of anyone to succeed in doing so, even people proclaiming they are professionally educated Windows 2000 System Administrators. Most people I know, that want to make a share for public download on a Windows 2000 just install the FTP server to do so, because they cannot make the File Sharing stuff work that way. On Windows NT this is straightforward: You just set the permissions for "Everybody" to have read access.
And then we've got the problem with the appartments - a swedish company now offers flat-rate telephone services and 10Mbps internet services for as low as $15 a month, if at least 30% of the appartments in a building accepts the offer. The only problem is, that Windows sees all other appartments in the block as being on the LAN - and the default security setting in Microsoft Internet Explorer is low for LANs... this will probably lead to very bad press coverage.
Now, I didn't search for the disadvantages. I searched for special advantages, that MSFT could have in this upcoming ADSL market. Not just technical advantages, but advantages, that could become a sales parameter. |
