May 12, 1999
Want to Set Up a Home Network?
Better Get Teenage Tech Support
By RICH JAROSLOVSKY
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION
Setting up the AnyPoint network is simple. Getting it to work isn't.
When it comes to new consumer technology, I'm what you would call an
"early adopter." (Also known as a "sucker.") So when I encountered Intel's
new AnyPoint home phone-line networking devices in my local computer
superstore, I couldn't resist. In my case, the goal was simple: allowing the two
computers the kids use to access the Net over my high-speed Internet
connection provided by At Home, the big national cable-modem service.
Setting up the network took me no more than 10 minutes per computer. I
chose to use the external AnyPoint adapter, which operates through the
parallel port of the computer. I detached the printer cable from the computer,
plugged it into the AnyPoint adapter, and plugged the adapter into the printer
port on the computer. Then I plugged the telephone line from a wall jack into
the adapter, installed the simple Intel-provided software, and moved onto the
next machine.
Then the fun began.
When I turned on the three computers, two of
them immediately recognized that they were on
a network. The third computer, though,
stubbornly refused to communicate with the
other two, or even recognize them. Even worse,
I immediately lost all Internet connectivity
through the cable modem. During a nearly
two-hour phone call to Intel's technical support
(such support being provided free for 90 days),
I repeatedly installed and uninstalled the
software, fiddled with arcane Windows settings
that I never knew existed and connected and
disconnected the adapters, all to no avail. Ultimately, I disconnected the
network and called At Home for instructions about how to reconnect myself to
the Internet. (At Home provided this help for free -- along with a warning
that the next time I called on the same issue, it would cost me $35.)
It took several more hours of phone calls and fiddling before I noticed an odd
thing. When the At Home service had been installed, it gave my computer a
name -- a string of letters, numbers and characters, including a hyphen. When
the Intel networking software was installed, it recognized the name of the
computer -- except that it automatically changed the hyphen to an underscore.
When I went into my Windows settings and changed the underscore back to a
hyphen, my Internet access was magically restored. (Intel's software doesn't
allow hyphens, I was later told. When I related this saga to Intel tech support,
they expressed surprise that changing the name didn't disable AnyPoint.
"That's not supposed to work," one tech said.)
Now I had two remaining problems: The second computer on the network
could communicate with the first computer, but couldn't access the Internet
via the cable modem. And third computer on the network stubbornly refused
to communicate in any manner with the other two.
After still more phone calls to Intel -- tech support was pleasant enough and
full of suggestions for altering the various Windows network settings, none of
which worked -- I finally used a radical solution for the problem of the third
computer: I pulled it out completely and substituted another machine. For
reasons unknown, the new Windows 95 computer worked where the old
Windows 95 computer would not. Finally, I had all three computers
communicating with each other.
But, except for the computer with the cable modem, still no Internet access.
More phone calls to Intel and At Home. More suggestions to try changing
various settings in the computer. More frustration.
Finally, Intel tech support essentially gave up. They concluded that the manner
in which At Home and my local cable company were delivering my Internet
service was incompatible with AnyPoint. While they offered to refer my (by
now moot) issue of getting the third computer onto the network to a more
advanced level of tech support, they said there was nothing more they could
do with the ISP issue. I expressed my disbelief -- after all, At Home is one of
the biggest cable ISPs in the country -- but Intel offered no further recourse,
except to take my adapters back to the store and ask for my money back.
Then, several days later, my family was visiting some friends in Washington
who have a teenage son. Young Adam and his father had run a full Ethernet
network through the walls of their house in order to share a single DSL
connection. As they showed off their handiwork, I regaled them with the saga
of my AnyPoint adventure. When I described my problems, young Adam
wondered whether the adapter had a working IP address on my internal
network. He showed me how to run a diagnostic routine by clicking on the
Windows Start menu, choosing Run and typing in "winipcfg."
I did so when I got home. Sure enough, the adapters on the client computers
didn't have IP addresses. (Apparently the Intel software is supposed to set this
automatically, but it didn't.) I assigned addresses to the adapters, using
information gleaned from the AnyPoint Web site. Presto! Internet access on
all three computers.
So now it works. And it works pretty well. But a consumer product it isn't.
Leaving aside the dozen hours of my time and the mounting frustration of
trying to get it to work, I had to learn a lot more about Windows networking
than I care to know -- and a lot more than a typical user should have to know.
My bottom line: If you get AnyPoint, prepare for the possibility of a lot of
frustration. Either that, or get yourself a really smart teenager. |
