VailNet/ColoradoNet DSL Customer Checklist

Thank you for expressing interest in signing up for VailNet/ColoradoNet's high speed DSL internet service. In order to verify that your home or business computer(s) will be ready for this high speed service please take the time to review this document. You may find that your computers or building need a small amount of preparation work in order to be able to take advantage of this terrific high speed internet offering.

Physical Connections

Your high speed DSL signal will come in "piggybacked" on top of an existing telephone line. That telephone line will continue to work as it does today - it will just have a high speed internet signal riding over it as well. You will be able to use the telephone line at the same time that this internet signal is using the line because the signal rides at a very high frequency which is unused for voice, fax and traditional modem sounds.

WHERE IS YOUR TELEPHONE LINE?

However, given that this line is used as the "inbound pipe" for your internet signal its important that you consider where your telephone line jack is in relationship to your computer or network hub. Many people order DSL and have their computer far away from where the telephone jack for the telephone line being used is located. Think in advance when you order DSL service as to where your computer or network hub are physically positioned with respect to a phone jack for the telephone line you are ordering DSL service on. If the telephone line in question only has a jack in your kitchen, but your computer is downstairs in your basement, you may have a costly in-house wiring job to do in order to connect these together.

Also, if the telephone jack you plan on plugging your DSL hardware into already has a telephone, modem, or fax machine plugged into it today you will need to get a line-splitting jack extender to allow two devices to plug into this line at the same time. This is something you can purchase at RadioShack, Walmart, or any electrical outlet store (provides two jacks which plug into a single jack to share the same line). While this is just common sense, many people forget this small issue and end up having a problem during installation because they have two devices (the DSL hardware and the phone, modem or fax machine).

WHICH PHONE LINE TO PICK?

Many customers have more than one phone line in their home or business. When ordering DSL service, we suggest that you both pick a telephone line that is near your computer as well as the one that is least present throughout the rest of your home or business. In most cases of customers with more than one telephone line this would be the fax line(vs the main phone number). Keep in mind that if you have a telephone line that has four or five telephones connected to it throughout your home or business that each of these telephones will need a small "line filter" plugged between it and the wall to filter out the high pitched frequency that DSL lines carry. If you have one telephone line (your fax line) that is only present near your computer and another main telephone line that has five jacks and five phones throughout your home or business, you won't need a bunch of these filters if you put DSL on your fax line. Each filter costs roughly $15 and can be purchased from VailNet, but with a little pre-planning most customers can avoid the need to purchase these by simply picking the "least used" phone line in their home or business.

ELECTRIC OUTLET, CABLES AND DISTANCE TO YOUR COMPUTER?

The DSL hardware which sits between your telephone line and your computer has a few logistical requirements as well. Like a traditional external modem this device has one jack which plugs into your telephone line and another jack which plugs into your computer (in this case an Ethernet plug - more on this in a minute). The DSL device also needs electric power - it has a small transformer plug which needs to be plugged into an A.C. outlet). You need to supply a standard telephone cable from your wall jack into the DSL hardware (this is an RJ11 cable that you can buy at radioshack, wallmart, or any electronics store - the same kind of wire you would use to plug in a normal telephone with). The other connector cable on the DSL device is an Ethernet cable which will run from the DSL hardware into your computer. The DSL hardware comes with a 4-5' Ethernet cable. You need to be sure that once you've plugged in the DSL hardware that you will be able to plug this 4-5 cable into your computer and have enough RJ11 telephone cable to plug the device into your telephone line.

ETHERNET CONNECTION ON YOUR COMPUTER

The DSL hardware connects via an Ethernet cable into an Ethernet jack on your computer. You need to be sure that you have an Ethernet jack or card in your computer for this to work. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE AN ETHERNET PORT ON YOUR COMPUTER YOUR DSL CONNECTION WILL NOT WORK! If this is the case you can usually purchase an Ethernet card (for a PC) from a local computer store or through the Internet. Cards run from roughly $40 to $150 depending on what type of card you wish to purchase. Please make sure that you have an Ethernet card which will run at 10 Megabits per second (the other speed is 100 Megabits per second, but this will not work with your DSL hardware). It is also okay to have a 10/100 autoswitching Ethernet card, as long as it will work in "10 megabit" mode.

USING A HUB FOR MORE THAN ONE COMPUTER

If you have more than one computer you can plug your DSL hardware into an Ethernet hub. To do this you must either plug the Ethernet cable which comes with your DSL hardware into a crossover port of the hub or purchase a crossover cable to run from the DSL hardware into one of the hubs straight thru ports. In addition, the hub port into which the cable is plugged must run at 10Megabits per second.

ADDRESSES FOR BASIC DSL SERVICE

Our basic DSL service provides you with a non-routable IP address which lives behind a VailNet firewall. This protects your computer from unauthorized access from hosts on the Internet while allowing you access to the Internet. When your hardware is ready VailNet will supply you with the IP address, subnet mask, and default route to place on your computer.

More advanced DSL service, with publicly routable address space outside of our firewall, can be supplied to DSL customers for an additional service fee.

USE OF EXISTING ADDRESSES

If you have an existing network tied together via Ethernet and IP address space you may need to renumber your computers, printers, and other IP based hardware to a numbering scheme supplied by VailNet/ColoradoNet. You may wish to have your computer consultant or system manager contact VailNet/ColoradoNet to discuss this in advance of installation of service to avoid possible conflicts.