User:Tysmo/sandbox
Dial-up internet connections may feel like a relic of the past, but modern telephony equipment makes it cheap & easy to set up your own dial-up ISP!
Forget about pricey interconnects with the phone company: with a few pieces of commodity hardware and an hour of setup, you can emulate a blazing fast 56 kbps network connection between two or more clients.
Requirements
Hardware Requirements
| Suggested hardware | Used in this guide | |
|---|---|---|
| Dial-in server | Any computer that supports a Unix/Linux operating system | Raspberry Pi 3 model B |
| Server modem(s) | Any hardware modem(s) (see the Choosing Modem Hardware section below) | |
| Client device(s) | Any computer with a dial-up modem | Custom Windows 95 computer with a USRobotics Sportster 33.6k ISA modem |
| Telephony | Any device that can emulate a telephone line | 4x Linksys SPA-2102 analog telephone adapters (ATA) (don't stack these — they get hot!) |
| Connectors and adapters | Whatever you need to connect the server modems to the dial-in server |
|
| Suggested software | Used in this guide | |
|---|---|---|
| Dial-in server | Any Linux/Unix operating system | Debian Buster (Raspbian Lite release) |
| Telephony | Real PSTN telephone lines, custom dial tone circuitry, or a software PBX | Asterisk v16.2.1 |
| Tunnelling daemon | Any ppp daemon | Samba ppp v2.4.7 |
| Terminal manager | Any terminal multiplexer with virtual terminal support | mgetty v1.2.1 |
Choosing Modem Hardware
Despite variations in modem hardware, this guide should work with any dial-up modem that presents itself as a serial device to the operating system, whether it connects over USB, ISA, PCI, or RS-232.
However, you should avoid using software modems (sometimes called "softmodems" or "Winmodems") because they are error-prone and difficult to debug.
Three external RS-232 and one USB modem
Modems with DB-25 to DE-9 adapters
Modem and USB to DE-9 adapter
Raspberry Pi, modems, and USB adapters
Four SPA-2102 ATAs
Raspberry Pi 3 model B in a case
