When Cablelink announced its cable internet access plans in July, Telecom Eireann was not too worried. TE had plans of its own. Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line offers a downlink of up to 6 Mb and an uplink of 640 Kb over conventional copper pairs. For over six months TE has been testing ADSL on a number of Dublin exchanges. However it has been remarkably difficult to get any kind of hard details out of TE. The only thing that sources in TE would confirm was that there was an ADSL test programme and that it was working. Apart from that the public was kept in the dark. After all this was all a pre-commercial test programme for user inside Telecom Eireann, at least according to the website. (http://www.adsl.tinet.ie) The website frontpage bears a passing resemblence to the Cult Of the Dead Cow (cDc) website which is ironic as TE's ADSL site looks like it was not intended for public viewing. The website could be TE's equivalent of a Back Orifice since it is so helpful on details about the ADSL test programme.
Telecom Eireann is conducting an ADSL test programme in Dublin. The exchanges involved appear to be Malahide, Portmarnock, Ballyboden, Rathmines, Dundrum and Lucan. These are the exchanges listed in the feedback forms on the website and also in the user reports. At the time of writing, the most recent user feedback was dated 31/10/1998.
A chance discovery laid bare the secrets of TE's ADSL test programme including the results of the tests. The results of the throughput tests are available on the site in two formats raw and formatted. The provide an fascinating glimpse into the setups and the exchanges involved. It should be stated that the results of the tests and the rest of the material was clearly placed on the internet and, apart from the ftp server, could be accessed by anyone. There were no warnings about confidentiality apart from the one that claimed that an IP address of a router that they posted on one page was highly confidential.
The test programme appears to be using static IP addresses and this is borne out by the site. However the information on the site indicated that they would switch to dynamic IP addresses using DHCP protocol. From the list of IPs involved it seems like the IPs assigned to the users begin at 159.124.152.100 and are part of the same Class C. A scan of the IP addresses and names revealed the following IPs and names:
159.134.152.34 multimedia.adsl.tinet.ie
159.134.152.35 streamworks.adsl.tinet.ie
159.134.152.36 ncserver.adsl.tinet.ie
159.134.152.37 appserv.adsl.tinet.ie
159.134.152.38 oracle.adsl.tinet.ie
159.134.152.39 mail1.adsl.tinet.ie
159.134.152.40 vocaltec1.adsl.tinet.ie
159.134.152.41 vocaltec2.adsl.tinet.ie
159.134.152.42 rokes.adsl.tinet.ie
159.134.152.53 platipus.adsl.tinet.ie
159.134.152.57 webcam.adsl.tinet.ie
159.134.152.66 adsl-rtr.gw1.exs.dublin.tinet.ie
The multimedia.adsl.tinet.ie is the webserver for the project and is known to the world as www.adsl.tinet.ie. The streamworks box appears to be the Xing server.
The test programme is being overseen by a group within TE known as the Broadband Networks Group. The manuals section of the site lists the e-mail and telephone contact details for the people associated with the programme.
The options available to testers are comprehensive. They can watch music videos, television (RTE1 apparently), avail of internet telephony calls to mobile phones and numbers in the 01 area, and connect to Telecom Eireann's Wide Area Network, (WAN).
The first stage of the test, according to the website is high speed internet access. The TE users were provided with 2 Mb connections to the internet via TInet. This would give them the equivalent connection speed of the average ISP. It is no doubt a sickening thing for most readers to see members of the TE ADSL test programme getting this speed of access when most have to cope with a 56K modem that never gives 56K access.
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