At 7:40 PM -0500 12/1/04, Bill Cole issued a series of ones and zeros which decoded as:
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>>When a device says it's a 'DSL' router, that's just Ethernet, right?
>
>No, it usually means it has some form of actual DSL support.

But what's DSL? Digital Subscriber Line, yeah, but what IS it? I thought it was just Ethernet over phone lines, essentially. If it's not, then I really don't want a Speedstream, right? I thought a DLS modem just output Ethernet. Or are you saying that the Speedstream 5861 interfaces between the phone line and an Ethernet network?

>For example, the Speedstream 5861 has a direct interface to my DSL link and handles all of the DSL connection setup from DMT up through PPPoE.
>
>Reading the spec sheets is always mandatory...

Of course, but since I'm unaware (apparently) of what DSL is, the spec sheet does me no good.

I have plain vanilla 10/100 Ethernet coming in as my Internet connection. I want to install a router/firewall device to keep out spammers and such persons as I may come to despise for annoying my servers.

I'd like to be able to block all traffic from specific IPs or just selected ports from specific IPs. Will a Speedstream do that for me? Will a LinkSys BEFSR41 or BEFSX41 do it?