Chapter 22: Connecting to the Internet
Creating a Network Connection for an Existing Account To create a new network connection to a dial-up Internet account, you use the New Connection Wizard. For ISDN accounts, see "Creating a Network Connection for an ISDN Line" later in this section. For DSL accounts, your DSL installer should already have set up Windows to work with your account: some DSL accounts appear as dial-up connections in the Network Connection window, and you use this connection to log in.
If you installed Windows XP, the Setup Wizard may have created a network connection for your Internet account during Windows setup. Check the Network Connections window to find out.
Creating a Dial-up Connection The New Connection Wizard can create a network connection, with much more straightforward questions. Run it by following the instructions in the section "Running the New Connection Wizard earlier in this chapter. Click Next to move from screen to screen and answer the following questions:
- Network Connection Type Choose Connect To The Internet.
- Getting Ready Choose Set Up My Connection Manually.
- Internet Connection Choose the type of phone line (or cable Internet connection) you use.
- ISP Name Type the name that you want to use for this connection. It doesn't have to be your ISP's name--it's the name that Windows will assign to the connection icon.
- Phone Number (for dial-up accounts only) Type your ISP's access phone number.
- Internet Account Information Type the user name and password for the account (your ISP provides this information).
- Use This Account Name And Password When Anyone Connects To The Internet From This Computer If you want all user accounts on your computer to be able to use this Internet account, leave this check box selected.
- Make This The Default Internet Connection If you want to use this network connection to connect to the Internet whenever you run an Internet program and you're not already online, leave this check box selected.
- Turn On Internet Connection Firewall For This Connection Unless you have a specific program (for example, a chat program or interactive game) that doesn't work through a firewall, leave this check box selected.
- Add A Shortcut To This Connection To My Desktop A shortcut to your ISP connection used to be handy, but no longer. Now Windows can connect to your account automatically when you run your Web browser, e-mail program, or other Internet program, so you rarely need to start your ISP connection yourself.
The Wizard creates a new icon in the Network Connections window, and you see the Connect window described in "Connecting to Your Account" later in this chapter.
Creating a Network Connection for an ISDN Line To create a dial-up connection for an ISDN line, run the New Connection Wizard by following the instructions in the section "Running the New Connection Wizard earlier in this chapter. Click Next to move from screen to screen, and answer the following questions:
- Network Connection Type Choose Connect To The Internet.
- Getting Ready Choose Set Up My Connection Manually.
- Internet Connection Choose Connect Using A Dial-Up Modem
- Windows shows a list of available devices that contains the individual ISDN channels of your ISDN adapter, as well as an entry named All Available ISDN Lines Multi-linked, which is selected by default.
- Keep this selection if you want to bundle both channels of your ISDN line (for 128 Kbps speed), or clear it and select only one of the channels if you always want to connect with a single channel at 56/64 Kbps.
The Wizard creates the dial-up connection for the ISDN line. Now you can configure the ISDN line type to use. Follow these steps:
- Right-click the dial-up connection icon in the Network Connections window. Choose Properties from the menu that appears. You see the Properties dialog box for the ISDN connection.
- On the General tab, select the ISDN channel that you want to configure. Click the Configure button to display the ISDN Configuration dialog box.
- Set the Line Type, Negotiate Line Type, and other settings according to the instructions you receive from your phone company or ISP.
Some phone companies charge "data" calls by the minute, while "voice" calls are free. For that reason, some ISPs allow you to connect with the "56K Voice" line type, which disguises the connection as a "voice" call" to the phone company. This method is called Data Over Voice (DOV). If you create a multilinked ISDN connection that bundles both of your ISDN channels, you can also configure the bundling. Click the Options tab of your dial-up connection's Properties dialog box and select the bundling behavior under Multiple Devices:
- Dial Only First Available Device Uses only the first free ISDN channel and leaves the other one available, so you can still make or receive phone calls.
- Dial All Devices Creates a "static" 128 Kbps connection that uses both ISDN channels all of the time.
- Dial Devices Only As Needed Allows dynamic use of the ISDN channels, which you can configure by clicking the Configure button. With this setting, Windows initially uses only one ISDN channel, and starts using the second one when you fully exploit the bandwidth of this channel for an extended time period (for example, when you start downloading a big file). When the download is finished, Windows automatically disconnects the second ISDN channel again.
(Thanks to Robert Schlabbach for these instructions.)
