Build your own dial-up ISP in 2019 (external)
Charming read on how one might construct their own dial-up internet connection in this age of egregious Xfinity bills1. On the surface, it sounds like a goofy lark, but if you dive into retrocomputing enough, you find plenty of systems with readily available modems and few (if any) other means of networking. I always wondered how complex one would need to get to set up a system like this. If you could trick the modems on either end into not caring about hook/dialing/&c., could you just go over an audio connection and skip telephony? I don’t know the answer to that, but the linked article accomplishes it with a virtual PBX and analog VOIP adaptors – a purpose-built private telephony system in the middle. It’s an interesting read, and a good link to hold on to for future reference.
- I know broadband isn’t nearly as ubiquitous as we’d like to think it is. I’d also be willing to guess that anyone trying to set up such a kludge of a system has probably managed to get themselves hooked up. ↩︎