TurboNet Upgrades -

TurboNet Upgrades - Again

TurboNet was born in February (or April or May - it was a long labor) of 1995, the child of Cactus Computer Co. Its Webmaster, Tony, had been writing software for many years, and he planned to write programs for Internet Service Providers. He needed a few dial-in lines for testing purposes, but we thought it would stay small - we didn't anticipate that it would grow as it has.

Growth was helped, of course, by the fact that Pullman is toll-free to Moscow. And in June of 1996, Bovill, Deary, Elk River, Genesee, Harvard, Potlatch and Princeton joined the local-calling area.

At left is a photo of the first generation TurboNet setup. Each of those modems was plugged into a port on a multiple serial card - a Chiliport (buffered for faster throughput - very fancy for its time). The computer in the picture was one of the Internet servers. From the very first, we had more than one Windows NT server, so programming could be done on a machine separate from the dial-in server.

Eight off-the-shelf modems grew to twenty-four, then thirty-two. By this time, as you can see, there was a major problem in simply finding a way to plug in the AC adapters. We tried multiple wall outlets, multple surge suppressors, and finally multiple surge suppressors plugged into multiple wall outlets. There is simply no efficient way to do it.

Also, at that time Windows NT was having trouble with RAS (Remote Access Server). People were dialing in with Trumpet Winsock, and occasionally RAS would re-set their dial-up parameters to make their system think it had a direct network connection to the Internet. The dial-up would fail, they would phone us, and we would tell them how to re-set their system. We never did nail down the problem completely, but that, our unexpected growth, and other things convinced us it was time for a more professional system.

So we bought U.S. Robotics Total Control Netserver boxes. Each of these has sixteen modems and a router, and is connected by ethernet to the main router, the hub, and to the Windows NT 4.0 servers below. Three other Internet servers are scattered around the store. Over time the speed and capacity of these computers have been upgraded as well. The first servers were Pentium 66 machines. Each of them had dual mirrored 4G hard drives. (Those were expensive at that time!) Our biggest server now is a dual Pentium Pro 200, and we have somewhere near twenty Gigs of hard drive space available. The reason I'm not too specific about the hard drive space is that storage is storage, and any that isn't being used for the Internet tends to get used for something else until we need it.

As of June, 1997, we have eight USR Total Control Netservers, each with sixteen modems.

You can also get an idea of the mass of telephone wires going to the Netservers in the picture. In hindsight, we should have taken the time to make short, straight phone cables, tie them together in bundles of sixteen, and bind them together to make a pretty picture. But when we add phone lines, we always seem to be in a hurry. We don't want anyone to get a busy signal because we're waiting to hook up the new lines. So we take ready-made cables from our retail store and plug them in between the banks of sockets on the wall and the Netservers.

When you take a ready-made cable out of a package, it's all rolled up, and instead of a nice, straight cable, you have spaghetti city. Spaghetti city is not so bad - we hide it in the Internet closet in our store. But the USR Total Control Netservers are also unable to do some of the things our over 1000 customers want in the way of Internet access. So we are now (late June, 1997) installing the next generation of equipment.

At right is the back of our Ascend Max TNT. This is the newest of the new generation of ISP boxes. It is carrier class equipment, which means it is reliable enough to be used by telephone companies, and many of them do use the TNT for special purposes. As I write this, our TNT is hooked up to six incoming channelized T-1 phone lines, each of which will carry twenty-four individual modem conversations. We expect to have the TNT configured and on-line by the end of June. (Update - 10:00 a.m. June 24th, we made the switch.)

But that won't be the end of the upgrade. Because we are pushing the limits of GTE's equipment in Moscow, this process will probably take longer than the initial setup in 1995. By Mid-July the TNT should contain 192 digital signal processing "modems" which can handle the K56flex standard. TurboNet's Moscow customers will be able to get about half again the download speed that they now get, if they own a K56flex modem. As you travel farther from Moscow, a K56flex modem will gain you a smaller and smaller increase in speed. In the areas farthest from Moscow - Deary, Elk River and Potlatch, we don't expect 56K modems to do any good at all because of accumulated line noise based on distance, the age of the wires, and the age of the GTE switching equipment between them and Cactus. 56K download requires a perfectly clean line, and as line noise increases, line speed decreases. The maximum expected speed over great phones lines is 53K, and you can definitely go lower than 33,600 baud on marginal phone lines.

We will be publishing a map of download speeds at particular locations after the 56K equipment is installed. Anyone who wishes to volunteer for this project is very welcome. Please just send us your address, a description of your location in words, your modem brand and model, and your average download speed.

One advantage the Max TNT has over other ISP equipment is that it will connect directly into GTE's network. In reality, it is a phone switch as well as an Internet Service box. This main trunk connection will actually make TurboNet a mini-phone company. Direct connection eliminates another source of noise between your phone and our equipment, the conversion which otherwise would happen at the interface between GTE and Cactus. Even with ordinary 28,800 or 33,600 baud modems, this will lead to faster, more reliable connections.

Please note that when I say "up to 53K download", I mean that 53K is a maximum theoretical limit, not the speed you should expect. When we compile our map of download speeds, we'll be able to advise everyone, based on their location, whether a K56flex modem is a good deal for them, a waste of money, or somewhere in between.

Please also note that K56flex is different from X2. Please don't buy a U.S. Robotics, Cardinal, or any other X2 modem if you connect to TurboNet. You'll pay more, but get less than if you bought an ordinary 33,600 baud modem. Get a modem which says "K56flex" instead. And please let us know your average connection speed for our map. Your neighbors will thank you.