douglasb

My phone line is ADSL enabled and I use broadband from my home PC. My employer encourages working from home when there is no advantage to being in an office and not on a customer site. In the past, they have provided an ISDN line (BT Highway) for anyone who wanted to do this. I've never bothered with this as I can download anything as fast as I need to on the home PC with broadband, and dial-up (from the company laptop) is fine for picking up emails (particularly when dialling an 0800 number) .

They are now offering broadband for home working. As I have been doing more from home and more useful information has gone on the company Intranet, there are now more reasons for me wanting a fast "always on" connection from home to work.

I assume that they will be putting a VPN in place for broadband access. So, can I use my existing phone line for access to my (home) ISP from my PC and also to (work) VPN from the laptop? Or will I need a second ADSL enabled line?

Only having broadband access from one PC at a time isn't a problem to me (should that be necessary). If it isn't necessary to install a second line, I don't see why that expense should be incurred. If only one line is necessary, I'd prefer to get the company to pay my monthly ISP costs .

I'm sure someone out there will know the answer.

Doug

lightning101

You can swap between providers in XP in the internet settings, i.e. changing IP address. Just setup a shortcut to do so. Then set up both outlook accounts.

sti555

If your work provides you with an adsl enabled line, you will connect to your workplace using dsl & vpn..

If your home ISP is a dialup account, providing your use a Z filter you will be able to use your dialup connection at the same time..... But if you just want to access your home isp mail, then just amend the smtp settings in outlook to whatever the adsl isp offer (in this case the same as your work account).. do all your browsing from your adsl enabled line, your home email will be delivered no problems..

You normally can't have two adsl accounts on one line, & there is no need to in this case either..

Just be warned if you connect to your workplace & they run a proxy server they will be able to monitor your net usage!

Hope that helps, might of got the wrong end of the stick It's been a long day lol!

douglasb

Thanks guys.

Lightning - I'm using two different PCs. Home PC on ADSL; work's laptop on dialup. Home PC is on XP; laptop is on W2K (and has to be due to some of the software that is running).

sti555 - You may not have got the wrong end of the stick, but perhaps you picked it up somewhere midway . However I think you have given me the answer with .

It's actually the other way round from what you mention. I have an ADSL enabled line provided by myself for home use. Work access is dial-up. I can use both at the same time at present (and as the work dial-up number is an 0800 one it isn't costing me anything). However, work want to go broadband (which will be dsl and vpn).

In this case, I either need two ADSL accounts on one line, or need work to install a second line. I already have ADSL Internet access from the home PC for surfing and personal email. I use dial-up on the laptop for work related email and the company Intranet. If work is going to move to broadband I don't want this taking over my home phone line from my current home ISP.

This is for very much the reason that you mentioned. Clicking on some links in Muppets is not a good idea at work... No problem about work knowing what sites I've visited from the laptop during what pass for normal working hours, but I don't want problems from surfing via work evenings and weekends.

A second phone line actually makes sense as work can install a fax and phone. This will probably work out cheaper than me having to make work related calls to landlines from the mobile and is easier to administer than submitting an itemised phone bill each month.

Thanks

Doug

ScoobyDaz

Doug,

If you want to surf from your home PC and log into work on your laptop all you need is an ADSL router, this way you can plug multiple pc's into it and go about your business on each on, i.e VPN into work on the laptop and surf the net off your desktop simutaniously. You will only need one ADSL line (a bonus if work is paying) and they wont be able to monitor/enforce what you surf off the home PC as your going nowhere near the corporate lan. Send me a PM if you want to discuss further

Daz

ChrisB

What Daz suggest is fine... if work use a software VPN client from your laptop to the office. Then you just need your router to support VPN pass thru and sorted.

If work want to create a site-to-site VPN ie your router/firewall to their office, you might face a problem.

To stop remote clients / sites being a possible method of virus attack you can set a VPN tunnel to allow only traffic to the other end of the VPN, not anywhere in between ie the 'Net.

Chris.

awestaco

Plenty of routers can do VPN Pass Thru. Vigor 2600 is a good starting point for about £150. Good Firewall, VPN Pass thru, switch on back to plug 4 machines into etc, and ADSL router all built in, VPN site to site(if work permits)

Also to stop attack of work VPN machine - you can get software firewall on Laptop to stop this.

What VPN Client / VPN machine at the office do you use?

Anthony

douglasb

I don't know; it's not in place yet.

Thanks all for the info. It sounds like it could be possible, however, as mentioned before if work want to install a second phone line that has some benefits as well.

Doug

awestaco

I deal with VPN solutions from a company called Sonicwall - they manufacture business products etc for Firewall and VPN needs.

Also come with an excellent VPN client system.

The beauty of ADSL is the fact that you don't need 2 lines installed - simply share the one ADSL line. Home machine accesses the web normally and the work laptop uses a VPN tunnel to access work etc. Both machines can run at the same time.

Let me know if you need further info.

Jeff Wiltshire

Turn your back for two minutes and even the Distie is trying to steal your business

douglasb

Thanks. One question that occurs is that if I have both home PC connected to my ISP and laptop using the same line to the work's VPN, I guess I don't get 512K speed on both connections simultaneously (ie. I have a total 512K bandwidth and this has to be shared)? Probably not a huge issue unless downloading large files on both at the same time.

Doug

scoob_dood

You will be sharing the bandwidth between the 2. I use Netscreen Remote on my work laptop, which plugs into the private side of a shared internet connection (using WinXP) and it connects to the office network like a dream - I'd always had to get a public IP when accessing VPNs before.

- Jon

awestaco

You'd have been the first on my list to call to pass it on!!

I knew that you'd see something like this sooner or later.