Organizations with seve ral offices located in the same city usually want to link them into a single secure n e t work. Although, not applicable for all situations, if your organizations are within the same city, you might be able to set up a “campus” type system using single- line Digital Subscriber Line (SDSL ) modems connected by a single pair of phone wires. | lawyers1 lab À Create a WAN Using SDSL Modems These bridging devices can connect to remote segments of your LAN. By Joseph L. Kashi and Thomas Boedeker Organizations with several offices located in the same city usually want to link them into a single secure network. Although not applicable for all situations if your organizations are within the same city you might be able to set up a campus type system using single-line Digital Subscriber Line SDSL modems connected by a single pair of phone wires. This pair of wires referred to by various names by different phone companies is most often called a dry pair. This is an unconditioned telephone wire circuit from one location to another without telephone equipment connected to it. These circuits are often much less expensive than other alternatives offered by the phone company and can achieve synchronous speeds of 2 Megabits per second Bridging the Gap The 300S modem was plugged in at each end point and connected phone cords to wall jacks on each end for this installation. Mbps in each direction within distances not exceeding two miles. Connection speed begins to drop after distances exceeding two miles but respectable speeds can be achieved at distances of four to five miles. SDSL modems are bridging devices used to connect to remote segments of your Local Area Network LAN . These segments can be in different buildings or separated by many floors in a building. The connecting pair of wires can be user-owned as in a campus LAN or provided by the phone company using its wiring circuits. Traffic is synchronous meaning the same speed in both directions which is an important consideration if you are sharing databases or files or want to backup data over the link. Configuration from point to point looks like the following Office A Hub SDSL modem dry pair wiring SDSL modem Office B Hub To give an example of their use and how easy or hard it is to connect offices with this setup we will take you through an actual installation