The purpose of this lab is to get more familiar with networking alternatives, your network connection, and to find an ISP online.

1. Choosing between several WAN alternatives. Do problem 3 on Pg 245.

2. Documenting information about Your connection. To connect to a network, a workstation needs to be configured with certain information. This is true if the workstation is permanently connected to a network, or if it is dialing in to make a temporary network connection.

   For Your network connection, please document this key information:

   1. IP Address
   2. Subnet Mask
   3. MAC Address (sometimes called Ethernet or Adapter address)
   4. Name Server Address
   5. Default Gateway Address

   If you are running Windows95, you can find out these addresses by:

   • pressing the "Start" button
   • selecting "Run"
   • typing: winipcfg and pressing the "Enter" key.
   For other types of operating systems, please consult your local manuals and wizards.

3. Defining network connection concepts. Now that you have collected the values your workstation is using, please define each of the following concepts in a sentence or two:
   1. Dialup Networking
   2. IP address
   3. Subnet Mask
   4. MAC address
   5. Gateway
   6. Name Server
   (hint: remember you can check the pcwebopedia website)

4. Researching an ISP. Pretend that you are a journalist about to be sent to cover some trouble spot in the world by a small news organization. You will be there for three months, and expect to send back daily reports. You estimate that each day you and your team will generate 855.36 Megabits of data. (It might include something like 20 pages of text, one minute of voice data, 5 photographs, and 2 minutes of video, all compressed of course.)

   You will not have access to the country's university network connections, and the local Internet Cafe can supply at most a 33,000 bps asynchronous connection. At that slow rate it would take all of your work day just to send your data!

   Your Task is to find an ISP in the country that you think will allow you to transfer your daily reports in a much shorter amount of time, and (if available) to list the startup and monthly costs for the service. Luckily, there is a web site that lists ISPs for most countries of the world that you can use. It's URL is: http://www.thelist.com

   What you need to collect:

   1. The country you are going to, country code, and, if relevant, province/city/areacode.
   2. The issue you are reporting on, and what parts of it you will want to emphasize.
   3. The name and URLs of two of the ISPs that you looked at; and for each:
      1. how they connect to the rest of the Internet;
      2. the fastest type of connection they offer,
      3. its speed, and,
      4. if available, the setup and monthly costs for that type of connection.
   4. The name of the one that you selected to use, and why you selected it.
   5. How long it would take to transmit your data from the Internet Cafe, and how long it would take with the ISP and service you selected. (If you do not have access to the payload bit rate for the service you select, then use the total bit rate to calculate the transmission time.)
   Note: if you work together, be sure to choose different countries and ISPs for each person.

5. For Credit. Send an e-mail message with the answers to the questions to account: c130labs

   Please use the Subject line: CIS 130 (Day or Evening) Lab 6 -- Your Name