Getting Online in SG

1. Cable Modem
2. ADSL
3. GWN
4. DSL Setup
5. Dialup
6. Detailed Discussion
7. WiFiHotspots
   1. Cafes
   2. Pubs
   3. Food Courts
8. Ethernet UTP plugin points
9. LinuxHosting
10. Misc Notes

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TODO: Remove outdated discussions and consolidate internet access information in a structured table.

Accessing the Internet while in Singapore The simplest method for foreigners is to visit one of the Internet Cafes. Rates are around S$4/hr. (Simple ones charge $1/half-hour). All of them are Windows shops. You didn't expect Linux, right? For folks who have settled down here, there are several connections methods and ISPs: The broad classification done is for home or business usage. Biz usage is more expensive than home. However you can get fixed IPs. Biz folks in selected areas may be able to get SDSL also.

Cable Modem

Provided by Starhub+SCV, works fine with Linux. Though, they have a habit of blocking incoming ports such as port 80,25 etc. Beware!

Price Plans Here

ADSL

Compatible routers include (but are not restricted to):

• Aztech DSL605EW, DSL600EW

• Shiro DSL805EW

• Linksys WAG200G and WAG325N.

• Dlink DSL-G604T and DSL-G804V

• NETGEAR DG834GB

Singnet: Current residential plans.

SingTel Magix is not being offered anymore as it is fabulously too expensive.

PacificNet: Have heard complaints that they block ports arbitrarily. Bundled modem is Aztech 305E

Qala: Upload capped to 256k

GWN

Historical Note only. GWN went out of business in 2002. Excellent service, with SDSL -- [[SanjeevGupta]]

For Residential Usage: The popular speeds are either 512K, 1.5Mb ADSL. ADSL modems come in two flavours: USB (lots of problems reported with Linux, mostly will not work) and Ethernet modem (works fine with Linux but you have to pay extra cash, I paid about S$88 extra.) Those with ADSL routers will have an easier time since all that you deal with is an ethernet connection. Read on for tips on setting up AzTech 305EU ADSL Modem (This modem is quite popular with local ISPs) Alcatel SpeedTouch ADSL USB Modem Setup HOWTO

DSL Setup

Use one of the compatible all-in-one ADSL2+ Wireless Gateways listed in the ADSL section above for minimal fuss. Just enter+submit your PPP username and password into the router's web configuration interface and you should be all set. Connect your PC/laptop via Ethernet or wireless and obtain IP address from the router via DHCP.

Basically, these are the relevant information:

• VPI/VCI (or "PVC"): VPI=0, VCI=100

• Protocol: PPPoA (vcmux) or PPPoE (llc)

Notes:

• ADSL gateways can use PPPoA. Normal routers can only use PPPoE.

• The PPP username has to be in the form "johndoe@singnet", or " janeroe@pacific.net.sg" depending on which provider you use.

Dialup

* Singnet Dialup Plans

Providers: Singnet, PacificNet, Starhub. Singnet and Starhub also provide free dialups if you have a telephone line registered in your name. You pay only the actual phone charges (between 45c-75c an hour). I believe the free dialup will stop from 2003. There will be a small 2c/min fee.

You can skip reading the below discussion if connectivity is all you are looking for.

Detailed Discussion

From LUGS mailing list:

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Aztech DSL Turbo 900E (Ethernet), SingNet? 256K ADSL service. Works fine. (Use Roaring Penguin's rp-pppoe package)

(anand)

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Qala, GWnet and Pacnet on Redhat server. Usually the login is done on the modem through a web browser. From there on you are on the internet. I have set my computer on DHCP. The brand I am using is Aztech, the same one you get from Pacnet when you say it is going to be used on a Mac using ethernet.

(Antony)

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The Aztech 305E is the current ethernet modem being bundled with Pacific Internet (maybe with Singnet in the future). It is also available in modem and router versions off the shelf.

Here is a small list of modem that work. Alcatel Speedtouch Home/Pro, Cisco 827, Efficient 5260/5660, Aztech 900E, Aztech 305E, Zyxel 643. For more information, do refer to www.azacamis.com.

Virtually any ethernet-ADSL modem is usable with Linux. For conventional bridge modems, a third party client such as Roaring Penguin's PPPoE is needed to establish a connection. Things to note:

# The modem uses a set of numbers VPI/VCI (or ATM PVC) which determines the ATM channel it uses. If someone says a modem from Magix doesn't work with Singnet Broadband, then the VPI/VCI is wrong, not that the modem "doesn't work". These values are configurable in the modem. # The new DSL305E bundled with Pacific Internet is operating in a so-called "half-bridge mode" by default; but it can also be set to a "transparent bridge" mode, which is a mode that is more familiar with people using earlier ethernet modems.

The advantage of this "half-bridge" mode is that PC clients no longer need to use WinPoet or Roaring Penguin to dial in. Plain DHCP is enough to get one connected to the Internet. The modem does the dialing with its own PPP client.

KokHong also said: "The bandwidth is provisioned by the ISP. Half or full bridge, the bandwidth is the same. The only difference is in the connection setup. Half-bridge (a.k.a. "DHCP Spoofing" in Alcatel terms) is conceived to make connecting to the Internet using DSL lines painless for users without requiring them to be experts in networking. Since most PCs have Windows installed, and using DHCP to obtain an IP address, ideally, users just have to plug in the modem, power on the PC and be able to surf the Net in no time. This is for the real dummy user who pose the greatest headache to ISP and modem manufacturer support lines. Of course the other main reasons are to lower ISP support costs and improve rollout efficiency. I don't really like the mechanics behind half-bridge."

"Current implementations make use of a short lease time in the range of 30 seconds to 1 minute so that the PC can always get the public IP quickly. Implementation (runtime) issues have driven the use of the DHCP "force renew" mechanism triggered by the DHCP server (the modem) instead of having the PC poll the DHCP server to renew its IP. I'm not sure what is the ratio of this implementation in the market. Probably none right now, as it is a new development. The caveat of this method is that only one PC can ever be connected to the Internet. Of course, this one PC that is connected to the Internet can act as a router to share the connection to a small LAN."

(KokHong)

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I use Qala (www.qala.com.sg). It costs S$75 a month for a 512/256 link. Their service has been very good and their tech support seems to have a clue in the Linux space - or atleast the times when I had to call - which was really to reset the line itself. (Harish)

I am using PacNet? ADSL and just want to share some of the horrible experience. They are okay, speed-wise. The connection is mostly stable, may last a few days, although they are bad days when I got disconnected a few times. The tech support guys are not very linux friendly, but you can't expect much from them. Few months back when I try to point out that their primary cache DNS that was assigned through pppoe was broken for querying the domain "singtel.com.sg", I was told that they only support windows user, and insist that their DNS is fine, and I have to use nslookup (instead of host and dig) in MS-Prompt and do a graphic capture of my MS-Prompt screen to convince the guy that they problem can be verified not just in Linux. About telephone line, I felt that I have a more stable connection after switching to dedicated phone line for my ADSL, but it could be because PacNet? is also improving their side.

To answer Kang Khoon Seang question, PacNet? isn't blocking port 21,22,23,80 nor 443. But beware that they have been changing their "policy" from time to time. In early 2001 they blocked all the low ports with the following quote when asked: "Our broadband services do block the privileged ports of 0 -1024. This is for security purposes for our users." and "It is also very weird that your (company) firewall is blocking access on the unprivilege ports, instead of the other way round" - whatever concept of security that was !!! This they later revoke after 2 weeks of back and forth emails with the tech support people.

Some ports, for example port 389 (ldap) they have closed last year for no clear reason, despite my heavy protest. Just beginning of this month they start again blocking my port 22 for no reason, and after getting answer of "we do not block any port" (without mentioning that port 389 which I already gave up), and "could you tell us how did you find out", followed by my proofs using telnet to port 22 from various networks, finally they open it up, saying it was a technical problem. I find that PacNet? tech support is disappointing, and they tend to shoot back the problem to user instead of checking with their own back-end people. I hope someone from PacNet? is reading this mailing list.

The cases I mentioned above are real. Sorry for bitching here, but I think potential customers should be aware of these stuffs. (Rusman)

11-Dec-2002: However, Thanks to Jeffrey Lim, he has adapted an OSS driver to suit SingNet? BB,

He says: "Firstly, this driver is still in beta (IMO). But hey it works! Credit goes to the people who put in the effort to write the software, as well as (in this new version) to make it more modular so that it is now much easier (than before, as compared to version 5.0) to get the driver working with our specific situation here, with the Aztech 100U and SNBB (*Note for people surfing with PacNet? or whatever ISP, as well as those using the Hurricane - you'll have to do the necessary work to find out the VID/PID stuff, and the VCI/VPI stuff*). See http://www.flashtux.org/index.php?lang=en for more info."

"Please remember to READ THE README. The last time i did the packaging, from the support questions that i got, apparently some people just couldnt figure it to read the readme (even though i had left specific instructions). This time i leave specific instructions (again) - but i've made the README even more obvious liao (just do an 'ls' - you'll see it), so if you dont see it this time... good luck to you. And may i now point you to the text that started it all... http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt -jf ps. see the README-INSTALL.(yada yada yada) file for installation and setup instructions. It is also available on www.lugs.org.sg"

WiFiHotspots

Wireless Hotspots: Suntec, Coffeeclub etc:

Cafes

Pubs

Food Courts

• Singnet: was offering free 12months to new subscribers in 2005.

• Starhub: free to Starhub Gee! customers (@Dec 2005)

Thanks to StephanFebrary for the following information: The good news is that I finally managed to get my "Wireless Groove On" at Starbucks. FYI I am posting some hassles that I picked up with my RedHat? 8.0 PCMCIA configuration that seemed a little odd, as well as step-by-step instructions on getting this going. The problems: The manufacturer's ID for my Linksys card was notably absent from "/etc/pcmcia/config" There was one malformed line for "manfid" in "/etc/pcmcia/config", the line read "manfid:" instead of simply "manfid" without a separating ":".

wlan-ng seemed to screw with my system so I removed that. Here are the steps, in order that I took to get my link up:

1) - added the following entry to /etc/pcmcia/config card "Instant Wireless Network PC Card" manfid 0x0274, 0x1613 bind "orinoco_cs" - The ID string and manufacturer's IDs above are reported by running #cardctl ident 3) restart pcmcia services using #/etc/init.d/pcmcia restart - at this point you should check /var/log/messages to make sure that the pcmcia servicemanager recognised your card from /etc/pcmcia/config. Look for something like : > >> snip >>> snip >>> snip >>>> snip GPRS+Linux: FIXME

Ethernet UTP plugin points

* Public: None known. * Schools: NUS has this facility available to staff/members. * Clubs: ?

LinuxHosting

Oikose: http://www.oikose.com offers hosting on Linux/Sun/Apache/PHP.

1Net http://www.1-net.com.sg Part of the Mediacorp conglomerate, 1-Net offers hosting on Linux (Virtuozzo?). You can get full root. You can also put your boxes in their datacenter.

Switch-Fusion offers hosting on Linux, RaQs? http://www.switchfusion.com.sg/

Super-Internet seems to offer Linux services including routing (zebra, ospf etc) http://www.superinternet.com.sg/linux.htm

Qala also offers hosting.

Misc Notes

GRIC POP numbers http://pbs.gric.com/html/pop.csv

use MySingtel if you have a fixed Singtel line at home & the number to dial is 1701 and the proxy is proxy.zapsurf.com.sg