On Monday 24 November 2008 00:14, John Musbach wrote:
I'm interested in figuring out how dialup ISPs work and have found plenty of info on dialin server setup but not much on how ISPs allow multiple clients under one access number, how do they do it?
One phone number != one phone line. Each phone circuit has a single associated billing/account number. Notice I say circuit, not line, which is 1 or more channels over some medium. It may be a single line POTS, a 2 channel ISDN, a 23/24 channel T1, a 600+ channel T3, etc. In addition to the account number, one or more additional phone numbers can be directed at that account or agroup of accounts, either as a direct routing to a particular channel(s) or a roll-over between groups of various accounts. A call to a phone number is therefore is directed at a particular account number which, if all channels are busy, may roll on to other account numbers in the group. Adrian