Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Connecting by Dial-up Modem

If you intend to connect to the Internet via ordinary phone lines, courtesy of your Mac’s built-in modem, you need to sign up for Internet service. Hundreds of companies, large and small, would love to become your Internet service provider (ISP), generally charging $20 or $22 per month for the privilege of connecting you to the great Internet.

A setup program for Earthlink, a popular ISP, presents itself as part of the Setup Assistant program that runs the first time you turn on a new Mac.

But if you aren’t starting in such virgin territory (or if you want to sign up with a different ISP), you must plug a series of settings into the Network pane of System Preferences. This process may require the assistance of your ISP—in the form of its Web page, the little instruction sheets that came with your account, or a help-desk agent on the phone.

Note

The following instructions don’t pertain to America Online. It comes with its own setup program and doesn’t involve any settings in System Preferences.

Phase 1: The TCP/IP Tab

Start by opening System Preferences and clicking the Network icon. (You might suppose that the Internet tab would be the right place to start. But as described in Chapter 8, you use that control panel simply to specify your favorite Web browser, email program, and so on.)

When you choose Internal Modem from the Show pop-up menu, you see a Configure pop-up menu and two text boxes. Your main mission here is to fill in the Domain Name Server numbers ...