DSL in the Kingdom

Broadband connection charge in the Kingdom, though not yet reasonable, are coming down significantly. The company I work, subscribed DSL from Nesma internet for a hefty monthly charge of 1,800/- SR per month for a speed of 512K. Recently they agreed to reduce it to 1200/-.

When quote from other companies were invited, they are willing for even 700 SR for 1Mb (cyberia if I recollect it right).

These rates are for corporate clients. They include a static ip and few other extra features. For individuals, every ISP currently are offering DSL cards which are quite cheap and affordable. There is additionally a fixed charge from STC for DSL. It varies from SR 90 up to 300 for speeds from 64K up to 4 Mb. STC site has very detailed and impressive description of the services.

Setting up DSL using the DSL cards are quite easy. Even for upto 10 users, internet can be made available for as low as 200/- SR per month (@ 256K speed). I tried both the Awalnet and cyberia cards. Awalnet used to get disconnected quite often while cyberia seems stable comparatively.

The steps I followed:
1. Request STC to enable DSL for the telephone line you chose.
2. Buy an ADSL router from the market. There are many and I have tried speedtouch (vert basic features), Netgear and linksys. My favourite is linksys THOMSON TG585 v7 for now. The web interface is quite easy and features are good.Just connect the device to power, lan and the dsl enabled telephone line, goto its web interface through any machine in you lan, (there is a default ip for the device), set the user id and password mentioned in the card you bought and click on connect and you go!