Opinion needed on RAS connections.

[Albion]

We're a small company whith 4 remote sales people. At this time those sales people dial long distance into a modem hung off of our server. This is a problem because it's slow and costly. Sometimes the LD bill from the hotel they stay at can be in the hundreds of dollars for an hour and a half. I am looking for another solution for my remote users to connect to our servers from the road.

I have considered Offline files but because of the length of time my people are gone it isn't an option. We need access to their quotes when they write them.

I have considered MSN/AOL dialup then a VPN but Microsoft is just not secure enough for me to risk having my Windows Servers on the Internet. If they were secure there wouldn't be a new security patch on Windows Update every other day.

The only other thing I can think of is some sort of Wireless dialup? Has anyone used Cell Technology for their remote dialups? How fast is it? How costly is it? What type of hardware do I need on my end for this to work? What's the best Cell company for this type of thing?

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

-al

 

[slapperboy]

I have the same problem with my clients. Emailing the quotes back to you is a simple solution. Their are companies that will create forms for your website that your sales people can fill out via the internet with password protection.

 

[kublakaun]

We are a slightly larger corporation than yours (400+) and we have many people who remotely dial in using our own toll free number to our RRAS server (Windows 2000 Server running Microsoft ISA server). We have close to 150 of those people with laptops and they connect from all over the world using Microsoft VPNs. If you wish to consider a Microsoft solution then try installing a certificate server on your host (or point your travelling employees to a free certificate server on the web) and then enable L2TP VON (as opposed to PPTP). I would take this over the dubios security of wireless any day. Besides, the end user connecting to HO with a VPN and then walking away from their machine without locking it is a bigger risk than the VPN transmission if you ask me!

 

[Albion]

I agree that wireless networks are very insecure. What I was talking about was Cellular wireless. I would like to stick with the modem connection instead of the internet. But I want to cut down on Hotel LD charges which can be as much as $1.00/minutes or more. If I can get a cell service at like $50/month for 500/4500 minutes with free long distance why not go for it. The thing I was worrying about was the speed of the connection.

-al