by I live in a country where the only reasonably fast Internet connection
is provided by a branch of the national phone company. The only way I
can get a Class C, PPP, leased-line connection to them is via their
router, which requires a syncronous connection of some sort. They want
me to buy some $1000 router, but this seems like overkill for a
standard LINUX host and a few workstations on our ethernet. My modem,
a ZyXel 1496E+, does syncronous data transfer but apparently this will
still not help me as I need a syncronous serial card installed, At the
moment I have a generic 16550 UART multi-I/O card in there.
I have no experience with this type of hardware or connection and
_desperately_ need some advice on what is _actually_ required. Thanks.