The number of options that can be used to connect to the Internet is rapidly changing. Satellite connections are a reality for some enterprises, although a large number of WANs still use public common-carrier telephone lines to provide connectivity to remote users. Because of their established availability for many users, WAN connections to the Internet over public common-carrier telephone lines are the focus of this chapter.
These public common-carrier telephone lines used by remote users for connection are also referred to as public switched telephone networks (PSTNs). PSTNs route users' connection requests to the desired Internet or private intranet server.
To provide access to your Internet Information Server (IIS), you need to provide a link to these telephone networks, by which remote users connect to your Internet Information Server site. This telephone link can terminate at a computer running Internet Information Server, at a computer configured with Windows NT Server and Remote Access Service (RAS) that routes remote clients to an Internet Information Server, or at some other network computer. A typical setup might include a firewall computer, a RAS server, and an Internet Information Server.