[ale] BellSouth/ATT DSL

[Jeremy T. Bouse]

	Well if the little Westell box you're talking about happens to be like
the Model C90-6100 I have on my BS/ATT DSL line then it works best if
you have the lastest firmware and through it into bridged ethernet mode
and then use something something else as your firewall/router/gateway. I
found letting it handle the PPPoE connection was flaky at best. In fact
to flash the latest firmware upgrade I had to reset it back to defaults
and then had to call tech support as it was unable to reconnect on it's
own.

	Myself I have a Linksys WRTSL54GS running OpenWRT connected between my
Westell and the LAN. I've been running with this setup for the past year
and I've only had a connection problem less than a handful of times.

	Even running in bridged mode the Westell will provide DHCP assigned
addresses from 192.168.1/24 to whatever device is plugged into the
ethernet port of it. You then just simply need to have a PPPoE device to
establish the internet link. When I've semi-bricked the firmware
upgrades on the Linksys I've been able to simply use the pppoe package
in Debian to establish the link to my desktop or laptop to get online
and look up support docs.

	I'm actually planning to try and move back to my Sangoma S518 ADSL PCI
card through my Debian firewall after my move and I set my rack back up.
I used it before back in California with SBC/ATT and as much as their
tech support said it was "unsupported" it actually performed better than
any of the DSL modems/routers I've seen ISPs offering.

	Regards,
	Jeremy

Thompson Freeman wrote:
> My girlfriend decided that she wanted internet access at home,  
> and chose the $10/month dsl now offered from BellSouth/ATT. Of  
> course, I get to set it up, and of course I'm working on getting  
> things set up for Linux (Ubuntu specifically, as I think a  
> Fedora setup would be a little heavier maintenence and I'm  
> having challenges with F7 at the moment). BellSouth has provided  
> a lovely little Westell modem/router which I get setup with my  
> ancient laptop with Windows2000. Attempting to convert to her  
> machine seems associated with loss of the dsl link, but I'm not  
> ready to claim that strongly in public. My suspicion is that the  
> link loss is further up the chain, but again I cann't prove  
> that. I can find the modem/router with a web browser at  
> http://192.168.1.1:80, although I of course do not have a  
> password for the interface. The interface does show things setup  
> correctly tho. I have quickly searched the web for documentation  
> on the modem/router and come up quite dry. (I left my notes over  
> at her place, or I'd note the model number here - sorry, but my  
> bad)
> 
> I should note that my initial installation of Ubuntu7.04 has a  
> glitch in it also, further complicating things.
> 
> General questions: Does anybody here have experience with this  
> setup? Anybody have a possible lead to documentation for the  
> modem/router? (I really don't want to find somebody to reverse  
> engineer the setup code provided) Since I could probably use a  
> severe beating with a cluebat - any general (hopefully useful)  
> commentary.
> 
> I've got to take her out to dinner with her siblings shortly,  
> and won't be back until late, but any clues/ideas/leads would be  
> appreciate for tomorrow's effort.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
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