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Speak to me of "Bridged Mode" ...

I have an Actiontec GT701 DSL router from Qwest and I'm not particularly happy with its WiFi performance.

I ->believe that I could put the GT701 into bridged mode and then feed any off-the-shelf wireless router that I choose, but I'm not really sure about this.

From my reading, I gather that if I put the GT701 into bridged mode, all it will then do is simply make the router's WAN address appear on its Ethernet port. I would then have to connect a router that would then perform the PPPoA/E login to my ISP, and the new router would also then do all the NAT, DHCP server and other functions that the GT701 now does. Is that right?

If so, does the new router have to do PPPoA or PPPoE to do the logon? The Actiontec currently uses PPPoA, but I'm guessing that the new router would do PPPoE because it's hooked up to the Ethernet port of the GT701, not to Qwest's ATM network. This concerns me because Linksys for one doesn't mention support of PPPoA in their products.

Also, management of the GT701 is currently done via a Web browser talking to its LAN-side address (in my case, 10.0.0.1). When its in bridged mode, it no longer has a LAN address, so how do I talk to it? Via the WAN address? If so, can it tell if the connection is coming from "inside" or "outside"? I'd hate the idea that it was open to the world, protected only by the administrative userid/password.

Reply to
Bert Hyman
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If so, does the new router have to do PPPoA or PPPoE to do the logon?

An "off-the-shelf" router cannot do PPPoA. If you need PPPoA, then you had better rethink your plans.

Some ISPs have things setup so that you can use either PPPoE or PPPoA. I'm told that bellsouth does that. I don't know about qwest. With an ISP that supports both, you would simple switch to PPPoE to follow your plan. But if your ISP is requiring PPPoA, your plan going to work.

Reply to
Neil W Rickert

rickert+ snipped-for-privacy@cs.niu.edu (Neil W Rickert) wrote in news:d58e99$obp$ snipped-for-privacy@usenet.cso.niu.edu:

I got an email from a local network wizard who read this and gave me lots of other reasons to rethink my plans.

Looks like my "understanding" of bridged mode really wasn't.

Reply to
Bert Hyman

Rather than "Bridged" mode, you might want to do it this way.

1) Buy at least 2 Public static IPs (Qwest sells only in blocks of 8; 5 usable) 2) Configure your Actiontec to NOT do NAT or DHCP (Qwest tech will walk you through this if you need help, no problem) 3) Assign one of your pubic IPs to the Actiontec during config - Actiontec does PPPoA negotiations as normal 4) Assign one of your public IPs to your inside router (any Ethernet router - I use a computer/network-firewall) 5) Configure your inside router to do NAT (and DHCP if you want). This is all Ethernet, no need for any PPPoAE negotiations. 6) Plug whatever you like into the inside network, including wireless access point.

The Actiontec will remain reachable on two IPs: The LAN IP remains at default 192.168.0.1 and it will also have the public address you assigned.

You can manage the Actiontec via telnet or http, from inside or outside of your LAN (Internet side). It is not limited to the web interface, although that is much easier.

I have mine configured like this and it is a dream. In fact, due to a recent "power hit" failure over the weekend where a "overnight" replacement took two days, I was down two days. So, yesterday, I went to Best Buy and bought an Actiontec GT701R (no wireless, otherwise identical to the GT701 plus wireless supplied by Qwest). I set it up and now have a drop-in replacement should I have a failure - $65 total cost for redundancy.

-Frank

Reply to
Frankster

Well, since it's been explained to me that "bridged mode" doesn't work remotely like I imagined it did, a second router or a pure WAP looks like the only way to "upgrade" my hardware.

Thanks for the suggested config.

Reply to
Bert Hyman

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