Surfing with DSL

My DSL modem arrived the other day. According to the BellSouth tech that attached my phone line, I had a perfect signal for the 6 Mb service. He wasn’t kidding. I’m actually getting speed test results of 6.5 Mb.

There is one problem with the setup. I have the single computer Westell modem. I requested that one instead of the home networking model (4 port, wireless). The problem comes into play when I set the DSL modem to bridge mode and connect it to the router (Linksys BEFSX41). My download speed drops to 3.2 Mb consistently. The upload speed is still around 512 Kb.

I tried resetting the Linksys router to factory default but that didn’t help. I also tried setting the DSL modem back to PPPoE and enabling IP Passthrough to the router. It still would top out at 3.2 Mb. That is weird because the router has a throughput rating of over 30 Mb.

For now, I have the DSL modem in PPPoE mode connected to a 5-port Netgear 10/100 switch. Everything is just running to the switch until I can find out why the router cuts the download speed.

One of the problems I have with using the DSL modem’s built in routing feature is the port forwarding. You have to setup a NAT service for each forwarded port or range. That’s fine but when you enable the service a pop-up with two buttons, OK and Cancel, comes up. If you hit OK, that allows you to set an incoming NAT. If you hit Cancel, that only sets up an outgoing NAT. Why not just mark the buttons Incoming and Outgoing? Better yet, why not just have a separate page for incoming/outgoing NATs?

Minor things aside, the service is working great. I’m now just waiting on Dish Network to show up and I can cancel all my Charter services.

A wise man learns by the mistakes of others, a fool by his own. – Latin Proverb

07.Mar.07 Hardware, Internet

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3 Responses to “Surfing with DSL”

  1. sligh | March 7th, 2007 at 10:43 am

    You are a lucky dog! My signal is only good for1.2 MB down , around 28 kb up. These numbers are only good during low traffic hours. I am not complaining. We are at the end of the line for dsl service .. It truly crazy because on the highway you can see the fiber optic cable . Our neighborhood phone service box is lest than 20 yards away. (The one all the phones are grouped through) I have asked /begged to have the fiber optics run to the box allowing all our connections to be just like next do to the service center. Fat chance of that happening. All the newer homes here have fiber optic to them . the older homes do not ….
    So — – - My truck gets good gas milage that makes it all OK

  2. bobo | March 7th, 2007 at 11:36 am

    :shock: you lucky bastard Wycke

  3. wyckedone | March 8th, 2007 at 9:12 am

    I just wish I could find what is causing the speed to be cut in half through the Linksys router. Hopefully, I’ll have my pfSense firewall fixed (bad NIC) soon and I can test with it.

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