Wireless router simply connects to DSL modem?

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John Doe

Wireless router simply connects to DSL modem?
Maybe this will be obvious when window shopping, but... My
neighbor has a DSL modem and wants to share the connection with
other people. Can we just stick a wireless router in front of the
DSL modem? Or will the addition of a wireless router require a
call to the Internet Service Provider?

Recommendations for a popular and inexpensive wireless router
would be appreciated.

I've used a wireless router before, but it included a DSL modem,
so the setup might have required some sort of cooperation with the
Internet Service Provider.

Thanks.
 
John said:
Wireless router simply connects to DSL modem?
Maybe this will be obvious when window shopping, but... My
neighbor has a DSL modem and wants to share the connection with
other people. Can we just stick a wireless router in front of the
DSL modem? Or will the addition of a wireless router require a
call to the Internet Service Provider?

Recommendations for a popular and inexpensive wireless router
would be appreciated.

I've used a wireless router before, but it included a DSL modem,
so the setup might have required some sort of cooperation with the
Internet Service Provider.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

My ISP doesn't require me to tell them anything.

The ADSL modem is not "MAC locked", like a cable modem.
So you should be free to do what you want there.

You can stick a wireless router after the ADSL modem/router
if you want. Just put the ADSL modem/router in bridged mode,
and enter a VPI:VCI if that field is required. The wireless
router you connect to the modem, will then automatically
take care of the details on that side of the interface.

ADSL modem/router --------- wireless router ------------------------ wireless
(run in bridged mode) (Stores ADSL username/password) computers
(use a separate subnet) (Click "connect" button to start ADSL)

All you will need to run the ADSL modem, is the username/password
used for the PPPOE session protocol. The new wireless router,
should have a button you click, to start an ADSL session, and
you can enter the details in the wireless router, so it'll remember
the username/password and send it each time. You'll still need
to remember the username/password which allows you into the
web interface on the wireless router.

First, you plug a computer into the left-most box, and
set it for bridged mode. You can push the "reset" button
to wipe out the settings. Just make sure you know what
you're doing, before changing it.

Once the left-most box is set up, and on a separate subnet
(192.168.x.1), you can then plug a wire into the center box
and set if you. Enter SSID, WEP or WPA, but also store the
ADSL username/password. You'll also want to change the password
on the wireless router itself, to make it harder to hack.

Once the center box is programmed, unplug the wire, and attempt
to connect wirelessly.

You can enter http://192.168.y.1 wirelessly, and try to reach
the web interface on the center box. Click the button to start
the ADSL, and you should then be able to surf.

*******

Sort the wireless routers on newegg according to review rating,
and that should give you some idea what to buy. The latest thing
is 802.11ac (marketing says it is faster than 802.11n). My ADSL is
bad enough, that 802.11g would be good enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11ac

As for performance on wireless boxes, you can get
some test results here.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-charts/view

Paul
 
John said:
Wireless router simply connects to DSL modem?
Maybe this will be obvious when window shopping, but... My
neighbor has a DSL modem and wants to share the connection with
other people. Can we just stick a wireless router in front of the
DSL modem? Or will the addition of a wireless router require a
call to the Internet Service Provider?

Recommendations for a popular and inexpensive wireless router
would be appreciated.

I've used a wireless router before, but it included a DSL modem,
so the setup might have required some sort of cooperation with the
Internet Service Provider.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Some other considerations for wireless routers.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57596851-83/wi-fi-routers-more-security-risks-than-ever/

Gotta keep the riff-raff out of your 'net.

Paul
 
John said:
They have to get through your password to do anything, right?
Click to expand...

You can try "decoding" their other article. This is not
exactly written like a primer, so it's hard to follow
the mechanism in each case.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57579981-83/top-wi-fi-routers-easy-to-hack-says-study/

I'm not surprised that some of the router makers, didn't
respond to the security bulletins. I've seen products,
where firmware updates are dribbled out for years, to
little lasting effect (the firmware becomes more
bloated, and hardly any more functional than the
first release). So asking some of them for
security patches, you're lucky if they can make
a version that continues to work. My first router
(at $300), was like that, a dreadful exercise in
bad firmware. Thank God it finally died from a
hardware failure. The $40 router that replaced it,
is miles ahead. I've never had to flash the $40 router,
as it "just works". The $300 router, some days you'd have
to power cycle it two or three times - it would hang.

Paul
 
Paul said:
You can try "decoding" their other article. This is not
exactly written like a primer, so it's hard to follow
the mechanism in each case.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57579981-83/top-wi-fi-routers-easy-to-hack-says-study/
Click to expand...

This article described one of the methods in more detail.
It's called CSRF (cross-site request forgery), and is done
from the LAN side, just by surfing a web site with the appropriate
attack code. So the browser on the LAN-side computer, sends LAN side
packets to the router or modem. That's the attack vector. The web
page code, tells the browser what to do.

http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerability/popular-home-dsl-routers-at-risk-of-csrf/212201777

Paul
 
I ordered a Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL. It's inexpensive, and I liked the
fact that you can (if needed) boost the broadcast signal with custom
firmware. I was reading about boosting the signal. Somebody said it
doesn't do any good if the connected devices aren't powerful enough.
That made sense, but then somewhere else somebody else pointed out
that connected devices don't need to be powerful since uploads are
much slower. That makes perfect sense, connected devices need not be
powerful, considering the fact that smartphones are connected to
wireless towers perhaps thousands of feet away.
 
John said:
I ordered a Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL. It's inexpensive, and I liked the
fact that you can (if needed) boost the broadcast signal with custom
firmware. I was reading about boosting the signal. Somebody said it
doesn't do any good if the connected devices aren't powerful enough.
That made sense, but then somewhere else somebody else pointed out
that connected devices don't need to be powerful since uploads are
much slower. That makes perfect sense, connected devices need not be
powerful, considering the fact that smartphones are connected to
wireless towers perhaps thousands of feet away.
Click to expand...

The antenna radiation pattern is three-dimensional.

The antenna the router comes with, attempts to radiate in
all directions, for best coverage. It makes fewest assumptions
about the layout of the computers.

An 802.11N router, may have several antennas, for spatial redundancy.
If one antenna path isn't optimal, the next one may work out better.
That may also help with multipath issues. (One antenna has a multipath
problem, while the other one is OK.)

*******

If you use a directional antenna, the power doesn't go in all
directions. In this example, the "front" and the "back" of the
antenna, gets most of the power. And in the Z-axis, you can see
there is still reasonably good output above and below the
horizon. If you were positioned vertically over top of
this antenna, you'd get zero signal.

http://www.antenna-theory.com/antennas/travelling/yagi6.jpg

Many times, they show you only the X-Y plane, and don't bother
explaining what happens in Z. At least this is a bit easier
to visualize in some ways. I know I want the receiver sitting
at 12 o'clock to this diagram.

http://www.antenna-theory.com/antennas/travelling/yagi5.jpg

You have to think about those patterns, before putting
directional antennas on everything.

And the Z axis, has an impact on antenna siting as well.
If you're doing wifi for the neighborhood, you'd think
putting the antenna "up high" is good. This is true, if
there are obstructions in the way. But if you look at the
Z-axis pattern, you'll be losing something because all
clients are below the horizon of the antenna. You could
tilt the antenna, but that only works, if all the users
are on one side of the 360 degree circle.

The free tool 4nec2 can make those diagrams. I used that
for my antenna project (to verify someone else's design).
For example, if you were contemplating a "Pringles Antenna",
see if you can get a NEC file for the design. Just to see
how it works. And what the pattern looks like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_Electromagnetics_Code

http://www.qsl.net/4nec2/

*******

So we know that Linksys doesn't necessarily respond to all
security bulletins. (Based on the links I previously posted.)
That's a negative, if actually true.

WRT54GL - Broadcom BCM5352 @ 200 MHz <--- System On Chip running Linux

"Linksys released the WRT54GL in 2005 to support third-party
firmware based on Linux, after the original WRT54G line was
switched from Linux to VxWorks, starting with version 5.
The WRT54GL is technically a reissue of the version 4 WRT54G."

"Fully supported by Tomato, OpenWrt, and DD-WRT."

That means, it's actually a Linux computer inside, with limited
Flash storage space and RAM. The amount of Flash and RAM determines
what third party code it can run. If further researches indicated
the unit had some security problems, you have the option of
re-flashing it.

In cases where the users of this router, are having problems
exhausting the connection table when Torrenting, you can look
at those third-party flashes as a solution. Assuming there
isn't a hardware limit preventing a performance improvement.
One of the torrent help sites, had a table showing
some of the connection table limits for popular routers.
The list was not exhaustive, and was probably done by
one person's testing.

Paul
 
What I find amazing is that smartphones can communicate with towers
that are thousands of feet away.
 
John said:
What I find amazing is that smartphones can communicate with towers
that are thousands of feet away.
Click to expand...

Wifi can go a long distance too. I've read several stories like
the following one, where Wifi is tested in the mountains.
In this case, they manage 237 miles. I think a modification
to the timeout on the protocol is required, for things
like this to work (as the Wifi was probably not design
with that kind of propagation distance in mind).

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/19/venezuelans-set-new-wifi-distance-record-237-miles/

GSM is 22 miles for a tower, lesser distances for the
lower forms of transmitters (like femtocells). The power
on the cellphone, is 2 watts at 900MHz.

This is a description for Wifi...

"FCC rules require EIRP to be 1 watt or less.

For example, you can set the transmit power in an 802.11b
access point or client to its highest level (generally 100 milliwatts)
and use a typical 3 dB omni-directional antenna. This combination
results in only 200 milliwatts EIRP, which is well within FCC
regulations."

So we can see a couple differences. In the Wifi/router
case, there is no tower (good elevation). The Wifi transmitter
starts with a lower power. The default antenna has low gain,
leaving some margin to the FCC (unlicensed) limit.

I agree with you though, cell reception is nothing short of
amazing, when you compare it to other forms of communications.
Maybe it's because the antennas are everywhere.

Paul
 
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