[CLUE-Tech] Earthlink DSL

[Nate Duehr]

qqq1one @yahoo.com wrote:

>I signed up for DSL through Earthlink and think it may have been a
>mistake.
>
>The Netopia 3300 series Unified Hardware Platform (UHP) DSL modem they
>provided doesn't want to let me use more than one computer on it at a
>time.  I have a hub plugged into the modem and 2 computers plugged into
>the hub.  If one of the computers is already using the DSL, and the
>second one tries to use it, the second one has to get the first one to
>drop it's connection first.  No wonder Earthlink sells a "Home
>Networking" package to support more than one computer at a time -
>they've got it disabled in the modem.
>  
>
It's probably just looking at MAC address and only allowing one at a 
time.  If that's the case, you could get around it very cheaply.

You could just hang a cheap Linksys/other SOHO "router" behind it so all 
that it sees is the Linksys and let the Linksys/other SOHO "router" 
handle the NAT chores, etc.  It's double-NAT'ing, but would work for 
"most" stuff.  You might have to tinker with port-forwarding in the 
second router for certain things.  (Gaming, etc...)

Did you call them and ask them why they set it up that way?  It's at 
least worth one complaint call.  Of course, you'll have to start with 
people reading cue cards and go from there, but perhaps they 
misconfigured it.

You could also see if it has a "bypass" mode (the boxes SBC used in 
their territory used to have this) -- that's also useful... if for 
example they're using PPPoE in their box, and you can put it into a 
"bypass" mode, you could configure PPPoE in a cheap Linksys directly and 
just ignore their silly hardware altogether, thus avoiding the 
double-NAT issues.

--
Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com