Apologies I compared the Draytek with the wrong Billion router, the Draytek is more expensive but can be had for about £150, they are very good though. There are older models available on Ebay:
That *is* a router/modem.
Expect the user interface to be a nightmare, but the actual guts are pretty good on billions.
If the walls are anything like mine (Breeze blocks, made from furnace ash/clinker - good RF shields), I can understand why the modem/router and Wireless access point need to be separate. :-)
I've been using a Billion 7402R2 close to the incoming telephone service. This now connects to a GB switch and all my wired LAN connects to this. In the rooms where I want Wireless access, I serve with my old ZyXEL modem/router performing this function, using just the router part as input and the wireless for the WiFi. You must make sure only one of the routers has DHCP enabled, unless you partition your LAN.
The Billion handles ADSL outages well for me - I've never had to manually reconnect it after an ADSL outage. (15sec reconnect time for a PPP down initiated from the ISP end) The old ZyXEL often wouldn't reconnect until manually restarted, hence its replacement. My current sync speed is
7.349Mbps on a line stated as supporting up to 4Mbps by the service checkers.In article , Andy scribeth thus
A very good wireless and router:)..
The Earlier 2800 and 2600 Draytek's can sometimes have problems with various bits of BT line exchange kit.
The later 2820 has a differing chipset thats overcome that. We have some
2800's that we will be replacing before long with the 2820 series..But as said very versatile dependable units 'tho!..
I wonder if that is the normal usage. I've always heard the term "ADSL modem" used for a device which takes in the ADSL signal, and sends out the decoded signal along an ethernet to a single computer. (That is actually what I have here, in Dublin.)
Incidentally, this system seems to me to have considerable advantages. All internet communication comes through one computer, and it is relatively easy to control what can access the system, and to record the IP addresses of people who have tried to enter. This is probably possible with a sophisticated modem, but I would expect it to be much more complicated.
Billion seemed to come top of most of the online reviews I looked at; that is why I chose them.
Are you saying that you only use the term "ADSL modem" if you have a USB connection to the computer? What I am talking about is exactly the same as what you describe, except that the connection to the computer is by ethernet. I never heard a device of this kind called a router. It isn't doing any routing, as far as I can see.
When the WiFi modem/router is at the telephone inlet into the house, the signal in one of the rooms is too weak. I've tried two WiFi modem/routers and that was true for both.
This is exactly what I do at home, except that I use a Linksys WRT54GL which runs Linux (dd-wrt). This has been working perfectly for over 5 years.
Almost - USB or other direct connection, including on an internal card. Not ethernet.
The IP address of my modem/router is 85.something or similar. The IP address of my computer is 192.168.something. I'll admit to being a bit fuzzy on the difference between routers, switches and hubs, but I'm guessing the fact it knows to send some packets to the outside world via ADSL and some to other devices on my network via either wifi or wired ethernet suggests it's doing some basic routing.
If I had a ADSL modem plugged into my computer, the IP address of my computer would be 85.whatever.
USB isn't exactly the same as ethernet - in this context it's completely different.
Agreed, in this case, the ADSL modem is basically doing the usual modem job of interfacing between the "line signal" (ADSL) and the computer input (USB) with no intelligence in between, other than that needed to handle the line.
But such a box is frequently also doing NAT when having an Ethernet output. An example is ZyXEL P660R compact series. ADSL on one side and a single Ethernet port on the other, with a router between the Modem and Ethernet port providing a firewall function and address translation. I've used several of these to replace the horrible USB connected modems supplied by some ISPs in the past, if only to protect the computer behind a good, non-Windows firewall and move the task of handling the "modem" off the CPU.
it is tho. if it runs ip[ opn the ethernet and has a NAT/ firewall.
I just checked my modem, which is called by its manufacturer "Netopia Cayman 3341 ADSL Smart Modem". This is connected by ethernet to my desktop.
According to its web-page at 192.168.1.254, its "local address" is 86.43.71.228. This is the IP address used to access the computer on the internet.
I don't actually see any difference at all in this context.
You've got what most people call a modem/router. They say it is an ADSL modem and router. Just because their name doesn't include the word router, and you've not seen the traditional USB ADSL modem that many ISPs used (? I can only hope) to provide, doesn't mean they don't exist :-)
Compare
It may be of little interest to most people, but it is exactly what I was referring to. I don't believe it makes the slightest difference to the function of a modem whether it is connected to the computer by USB or Ethernet. (I don't mean that one is as good as the other; in my experience USB modem connections are liable to lead to problems.)
As I understand it, the term "modem" is used if a device is intended to be connected to a single computer; the term router is used if the device can be attached to several computers, whether by ethernet or WiFi (or USB).
Personally I think there is a lot to be said for using a modem attached to a server, which is then the hub of the LAN. It seems to me to be easier to make secure.
Yes, we're aware of that. However cable is not a huge cost and Cat5 is versatile. I live in a big 6-bedroom house. Sadly, I cabled it about twenty years ago in Cat3 for an internal telephone system. It's a great pity that it's not all in Cat5, but I simply didn't envisage that we would ever install a network, for less often have 4 or 5 networked computers running simultaneously and all sharing one internet connection. Far beneath the concrete floor of my office there are at least three Cat3 cables. It would have been infinitely better had they been Cat5. As it is, there are a few Cat5 network cables sneaking around under the edge of the carpet and parts of the building which can't be reached by the wireless network or Cat5 are served by Homeplugs. And while my archive room has a Cat3 phone connection, the network doesn't reach there by any means at all. Cat5 would have given a degree of future-proofing. Only advantage of Cat3 is that it's often a bit neater where it shows.
John
I'm not sure it is. Your device, and the billion one you mention, both do NAT. That ethernet modem doesn't - it passes the PPP bit through, so the computer gets the public address, not a 192.168 one. The ethernet modem itself doesn't actually have an IP address involved (though it may have one for administration). (I had to remind myself that IP is a protocol on top of eg ethernet - I'm so used to conflating the two these days :-) )
The modem actually refers to the bit converting the phone line signal into a digital one. But both devices you've mentioned can also be attached to several computers.
Disagree - as I said originally, unless you're very careful, it's easier to secure using a NAT/firewalled router. It needs to be - most people aren't interested in doing anything more than plugging stuff in, and they just hope the security works out of the box. Which it typically does.
Now if you're sufficiently into things to want to maintain a server as LAN hub, then you're way beyond the vast majority of the population, and doing the "strange things" I originally referred to. But for most people, I maintain it's a better choice to go for the combined router/modem - which you appear to be doing.
You mentioned your netopia device has a web page at 192.168.1.254, and a "local address" of 86.something. Would I be right in guessing that your server thinks it's on the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet? If so, you're definitely not using an ethernet modem. OTOH if ifconfig on your server tells you it thinks it's 86.43.71.228, I'll be wrong.
Why do you think that? Taking my WiFi modem/router in Italy as an example, there is no way of setting up a firewall on it, or implementing NAT. The only way of accessing it (as is true of most routers, I think) is through its web-page and the only choice on the web-page is to turn encryption on or off (and to choose between WEP and WPA). I can't even change the keys. This is the standard Telecom Italia modem/router, which as far as I can see you have to use if you opt for them as your ISP.
By contrast, the server it is attached to has quite a sophisticated firewall (shorewall), and runs a VPN server, which I certainly could not do on the modem/router
My server thinks it is on 3 networks, 192.168.1.0 for the modem,
192.168.2.0 for the LAN and 192.168.5.0 for VPN. It does not think it is on 86.43.71...The manufacturer calls the device attached to the internet a "modem", my ISP calls it a "modem" and the man who installed it called it a "modem". In my view it would cause confusion if I called it a "router", as people would expect it to do something it cannot do.
Incidentally, although this Netopia modem is more sophisticated than the one in Italy, and does allow a small amount of NAT as well as setting pinholes, etc, there is no way as far as I know of keeping a log of attempted entries, or running a program (fail2ban) to stop repeated intrusion attemps.
They're wrong.
He's wrong.
Except it is a router. And it causes confusion among those who know what they're talking about when you call it something else. And who cares what those who don't know what they're talking about "think"?
It's not a modem, then.
I think a manufacturer probably knows better than you what he is making.
The fact that he chooses to pander to morons who don't know what they're talking about is not my problem. The terms "router" and "modem" have specific technical meanings and conflating them is not helpful.
(I suppose I'm fighting a loosing battle here against the marching morons, but I intend to keep fighting the fight.)
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