Much Better Now, Thank You

The money I saved on my car by filling the radiator with coolant instead of buying and installing a new water pump, thermostat, sensors, or engine block has been spent on a new DSL Gateway. So, it seems Ramen and I may be friends for a while longer.

At first, starting earlier this week, I'd lose connection and my joyful little green LEDs were replaced with red ones, or ones not lit up at all. Then, after struggling for a bit, they'd return and I could browse to my heart's content and check my e-mail for important penis growth formulas, opportunities to assist Nigerians, and purchase Rolex watches and great stocks.

Then, I couldn't do any of those as often as I wanted, and, today, not at all.

I was able to get connectivity restored by wiggling wires and unplugging and re-pluging the various cables, but as it turns out that was a false positive. Today, instead of flashing green LEDs or the hated red ones, I had none at all. The whole thing was dark, even the power indicator, and I realized that it had surrendered to old age. This didn't really surprise me since the phone company that had given it to me is also long gone, having been gobbled up in merges a couple times since I signed up.

The component I'd been using, an Efficient Networks Speed Stream 5260, had been furnished "free" by my telco when I moved to their DSL service from ISDN. I'd gotten a few of the ISDN parts over the years I had that service seemingly because every time I lodged a trouble ticket with that service it triggered a "send out some parts" flag. My DSL service, however, only got me one set of parts.

When I saw my unit was dead I naturally panicked. I don't even know the official name of the part, only that it serves as the DSL version of a modem. It can't be a modem since the telephone line it connects to is digital, and I had no idea if my telco ever had to do anything to get my old one to work.

Not that I ever let the telco come anywhere near any of my phone lines or inside equipment. I can do that very well myself, thank you, and save myself the embarrassment and the shrugs of techs who aren't allowed to recognize linux. So, although I remember needing to know lots of arcane things having to do with spids and whatnot for the ISDN line, I have no idea how the DSL line ever worked.

So, with nothing better to go on than a hunch and optimism, I went to Fry's to see what they had in the way of parts. Once there I saw many cable modems (another misnomer), and very few DSL equivalents, but the important thing is they had them at all. I had two brands to choose between, neither of which I'd ever heard of before. One, ActionTec, came in two flavors, being either two or three "products in one." The two-in-one features an ADSL modem and router, and the three-in-one has those and also built-in wireless access point for twenty bucks more.

Although none of my computers have wireless components, I splurged and got the 54 Mbps Wireless DSL Gateway. One never knows, and I may someday choose to join the twenty-first century.

I followed the needless instructions, and it works! I say "needless," but if you haven't spent your life around things like this I guess it would be helpful to know how and what to plug things in. Not surprisingly, you have to plug the power in, connect the gateway to the DSL line, and connect any computers you wish to have access the Internet to the gateway.
The only step that gave me pause was when I was asked for my username and password. My username, sometimes, depending on the application, wants both my name and the name of my original ISP (Pacbell). The password, fortunately, is the same one I use for my e-mail with them, so I was glad I didn't have to do any memory searching.

It's working now, but that's just because I just got it up and haven't done anything with it yet. My old router, a discrete component, is now in the pile of no longer used components and the old DSL modem is in the trash. The new ActionTec, according to the box, has a built in firewall and can function as a NAT box, and I may need to find out how to access and screw up those features.

Then I can be without Internet again.