techiehenry

Backgrounder: My existing modem got busted and it was replaced by PLDT, my DSL provider. After the modem got replaced, time and again my DSL connection would stop working, even though the status lights would appear to be normal. It went on for about a week until I decided to tinker with the settings of the DSL modem itself.

So here is what I did:

All DSL modems can be configured through a web interface. By default, the URL is http://192.168.1.1. However, before doing so, I need to be on the same subnet as that of the DSL modem, so I need to manually set the IP address of my laptop anywhere from 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.254 and the subnet to 255.255.255.0.

Now that the IP address of the laptop is changed, I can now access the admin screen of the DSL modem. A password prompt is shown initially:

Each modem manufacturer has a standard username and password set for their products. As for my DSL modem’s case (which is a DareGlobal DB108), a quick search on the internet proved fruitful. I changed the default password sometime afterwards for security purposes.

Upon inputting the username and password, the main info page is displayed:

By looking at this page I can quickly determine if I’m connected to the internet or not. If it’s not connected, I would see the DNS and Gateway IP address settings as 192.168.1.1 — the local IP address of the router itself.

Afterwards I went to the WAN settings page by clicking on the WAN link on the sidebar. The page is shown below:

In this page you can control how the modem interacts with the outside world. Initially, there were two settings shown in the WAN page. I deleted everything except the 0/100 setting.

I went on to modify this setting by cliking on the Edit button:

The initial settings being asked were the VPI/VCI settings. I need not change this so I just clicked on the Next button.

The following shows the Connection type settings page.

By default, the connection set was Bridging, which meant that any computer/router/network device connected to the modem would be the one connected to the internet, and would have an external IP address assigned to it. I think the problem lies here. I don’t have any proof of it, but I think the modem has an issue with bridging devices to the WAN. I changed the Connection type to MAC Encapsulation Routing, and the Encapsulation mode to LLC/SNAP-BRIDGING.

Clicking on the Next button led me to the WAN IP setting page:

My DSL configuration is of a dynamic-IP type, unlike others who have fixed IP addresses given to them by their provider. So I clicked on “Obtain an IP address automatically”, “Obtain default gateway automatically”, and “Obtain DNS server addresses automatically”. I then clicked on the Next button to continue.

Next up is the Network Address Translation Settings page:

This enables all devices connected to the modem to be able to connect to the internet. I checked the following items: “Enable NAT”, “Enable Firewall”, and “Enable WAN service”. I was required to supply a name for the WAN service I will be using, so I placed the name of the one listed in the WAN page (br_0_100) and clicked on the Next button.

A summary of all settings I made were shown:

After verifying the information, I clicked on the Save button, and I came back to the WAN setup page. All I need to do now is to reboot the router through the Save/Reboot button, and everything is set.

A warning page is shown just before the modem reboots:

Up to now, I never had any connection-related problem with my modem after I did all the tinkering.

PostScript: What I did was to make the modem connect to the internet, get the WAN IP address for itself, and share the connection to any device connected to it — the devices would get a local IP address (192.168.1.x). Since I connect a wireless router to the modem so that I could freely roam the house with laptop in tow, I had to change its settings as well. Fortunately, it’s just a flick of a hardware switch away to make it function in bridge mode.