[ale] The 12 Q's of Chrismas (Cable-DSL Modem Shopping)

[Dennany, Jerome {D177~Roswell}]

[answers inline]

----- Original Message -----
From: "fgz" <fzamenski at voyager.net>
To: ale at ale.org
To: <ale at ale.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2002 10:17 AM
Subject: [ale] The 12 Q's of Chrismas (Cable-DSL Modem Shopping)

> 1). Quick poll: Linksys, Seimens, or...?

I own a Linksys BEFW11S4 
"Wireless Access Point Router with 4-Port Switch - Version 2"
 http://www.linksys.com/Products/product.asp?grid=23&prid=415

And a LinkSys WET11
"Wireless Ethernet Bridge"
http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?prid=432&grid=33

I also have a few laptops connecting with CableTron PCMCIA cards 
(The model escapes me at the moment).

I've been happy with both, though I did have some VPN problems connecting to my work originally.  A firmware update to the router took care of this.

> 2). VPNs come on some of these. Why should I care
> about VPN on a home LAN? Is there is a chance remote
> config of a SOHO LAN PC might get out on the internet?

My experience is that they don't actully have VPN support built in, but allow for 'VPN pass-through' as you've alluded to in Question 3.  Some of these "routers" that perform NAT have to do some voodoo (I'm not a network guy, so forgive me) to allow VPN packets to pass from your PC to your corporate VPN gateway.  I know for a fact that Microsoft's Internet Connection Sharing did NOT support this last year when I was looking for NAT solutions.


> 3). Seimens mentioned 'VPN pass-through', for example,
> to my corporate VPN. What is that and why do I care
> since I run VPN client sw on my a local PC to get to
> the corp LAN from home now?

I kinda talked about this in # 2.

> 4). Do these distribute bandwidth fractionally to each
> device on the modem, or is it on-demand bandwidth? i.e.
> will the PC casually browsing the web get less overall
> bandwidth than the PC downing a 10MB file?

Only becayse it is asking for less.  There is no 'load-balancing', so it is first come, first serve.  You'll notice slower overall connection speeds on your browsing computer if you are performing bandswidth intensive activities on another PC.

> 5). Can you truly hang a hub, or maybe more properly,
> a switch (and maybe even a wireless 11MB hub), from
> one of the modem ports, and expect to get an IP
> properly assigned to each PC off the hub/switch? Does
> the bandwidth get horribly cut at the hub/switch by
> doing this?

If you get the "router" solutions, then yes, you can do this.  The Linksys BEFW11S4 supports NAT, as does their non-wireless solution.

> 6). Specific to Linksys: I saw four (4) 4-port models
> at $59-$99, some with firmware VPN, firewall, AV, etc.
> What do I really need for a SOHO LAN, since all PCs
> have at least AV anyway? Allegedly the modem firewalls
> allow port monitoring and blocking etc, but I'm skeptical.

Again, I have a Linksys.  VPN support is just 'pass-through' support.  Firewall? Not really - it's more NAT plus a few extra filter options.  Nothing that great, or really that configurable.  The advanced firewall and AV support I believe costs extra, so I haven't looked at it.  I just use AV on my client machines.

> Is it best practice to run a f/w PC in front of the cable
> modem, then DHCP out to the cable modem itself?

Probably, but again, I don't really worry about it, and haven't had any problems with a SOHO and 7 or so computers.


> 7). If these things are firmware (nobody knew), can
> they be flashed with an upgrade like a PC BIOS?

Yes, upgradeable through a web browser (MSIE) or TFTP.

> 8). Which Linksys model(s) had the web-config utility
> vulnerability? Can it/those be flashed?

Don't know.

> 9). What is UPnP? Sounds like a Windows thing.

It is.  It comes with WindowsXP, and is supposed to support Plug and Play devices over Ethernet and other connections.

> 10). Some have PPPoE. Why, since dialup goes away? Or
> is this for direct serial connection over the internet?

Some DSL providers (like Bellsouth) do PPP over Ethernet (ugh!). 
I personally dislike PPPoE, and I'm not alone.



All of this is free advice, and worth exactly what you paid for it. YMMV.

Merry Christmas,

Jerry Dennany
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