Do I need a modem for my Router?

Hi everyone,

Kind of a dumb question I think... I plan to upgrade my router.

I'm currently running a SE567 from Telus. Its a router and modem in one. Biggest reason to upgrade is that this router horribly sucks to forward ports on. It just simply doesn't work. Half the time to get anything open it has to go into DMZ mode. After lots of googling it seems to be a fairly common problem with there routers. Apparently the routers themselves are decent but once they add the Telus firmware it starts having issues. Telus doesn't know anything about port forwarding or anything for networking for that matter. And Siemens I think it was won't touch it since the firmware has been modded by Telus putting there stuff in it.

After going through 4 different routers and reading all this online I am just simply fed up with this completely.

Looking at all the options out there it seems routers with built in modems are VERY unpopular. There seems to be one from Dlink... not many at all.

My internet is not one of the coax cable kind. It comes out of the phone line. I assume I need some kind of modem before the router right?

Any suggestions on a good combination?

I need it to be wireless and have the 4 plugs in the back for the router since there are a few laptops at my place and a few computers that are actually hard wired through the wall into the router.

Thank you for any suggestions.

The more connections you have between your computer and your wall jack, the less performance you will get out of your connection.

I recently rewired our house to the phone line comes directly into the same wall jack the modem/router is plugged into.
My computer then plugs directly into the router, and the TV and other computers plug into a switch that goes into the router.

I have a TPLink modem/router that does a fantastic job, even got a noticeable improvement in line speed over the old router that had been supplied by my ISP.

I found this posted elsewhere - it seems to do what you want to do, which is pass an IP address to your Airport Extreme, which you should then be able to use as you used to.

Good luck.

Your userid and password may vary and you will still want to turn wireless on your router off.

Ya I kind of figured the more you load it up the slower it goes. When our house was built we wired it up with the network so the network and phone line are 2 independent plugs in the wall. So the Network lines only hold network information and no phone line.

A switch is basically a splitter in a sense right? Like you take one of the plugs on the router and it goes into a switch? Or did I just butcher that

Hen3Ry wrote in post #11542741
I found this posted elsewhere - it seems to do what you want to do, which is pass an IP address to your Airport Extreme, which you should then be able to use as you used to.

Good luck.

Your userid and password may vary and you will still want to turn wireless on your router off.

Thanks for that Hen3Ry, I'm guessing a Airport Extreme is another router of some sorts? I don't have one though. Would doing this basically mean I can use any router and use my current SE567 as a modem in effect?

While that is nice, I've had so many problems with port forwarding and getting these things to work that I truthfully just want to leave the Telus products alone and go with something else that doesn't have the firmware tampered with.

yes.

I hate ADSL, it's so fickle. There are a few things you could do, but most may be a hassle. Is there another provider in your area? That may be the easiest solution, in the end. If that's not possible, there are some links I found with people talking about Telus - seems Telus is not well liked. There's some solutions people come up with, but since I'm not familiar with Telus I don't feel comfortable pointing you to one. You could also ask for their slower, stand alone modem. It should actually provide the same speeds as the gateway version. There's also the business class solution. I'm sure they allow company's to control their own network gateways. It would be incredibly stupid if they didn't and if they said no they're lying. Where there is a will there is a way. I'm sure Telus puts in their own handshake into their devices, so getting a stand alone modem would be useless. The only option would be to do one of the above or to figure out a way to either bypass the gateway like a bridged network or to 'creatively' bypass Telus' 'features' so you can add your own router.

Hi MaxxuM,

You make some good points there that I didn't think about. We switched to Telus from Shaw about a year ago I think because of the bundled plan that comes with the phone and such. I also live just out of the city where there are not to many providers besides the two big ones. Telus and Shaw unfortunatly.

This might seem kind of dumb what do all the people do with all the new N class routers? it seems to be filled in every store of new higher speed routers. I know I would need to make sure all the computers have network cards that support the higher speed but is there no 3rd party non ISP modem that I could put in between the router and my wall?

Would seem kind of disappointing to get a quicker router and card and then have the modem from the ISP bottle neck it all up.

Vladimer wrote in post #11543563
Hi MaxxuM,

You make some good points there that I didn't think about. We switched to Telus from Shaw about a year ago I think because of the bundled plan that comes with the phone and such. I also live just out of the city where there are not to many providers besides the two big ones. Telus and Shaw unfortunatly.

This might seem kind of dumb what do all the people do with all the new N class routers? it seems to be filled in every store of new higher speed routers. I know I would need to make sure all the computers have network cards that support the higher speed but is there no 3rd party non ISP modem that I could put in between the router and my wall?

Would seem kind of disappointing to get a quicker router and card and then have the modem from the ISP bottle neck it all up.

I'm with a provider that allows different modems (with a few rules) so I can add any wireless/wired router I please. They also don't lock MAC addresses (the physical address that every network device comes with). DSL is typically slower than cable modem - regardless of what they say. I'm surprised ADSL is actually available to you since you live outside of town - there's a distance limit.

Without getting too complicated, you're sharing a node with several other people. The ISP is probably capping each node, but what's probably limiting you is all the usage on your node. There could be a 1,000 people sharing a limited amount of bandwidth and the ISP has many such nodes - each with it's own cap. Worse, DSL suffers from noise on wires never meant to be used for this purpose. From nodes to the ISP, it's probably high grade copper or even fiber optic trunks. It's the wire in your house, to the splitters, to the box, to the poll all the way down to the first node. From there it's mostly higher grade wires. DSL and DSL modems are a PITA.

Hope that helps.

Vladimer wrote in post #11542816
Thanks for that Hen3Ry, I'm guessing a Airport Extreme is another router of some sorts? I don't have one though. Would doing this basically mean I can use any router and use my current SE567 as a modem in effect?

While that is nice, I've had so many problems with port forwarding and getting these things to work that I truthfully just want to leave the Telus products alone and go with something else that doesn't have the firmware tampered with.

This should forward everything from the Telus to your current (or a new) router, (which in the example is an Apple Airport Extreme) with wireless and a multi-port switch to connect any wired PCs. Once you have the Telus set in the mode above, it should be invisible to your existing system - you shouldn't have to worry about any port forwarding or anything else you didn't have to do before.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not about to guarantee that this will work.

MaxxuM wrote in post #11543743
I'm with a provider that allows different modems (with a few rules) so I can add any wireless/wired router I please. They also don't lock MAC addresses (the physical address that every network device comes with). DSL is typically slower than cable modem - regardless of what they say. I'm surprised ADSL is actually available to you since you live outside of town - there's a distance limit.

Without getting too complicated, you're sharing a node with several other people. The ISP is probably capping each node, but what's probably limiting you is all the usage on your node. There could be a 1,000 people sharing a limited amount of bandwidth and the ISP has many such nodes - each with it's own cap. Worse, DSL suffers from noise on wires never meant to be used for this purpose. From nodes to the ISP, it's probably high grade copper or even fiber optic trunks. It's the wire in your house, to the splitters, to the box, to the poll all the way down to the first node. From there it's mostly higher grade wires. DSL and DSL modems are a PITA.

Hope that helps.

Well thats good to know. I though sharing internet was a think of the past I seem to get about 1.5mb download speeds at any time of the day regardless of the load that is running at my place. So its not too bad speed wise. Pretty sure my ISP caps it at that since It always levels off around 1.5 but never higher.

Hen3Ry wrote in post #11543830
This should forward everything from the Telus to your current (or a new) router, (which in the example is an Apple Airport Extreme) with wireless and a multi-port switch to connect any wired PCs. Once you have the Telus set in the mode above, it should be invisible to your existing system - you shouldn't have to worry about any port forwarding or anything else you didn't have to do before.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not about to guarantee that this will work.

So theoretically.... If I followed those instructions somewhat, got myself another router, then I can port forward away without issue? lol The instructions say to leave the wireless on and all that but if the original router is in bridge mode and allowing all traffic through. Isn't it not very smart to use it?

Basically it would be...

Wall ---> Original Router in bridge mode ----> New Awesome Router ----> all wireless and wired PC

that correct?

Vladimer wrote in post #11546999
Well thats good to know. I though sharing internet was a think of the past I seem to get about 1.5mb download speeds at any time of the day regardless of the load that is running at my place. So its not too bad speed wise. Pretty sure my ISP caps it at that since It always levels off around 1.5 but never higher.

So theoretically.... If I followed those instructions somewhat, got myself another router, then I can port forward away without issue? lol The instructions say to leave the wireless on and all that but if the original router is in bridge mode and allowing all traffic through. Isn't it not very smart to use it?

Basically it would be...

Wall ---> Original Router in bridge mode ----> New Awesome Router ----> all wireless and wired PC

that correct?

You got it. Theoretically, that is.

In case someone stumbles across this on search I'll post my result.

According to the SE567 instructions. Once you turn it into a wireless switch the LAN ports on the back are disabled. Some say if you plug it into port 4 on the back it acts as a modem as ports 1-3 are disabled.

I reset my siemens gigaset SE567 and followed the link of 192.168.1.254/brgmode.​htm to set it into bridge.

I got a Asus N16 and replaced it with DD-WRT firmware. It's WAN port is plugged into port 1 on the SE567.

Everything seems to run great.

Note: For those of those thinking of setting there SE567 into bridge mode. Once I have set mine into bridge, you can't access the router in any way shape or form through the web GUI. I've tried resetting the router which resets the router name and all settings but it still stays in bridge mode and unable to access with conventional means. Just a FYI.

For more info on DD-WRT or to see if your router is supported you can check them out at dd-wrt.com, its free too which is always nice