Router>Dialup Modem>Internet

[Seekermeister]

According to what ZyXel tech support told me yesterday on the phone, this is a lost cause. Which is why I posted a thread to sell the router. But reviewing everything today, I have doubts that the tech knew what he was talking about. So I shall throw it out here for any possible insights.

According to USR, this is how to set these components to work:

http://www.usr.com/support/doc-popup-template.asp?url=faqs/analog/analog.html

Considering that I have never dealt with any router before, the diagram is somewhat vague.

Here is a portion of the email they sent me, prior to my phone call:

The X-550 USB port is for Windows Connect, if you have a USB flash drive you can use windows to setup your wireless network, connect it into the X-550, and it will configure the router, plugging your modem directly into X-550 will not work, you must use an Ethernet cable.

This does not seem to rule out the possibility of a solution, but when I spoke on the phone to a tech with a heavy dialect, he definitely said that it was not possible to connect any dialup modem to this router.

As this link will show:

http://us.zyxel.com/web/product_family_...0520161313&CategoryGroupNo=PDCA2006062

The router does not have a serial port. but it does have a USB port. On the phone, the tech said that this could only be used with a flash drive. There are also 4 LAN and 1 WAN ports, which is what I thought that the email was referring to when mentioning the ethernet cable, but the phone tech disagreed.

Am I just being a Don Quixote, or is there any hope? If no hope for this router, can anyone recommend another to me?

 

[ScrapSilicon]

google & google Tulsa broadband

 

[jackschmittusa]

Your dialup modem will not work with that router.

 

[Seekermeister]

ScrapSilicon,

Thanks for the link to broadband providers, but the only one that is affordable is AT&T. But we have an ongoing feud over the fact that they allowed someone else to open an account in my name, and runup a bill. I pay less than $5 per month for dialup now, so I'm sticking with it until some other company comes along with a reasonable DSL service.

 

[Seekermeister]

jackschmittusa,

I suspected that was the answer. But, do you know of a particular router that will work, without paying an arm and leg for it?

 

[Aikouka]

If you don't mind going the lazy route, why not just share using ICS ( if most of your machines are Windows) and use a proxy server ( AnalongX's Proxy http://www.analogx.com ) for any other type.

EDIT: I have seen dial-up routers before, but they're quite expensive. I think Cisco had one, but it was $200 or so.

 

[Seekermeister]

Aikouka,

I did look at a Cisco router, that I found on ScrapSilicon's Google link. But, I did not check the price, nor have I looked for others. The Cisco was exclusively a serial router, but all that I need is one serial port. I don't know if that would be cheaper or not.

 

[Lemon law]

For those still stuck on dial up with no other affordable high speed options---I find simple internet connection sharing or ICS to be an almost unmitigated blessing. For just the cost of a crossover cable, I can share two PC's and no router is necessary. But for those that have large networks--sharing one 56 K connection among many computers would give almost zero internet access to anyone---plus force you to buy a very expensive dial up modem that connect to the router---instead of the host computer's expansion slots where the modem can be had for $10.00 or so.---but all you need to enable ICS is two computers running some flavor of windows 98 or above---a network interface card on each computer--and a dial up modem on the computer you designate as the host.---even if your computer lacks a network interface card or NIC for short---they can be added for as little as $5.00 each.---just run the windows internet connection sharing wizard and follow the simple instructions.

But for a two person network---do what I did--use ICS---and forget about buying a router with attached special modem--which are just two unnecessary parts that can and will cause trouble. And with a few other parts like a pair of USB NIC's---you can even do ICS wirelessly.---saving on the cost of a crossover cable--but spending more bucks on the USB NIC's.

And despite dire warnings from the pro-router crowd--I find ICS to be rock solid stable---and I get my firewall layer of security from software firewalls on each computer.

 

[vailr]

http://www.usr.com/products/networking/networking-product.asp?sku=USR8001

USRobotics Broadband Router with USB Print Server

Easily share your broadband Internet connection and your USB printer with multiple computers, attach a modem for dial-up backup, and protect your network from hackers with the advanced firewall. This is the one device you need to anchor your home or small business network.

 

[thegorx]

maybe you can use and old computer and linux and make your own router with dial up

 

[Matthias99]

But for a two person network---do what I did--use ICS---and forget about buying a router with attached special modem--which are just two unnecessary parts that can and will cause trouble. And with a few other parts like a pair of USB NIC's---you can even do ICS wirelessly.---saving on the cost of a crossover cable--but spending more bucks on the USB NIC's.

And despite dire warnings from the pro-router crowd--I find ICS to be rock solid stable---and I get my firewall layer of security from software firewalls on each computer.

You can also use ICS to run a multi-system network. Just disable the 'routing' part of the router and use it as a switch only, and plug in the system running ICS where you would normally put the cable/DSL modem. Obviously, performance will be very bad if you try to run anything extensive from multiple systems at once.

ICS works fine (it's better now than it used to be...), but it can be a performance drain on the host system when dealing with high-speed connections. With only 56kbps going in/out, there would likely be little impact.

 

[Seekermeister]

vailr,

The only thing wrong with that, is that it isn't wireless. I would have to connect the wireless router to it, as well as my dialup modem. But, the price is right, so I may do just that. Thanks.

 

[Seekermeister]

The only thing wrong with ICS is that I'm paranoid, and would be concerned that it would allow access to someone else that I didn't want messing with anything. If I recall, there is folders to set local and network folders apart in Documents and Settings, but I would feel like I'm treading on thin ice.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Seekermeister
The only thing wrong with ICS is that I'm paranoid, and would be concerned that it would allow access to someone else that I didn't want messing with anything. If I recall, there is folders to set local and network folders apart in Documents and Settings, but I would feel like I'm treading on thin ice.

If you aren't hosting any network shares on the machine running ICS, and you are up to date on security patches (and running a firewall of some sort), you have little to worry about. By default, nothing on your systems should be accessible externally.

If you are hosting network shares from the system directly connected to the net, you would need to make sure they are either password-protected, and/or only visible to the machines on your local network.

 

[Dravic]

When I moved to DE from CA I had only dial up access for a few years. It sucked going back to dialup after having both cable and DSL. In order to network my PC?s using a modem I used an old PC(p200 non mmx) with a nic card(LAN) and one dial-up modem. I installed smoothwall, Linux based firewall/router, and was able to use the smoothwall PC to connect to my provider (modem as red interface), but then share the internet with the entire LAN over the nic (green interface). Was it fast..? of course not, but I could surf the net from all my machines.

 

[Seekermeister]

Matthias99,

The thing that confuses me, is that I intend to network wirelessly with my laptop, and I want to have full access to the PC. I think that I can do that safely with an ad hoc connection and WEP. But, I don't want anyone to have access via the internet. I think that I understand how to do one or the other, but not both.

 

[Seekermeister]

Dravic,

I do not have a second PC, but I have almost enough parts to build it. With the way that you set it up, was the connection going directly from the smoothwall PC as fast as a dialup connection usually is?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Seekermeister
Matthias99,

The thing that confuses me, is that I intend to network wirelessly with my laptop, and I want to have full access to the PC. I think that I can do that safely with an ad hoc connection and WEP. But, I don't want anyone to have access via the internet. I think that I understand how to do one or the other, but not both.

I'm pretty sure you *can* do that (have shares on the ICS PC accessible to only internal systems), but it's beyond my experience in setting up network security.

Maybe ask in the Networking forum?

 

[Seekermeister]

Dravic,

I just went to the SmoothWall website and quickly scanned over the homepage. If I understood, it is simply a program that turns the entire second PC into a gateway. That's not exactly what I would want to do, because if I build the second PC, I want to run it as a full linux system, so that I can get away from dual booting. Could I do both?

 

[Seekermeister]

Dravic,

I just went to the SmoothWall website and quickly scanned over the homepage. If I understood, it is simply a program that turns the entire second PC into a gateway. That's not exactly what I would want to do, because if I build the second PC, I want to run it as a full linux system, so that I can get away from dual booting. Could I do both?

 

[Seekermeister]

Matthias99,

Thanks, it is definitely beyond my experience. So that is a direction that I would be slow to move in. It is still a worthwhile thought for the future.

 

[thescreensavers]

Router>Dial up modem>Very slow internet

 

[Seekermeister]

The responses regarding the performance of this setup is not very optomistic, but I'm wondering how much is based on personal experiences with particular equipment? Would this necessarily be true regardless of the equipment used? I found a router on Newegg that is reasonably priced, and has much better reviews than the USR router:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833129023

Any thoughts or comments?

 

[Dravic]

Originally posted by: Seekermeister
Dravic,

I just went to the SmoothWall website and quickly scanned over the homepage. If I understood, it is simply a program that turns the entire second PC into a gateway. That's not exactly what I would want to do, because if I build the second PC, I want to run it as a full linux system, so that I can get away from dual booting. Could I do both?

I wouldnt recommend it, you dont need any real hosrepower for this thing, i would buy a cheap $50 PIII, K6 type computer with 60MB+ of ram 1 modem, 1 nic and very little dsk space.. the idea behind smoothwall is to have a highly configurable stand alone firewall as the entry point to your network.

I dont like having my defense(firewall) on the destiniation target(PC). I use software firewalls for the egress filtering.