Linksys WAG54G
I finally made the switch to ADSL after being with Bigpond Cable for six years. I’m now using Exetel as my ISP.
Linksys WAG54G is a wireless ADSL router with built in modem. The reason for choosing linksys is because it’s owned by cisco and the firmware is based on the Linux kernel. The one I owned is the V2 version of the router, which added support for ADSL2/ADSL2+. ADSL2+ allows maximum speed of 24Mbit/s if you live within 1.5 km of the exchange.
Setting up the router was easy, and the speed? Not as fast as Bigpond Cable. I did a speed test on both exetel and bigpond. Bigpond is 5000 kbit/s, and exetel is 1000 kbit/s.
If you’re wondering why I made the switched since Bigpond is faster? Because Bigpond only offers 10GB per month and that is not enough for me. I can upgrade to the 20GB plan but that would cost me more. 36 GB plan on exetel is good for me. I can get all the pr0n now.
1. Ronny 3 Jun 2005
I was happy with Exetel before, but lately there were small intermittent problems… disconnected, auth problems, crawling speed, and since 1 Apr there is a $5 minimum spend for the voice plan! I haven’t found another ISP with matching price/value. Well, I guess it’s like what they say… “You pay peanuts, …”
2. Ronny 3 Jun 2005
Thanks to your post, I think I’m going to switch to their 42 GB plan, it’s only $5 more than my current plan and I don’t need to pay $100 for changing the plan since my contract is 6 months.
Are you in Sydney, mate?
3. William Pramana 3 Jun 2005
Hello Ronny, I haven’t experience anything bad from exetel because I’ve only been using it for a few days.
iiNet is actually pretty good, they give you 40GB peak and 40GB offpeak. I wanted to join iiNet but I don’t want to use iiPhone. So I decided to switch to eXetel.
I’m in a contract with exetel for 6 months, does that mean I can’t change plan without paying a fee now?
Yep, I am in Sydney :-)
4. William Pramana 3 Jun 2005
Ronny, if you are reading this. Have you ever setup your modem into bridged mode? I am interested to run bridged mode so I could use FreeBSD to act as the Router?
When the modem/router is set to bridged mode, will I still be able to access the web control panel?
5. Ronny 3 Jun 2005
Doesn’t iiNet shape traffic after your quota is used? Personally I don’t like shaping, I’d rather pay extra for the excess traffic (Exetel’s is cheap, $3/GB).
They say I can change plans without paying $100 cancellation fee if the initial contract is 6 months. If there’s any speed change it would cost $25 (one time). Check the contract conditions or email them to be sure.
I haven’t tried using my adsl modem/router in bridge mode here since I don’t really need to (it’d be nice if I can see more verbose logs, but it’s not worth the effort for me). But there is an option to make my router to be a bridge only, so it’s possible to do that with my router (netgear dg814). First time I used ADSL in 1999/2000 in Canada they only provided me with an ADSL modem (not a router), so it’s a bridge, I had to run a pppoe client (I used rp-pppoe) on my box. I don’t know about whether you can access the control panel in bridge mode, might want to consult the docs.
Are you sure the firmware is Linux based? I know you could install your own Linux-based firmware in WRT54G (dunno about WAG54G), but I don’t know if the factory firmware is actually Linux based.
6. William Pramana 3 Jun 2005
About the firmware, there is a section on linksys website with all the GPL source code.