Alternatives to Thomson Router for FTTC

[#1]

Hello,
I just wanted to share my experiences on getting started on the FTTC trial and how it is possible to use alternative devices to the Thomson router supplied by Plus Net.
The one that was sent to me decided that it did not want to work when the BT engineer turned up but talking with Dave at PlusNet I managed to get my Apple AirPort Express configured with the BT modem.
All you need to do is use the AirPort utility and configure the internet access to be PPPoE, then enter your user name and password as normal.
Plug the modem into port 1 and off you go.
So now I have a wireless N network and only two boxes powered up.
Speed wise I used mybroadbandspeed.co.uk which recorded 37Mbs down and 8Mbs up.  Much better than the 1.5Mbs/448k that I was using before 🙂
Sean.

[#2]

Welcome to the Forums and thanks for the info

[#3]

Quote from: mulcahysm

The one that was sent to me decided that it did not want to work when the BT engineer turned up but talking with Dave at PlusNet I managed to get my Apple AirPort Express configured with the BT modem. All you need to do is use the AirPort utility and configure the internet access to be PPPoE, then enter your user name and password as normal

This will apply to any router not just the Airport. Unfortunately most people refer to a router when they actual mean an adsl modem/router and in this case the adsl modem has to be bypassed. Some modem/routers this can be done easily others ike the PN supplied Thomson I believe has to be configured to use one of the LAN ports as a WAN which can't be done by the GUI.

[#4]

We flash the Thomsons to a special configuration to do PPPoE. There are plenty of routers that you can find to do this though as this is how cable works.

[#5]

Also on the subject of the Apple Airport, one annoying 'feature' is that you have very little control over the DHCP client config so you may want to use out own.  However, you can't turn it off without losing NAT.
But I did find a method of getting around this after a search.  You basically have to trick the DHCP server into only giving out addresses to a non-existent MAC, it will then reject all other requests and your clients will try another DHCP server.  The process is described here http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1892834.
I've done this on my network so that the clients will use the DHCP server on my Linux box, where I can set things like the DNS servers that I want the clients to use.

[#6]

Its all jibberish. Until you realise it's FTTP in the title

[#7]

Moderator Note by Dick (Strat)

Topic locked due to its age and no help is being sought.