Settop Boxes, Phones, Internet Modems & Firewalls

WARNING : Geeky story with a happy ending and a product recommendation

The past couple of weeks we seem to have changed all of the communication boxes in this house due to one reason or another and finally today (fingers crossed) everything is running as it should.

When we moved to this house back in 2005 we moved all of our communications (Phone, Internet & Television) over to Cablecom, the big cable provider in Switzerland. So we became classic "Triple Play" users. The idea being that we would only need to deal with one provider. Little did we know at that time that it would still be like dealing with three providers with separate helplines for each of the Phone, Internet and TV even when the Internet & Phone are handled by one box (still called a modem even though it doesn't modulate or demodulate anything).

Anyway a few a few weeks ago almost simultaneously the Phone and Digital TV started playing up, The phone sounding like we were being switched on and off rapidly as we were talking and the DTV being switched on and of a little more sedately, but just as annoying.

The Phone

First we (Carol actually) attacked the Telephone helpdesk and after long queues and listening to music that seemed to have been recorded through our telephone and of course accentuated by being played back through our faulty line we convinced them to send us something. A power supply! This seemed to fix the problem for a whole day.

The TV

That was DTV escalation day, no more on and off problems, now it was just OFF complete with slightly charred security card. So we (Carol actually) tackled the TV Helpdesk, analog and digital on one line!! And after after long queues and listening to music that seemed to have been recorded through our telephone and but this time NOT accentuated by being played back through our faulty line we convinced them to send us something. A new DTV box.

The Internet

Meanwhile our phone line had gone back to its flickering state and the Internet seemed to have slowed down to the point the VPN I use for work couldn't manage to hold itself up (not good). A quick measurement (using speedtest.net) confirmed the suspicion of around 2Mb/s on a line I pay for 25Mb/s on (although I wasn't getting ever getting it --- but more of that later)

So Carol took the Telephone helpdesk and I took on the Internet helpdesk simultaneously . This dual pronged attack seemed to have the desired effect they even made the almost unheard of Telephone Internet Helpdesk link-up and decided to send us a new (non modulating) Modem in which to plug both Telephone and Internet connection into.

The Happy Ending (almost)

So within a couple of days with all the new boxes plugged in:
The DTV looked clear and uninterrupted
The Telephone stopped jittering
The Internet speed was up to 5Mp/s

The Product Recommendation

So all was well..... except where is my 25mps
At this time my memory drifted (as it does) back to a conversation with an old friend, even more geeky than I am, that mentioned my Firewall (the trusty old Zyxel Zywall 10) was limited to the WAN Ethernet Performance of 10mps which I just realised that meant a full duplex rate of 5mps. AHA, not Cablecom's performance this time but my aging hardware.

So off to find a good, but low cost, Firewall product.
Starting with the devil I know I looked at the Zyxel Zywall 2 plus with a throughput of 25mps max at CHF269 but I wanted something with some spare capacity and that took me up to at least double the price. So what to do?

As before my memory drifted (as it does) back to a conversation with with the same old geeky friend who mentioned some small computers that you could stick in a 150mm square box (Alix) and run freeware software (m0n0wall, yes they are zeroes) on them to get 100mps throughput.

So last Friday with itchy fingers I ordered an Alix 2D3 System Board, Box (mine is a very nice Red not the Pink shown here, but also available in Black) & PSU (also available for UK) for the total cost of CHF160 (you can do it cheaper with a cheaper board).

They arrived today so I downloaded the m0n0wall image loaded it on to an old CF Card as instructed (it needs just 16MB, mega not giga), plugged it in the system board and stuck the system board in the box. Luckily the default local network was the same as mine so I replaced my old firewall "dragon" with the new "redwall" plugged in the power and et voila.

If it keeps running like this I'll be well chuffed.

The REAL Happy Ending
Maximum Download speed : 25.49Mb/s (2am to Dusseldorf)