Okay, so I've been stuck with tethering to my G1 as my main source of internet for about two months now. It wasn't as bad as dialup, just the same, I am glad to have DSL setup in my apartment now. I'm pretty much stuck with Qwest for my DSL service, being in Arizona, there are other carriers, but since Qwest owns the line to the CO/ATM network, it winds up being more for a personal connection if you use another ISP. So, I made the best of it. I'm pretty fond of being able to use 3rd party firmware, and am loyal to Tomato firmware on the WRT54GL currently. I've considered RouterBoard as another option as well, but the WRT is just a simpler setup for personal, and even SOHO use.
After a little bit of research on the use of PPPoE over the DSL's ATM connection, I came to find that there are differences between PPPoA, PPPoE and PPPoEoA. PPPoA makes the authenticated connection directly over the ATM channel, this provides slightly better throughput over PPPoE, which has a lower MTU. PPPoEoA allows for a separate router to make a PPPoE connection over an ADSL bridge modem's Ethernet to ATM. If this all sounds confusing, it is. What it comes down to, is that Qwest supports a PPPoE connection over it's ATM DSL lines in most areas, including my apartment. Your milage may vary here.
What this allowed me to do was use a Zoom 5615 ADSL Bridge Modem for the DSL connection. What you first need to do is connect via Cat5 Ethernet to the model which runs on 10.0.0.2, where you can use a 255.255.255.240 bitmask, and use 10.0.0.4 for example as your local IP, no gateway or DNS entries are needed, as you will connect directly. The modem's quick start guide gives you this information, as well as the default username (admin) and password (zoomadsl), I wasn't able to change the password, but it's not a big deal as that address block won't even be accessible without direct hardware access. The modem needs to be set to a VPI of 0 and a VCI of 32 which is available in the basic settings. Once this is set/saved and saved to NVRAM you should be able to check the status page, and see that your ATM connection for the modem is indeed up. From here you will enter your DSL username and password for a PPPoE connection on your router, connected to the modem directly.
A friend of mine runs a small ISP service in the Prescott area, his host feed is via DSL and he is wanting to use MLPPP via his carrier which runs of Qwest controlled lines. The two lines are already setup, and in a few weeks we're going to use two of these Zoom modems, with a WRT54GL runing Tomato/MLPPP firmware and see how that goes. If it works, it will give about 1.5MB up and about 15MB down. The up is actually the main barrier, also being able to configure for multi-ip routing.
I will have an update on this early next month. For the curious the WRT54GL is readily available through numerous sources, as is the Zoom 5615 ADSL Bridge Modem. I tend to favor Amazon and Newegg, and will usually go with either based on price mainly. It's really worth checking both for every item you purchase. I tend to only purchase from Amazon where Prime shipping is available, since third party vendors from Amazon have mixed results. I've provided the links below for your conventience.
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