Nerding Out

I’m a huge fan of Verizon DSL – this is the fifth home/apartment I’ve had it in. During the last move, I was lured in by Comcast,s “Triple Play” deal, but that only lasted three months as Comcast slows to a crawl during peak hours and is totally unreliable.
When I moved back to Verizon, I used some old equipment I had from prior Verizon installations, rather than make them send me new (unnecessary) equipment. So for a while I’ve had two nagging goals related to my home network and the transition back to Verizon (which happened last December…ahem)
1) Stop using Verizon’s Westell Versalink 328W as my wireless router. Go ahead and laugh – I know it’s silly to have been using it for so long, and I’ve had a nice Linksys router lying dormant for 6 months.
2) Gain some security, stability, and speed. This is obviously related to goal number one, because generally I don’t start projects unless I see a clear need. If the Versalink was doing a nice job I’d have no complaints. But as my network gets more robust, I find that the Versalink can’t handle the throughput required to run a reliable local network.
So, I followed these directions to turn the Versalink into a bridge/modem and use the Linksys to perform all other tasks – firewall, authentication, and LAN. I used option 2 and it worked without a hitch; the directions are fairly straightforward but a bit confusing at a few points. As always, trial and error is my friend.
Things are noticeably faster at this point, making my Saturday evening nerd hour well worth the time.