Quick Overview

Bezeq is the telephone company in Israel, and the supplier for ADSL lines here. Although one can sign up for any ISP they choose, all lines come from Bezeq, and use their setup. By default, the modems they give try and use PPTP or PPPoE, requiring a dialer program running on a PC. One alternative is keeping one’s PC on all day is the use of a router– but what if someone wants to just plug the modem into a switch? The Alcatel Speedtouch 510 they sell has a full router built in– and it would be nice if we could use it. Also, some reports suggest that PPPoA gives a faster throughput than PPPoE (I haven’t verified this). Anyway, here’s how.

Alternative

Before we begin, let me point you to an excellent page at petri.co.il. Despite the MCSE in the title, the author of this site knows his stuff, and has some excellent resources. He’s working on the reverse assumption of this page: namely, he tells you how to make your Alcatel as dumb as possible, to use a smarter router / firewall behind the box, and eliminate the modem’s NATing and other features. Here, we’ll do the opposite.

Who can use this?

Anyone with:

• An Alcatel 510 speedtouch modem
• More than 1 PC / VoIP device / other ethernet device
• A hub, switch, or router (PPPoE, L2TP etc not required!)

How?

First, let me say that I’m not responsible if this fries your modem or anything else really bad. It worked for me– it might (or might not) work for you. Also note that I keep my modem with an IP of 192.168.0.1 instead of the 10.0.0.138 default. It’s what I do. Download my user.ini, and upload it to your modem (under setup->system). Go back to basic, and enter your username. It should work. Enjoy.