Thu 21 April 2011

Last Sunday I had Time Warner here in Raleigh install their new DOCSIS 3.0 service, advertising 30Mbit down and 5Mbit up for just under \$80 a month. I was already paying about \$60 for 10Mbit down and 384k up (yes, 384k) so I considered this is a good upgrade. I was given a Ubee DDW3611 modem/gateway. It's not a bad modem on the spec sheet: 4 port Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n, etc. However, I have a powerful router already, the WNR3500L from Netgear Running Tomato ported to it. I love the monitoring capabilities and UI of Tomato, so I didn't want to change out. To get the Ubee into "Bridge" mode and use my router, I did the following:

1. Plug my laptop into the "eth1" port and get a DHCP address (192.168.0.X)

2. Go to http://192.168.0.1

   • Username: user
   • Password: user

3. Go to this secret URL: http://192.168.0.1/TlModeChange.asp

4. Switch the device to Bridge mode
5. Save
6. Unplug laptop, plug router into eth1
7. Wait for Ubee modem to reboot, then request IP from router

Using speedtest.net I got the following to a nearby test site and one across the country:

Overall, I'm extremely impressed with the service. It has been fast and stable all week, and the large upstream lets me do things like provide a running torrent of the new Fedora 15 beta so more people can get it, while streaming music using Subsonic to my phone and at work and none of this affects web browsing or gaming very much. I even disabled QoS on my router, which I had set up to try and prevent upstream flooding which would kill my old connection as I don't need it at all anymore!

So far, if you have the cash and it's available in your area, I highly recommend the service.

Category: ISP Tagged: bridge docsis network router ubee

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