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I've been noticing that my DSL modem/wireless router (ActionTec) is starting to drop connection periodically of late. I can't tell if its due to my equipment or AT&T. It was working flawlessly for the first few months, but of late it requires reboots every so often. Looking on various review sites, I now come to find people reporting that it stops working after a few months and requires constant reboots.
Does anyone have opinions about all-in-one DSL modem/wireless routers vs. buying a DSL modem and then separately a wireless router?
Secondly, does anyone have a recommendation that has worked well for them?
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Andrew Rissing wrote: does anyone have a recommendation that has worked well for them?
Tap into the neighbors wireless?
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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Ha. 
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I have an old Netgear router, which is still giving sterling service after maybe five years. I can strongly recommend the Belkin F5D8636 routers - I've bought a few of them as replacements for friends dead 'uns and they are very good, with the annoyance that you can't specifically link IP to MAC addresses which can make wireless printers a PITA (The Netgear ones do)
If you get an email telling you that you can catch Swine Flu from tinned pork then just delete it. It's Spam.
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When I was with AT&T, I configured their modem as a "bridge", built my own pfSense-based firewall box, and purchased and two wireless routers - one for "guests", and one for residents (me and the wife). Guests needed to be given the WEP key so they could connect, and traffic through that router was heavily restricted and completely segregated from the rest of the network (via the pfSense firewall).
During the five years I had that setup, I never had an intrusion of any kind, and none of the equipment failed.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I never had an intrusion of any kind,
I think you and your wife's shooting ability had more to do with that. 
Chris Meech
I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar]
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]
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Speaking of the wife and shooting...
She surprised me on Wednesday, and came home from work with a new shotgun she'd purchased during lunch (along with a few hundred shells of various density #2-#4 buck).
She wanted something a little lighter than the 12-gauge we already had (the "big" one weighs in at 7 pounds empty and has a 20-inch barrel), so she got a 20-gauge with an 18-inch barrel (5 pounds empty). She was definitely faster swinging it around a door jam than she was with the 12-gauge, and I'm positive the 20 won't kick as hard.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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That is some arsenal you two have. Home invader's better stay away, 'cause they likely are not leaving on their own power.
Chris Meech
I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar]
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]
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Home invaders, confiscationists, UN "observers", government reps that are there to "help" me - yeah - they're all in the same group...
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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I've been using an ActionTec for several months now. No issues yet.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"Show me a community that obeys the Ten Commandments and I'll show you a less crowded prison system." - Anonymous
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Get ready....it's probably near its end of life.
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Netopia modem ... slightly remote from several of my boxes. Only one box, my development box, has any issue with the sychronization. "Periodically" is the word I'd use to describe the drop that occurs ... where IE9 suddenly won't refresh, etc. And there's no real reason I can think of for this to happen.
Wait for it ...
The box that perpetually is out-of-synch ... that dev box; it's very far away and ... yes, it turns out the reason why the connection gets dropped and is always de-synching is that the power fluctuates.
Try putting both the machine that drops the connection and the modem that needs to be stopped and started often on the same power hole.
Too lazy to do it myself.
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My preference would be to keep them separate unless you're severely space constrained.
My reasoning is that your modem is unlikely to need replaced unless it fails, while your router is going to be outdated every few years due to new wifi standards.
My cable modem is 7.5 years old and still works perfectly. In that time I've gone through 2 or 3 routers: possibly a wired only one (not sure if I futureproofed myself with wifi when I didn't have anything to use it at the time), next was basic 802.11g router, currently I have a an 802.11n (2 stream, 2.4 ghz only) model.
I plan to replace that one within a year to take advantage of 5ghz wireless on my next laptop. There's a fairly good chance I'll end up replacing that one in 2 or 3 years as well; 802.11ac still comes at a large price premium and (AFAIK) no current/near future laptops are going to support it. Under those circumstances I don't see much point in paying an extra $100+ today for a feature I won't be able to use for a while, especially since AFAIK none of the current models support the highest performance segment of the spec anyway: 80 vs 160mhz wide channels, 3 vs 8 concurrent spatial streams (at the cost of more antennas than a NSA listening post  ).
Meanwhile my cable is still only 15 down; well within the 40 that Docsis 2 maxes out at. Based on past history it's probably going to be at least 3 or 4 years before my ISP increases my tier to a level that would need Docsis 3 support; longer if having to upgrade their hardware and replace lots of leased modems makes them delay farther.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Good point. Thanks for the perspective.
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I hate wireless. It has never worked well for me and the only reason I have one is to download content to my Kindle Fire (which I like a lot) and as long as it is sitting a couple of feet from the wireless, everything is okay. In fact, I only plug in the wireless when I really want to download content to my Kindle.
m.bergman
For Bruce Schneier, quanta only have one state : afraid.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. -- Voltaire
In most cases the only difference between disappointment and depression is your level of commitment. -- Marc Maron
I am not a chatbot
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