Should I risk it?

[Drunkard #1]

I'm faced with a dilemma.

Last month (at the end of the month) I set up 2 pppoe connections on my piece of **** Siemens non-routing "router" (both local only). On the first of this month I disconnected connection 1, and reconnected. And hey presto, I had a local only connection using this months 30 gigs of local, and an international connection using this months 5 gigs of blended.

But because the piece of **** Siemens non-routing "router" won't allow me to change the route tables, I had to disconnect the blended connection at night, in order to download my um distros. I got through 24 gigs of local only before the connection dropped (13 days).

This approach has two problems. 1. No international internet at night, and 2. I can't use my local only allocation during the day.

Now for the solution, and my dilemma.

I've just replaced my pfSense box with a Mikrotik RB433AH (faster, and more customisable), and switched the piece of **** Siemens non-routing "router" to full bridge mode, with the RouterBoard running the pppoe connections.

Can I trust the RouterBoard to keep the local only connection alive? What are the best settings for this? OR, do I put the piece of **** Siemens non-routing "router" back into "router" mode and do the same as I did this month. Anyone got any experience with this sort of problem? Any suggestions appreciated.

NB: I can't live without my local only next month, Dexter starts, Gray's starts, and I need more um distros.

 

[RedhotNeo]

Get a new router ( Dlink or Netgear) or buy a 30GB local account from webafrica or openweb... they are cheap

 

[gregmcc]

Ditch the Siemens. The RB433 should be able to do all you want, and make you coffee. Its a great device!

 

[Drunkard #1]

Get a new router ( Dlink or Netgear) or buy a 30GB local account from webafrica or openweb... they are cheap

In theory the Mikrotik will out perform anything by Dlink or Netgear. I think Cisco would be a more valid comparison. The only question is: can I trust it to keep the local only connection up? I've thought about getting another 30 gigs, but I'd still feel bad for wasting the free 30 I get from Telkom.

Ditch the Siemens. The RB433 should be able to do all you want, and make you coffee. Its a great device!

The piece of **** Siemens non-routing "router" is in full bridge mode, it just acts like a "ADSL to Ethernet converter", nothing else. The question is, what would cause the Mikrotik to reset the connection, because if it's got, for example, an auto reset every 24 hours, that I haven't switched off, then I'm screwed. Can I trust a router I don't know that well?

EDIT:

I've decided to keep the two pppoe connections that are currently up, up until month end. If they don't drop by then, I'll let the Mikrotik run the pppoe connections. If not, I'll have to see what I do. Another perk of the Mikrotik, is being able to set up additional pppoe connections (like my free Webafrica trial) without dropping the existing local only connection. The piece of **** Siemens non-routing "router" required a reboot every time I added to or changed the login details.

 

[Drunkard #1]

Well, an update.

pppoe-loc1: Up for over 7 days now (17 Gigs, holding thumbs for 30!)

pppoe-int1: Can take it down and bring it up without causing and problems with loc1.

pppoe-int2: Set it up a few days ago, when I got my WA trial login details. It didn't cause any problems with loc1, and I can take it down when the WA network goes down, and bring it back up later. The default route the router sets up sends all international traffic to int2. I wish I understood the Mikrotik better, I'd like to use the "check gateway" feature to control int2, and route to int1 when int2 goes down.

I'll get there. I'm very impressed with the Mikrotik, 1200 routes, and I've never seen the CPU over 5%. And I can chop and change routing without taking the pppoe connections down. It's a bit complicated, but it's so powerful it's worth the effort to learn it.