Cisco 881 and the wonderful world of DSL

We have a local DSL provider in my area that's just horrible.

ok, you got me, it's Bell Canada.

Anyways,  I've been busy with a project I picked up to rewire an establishment; I'm doing it primarily for experience.  While I know the theory behind proper home-run wiring, I have not had significant opportunity to actually DO IT.  I wasn't going to pass up on this.

I had no idea what I was getting into.  Word of advice: if you can pay someone to do the wiring for you, do it.

Anyways, as part of the package, I started looking around at other things that were not up to standards.  The establishment doesn't need anything crazy, but I'm all about reliability, so getting older-generation Cisco equipment seems about right.  I had a Cisco 881 in my lab setup that just didn't seem to do any of the things I wanted to do in my lab; so instead of hang onto this low-end router, I decided I would donate it to the cause.

The establishment in question is important to family, and therefore I am expected to give them certain.... special treatment.  This 881 was going to be my ticket.

The config looked good, I set it up at home, but I have no DSL so I cannot test.  I setup the WAN port (Fa4) for no ip address and setup the Dialer for PPPoE and put in the credentials.  I then got onsite.

What I was presented with was a 2Wire modem/router  .... I HATE these things.  I start looking around for a guide on how to convert it to using bridge mode. So I reflash the firmware with one that will allow bridge mode, follow the directions step by step.  I set the VCI and VDI, to 0/35 as instructed ( and as I recall from working with Bell in the past ) and perform the final steps of the configuration.  The last step is to reboot to place the unit in bridge mode.  So I do. and off we go.

Immediately after, I expect that the Cisco would pick up the WAN connection, dial the PPPoE and establish internet connectivity and everything would be amazing.... not so much.

I start troubleshooting, googling, maybe a different firmware, maybe I'm missing something in the config?  I could only find configs for 1800 series and similar (I eventually found one for an 881... that was later) - all of them required the vpdn to include the following line:

vpdn accept-dialin protocol pppoe

I got stuck on getting the router to accept this command; I'm here to tell you that THIS COMMAND IS NOT NEEDED.

I eventually got fed up (after nearly 2 hrs of troubleshooting) and ran:

# debug pppoe

with all the pppoe debugging on, to my amazement, the Dialer was actually trying to initiate the connection.  That means the configuration is complete enough for the Cisco to try.  okay, so if we're trying and not getting a response, then what?

So I grabbed a random ethernet cable for a nearby (powered on) machine, and connected it directly to the modem; sure enough, I got an IP, I checked the management and sure enough the VCI and VDI were 0/100 (the default).  Immediately I changed it back to 0/35 and hit save. seconds later, my console sprung to life with debug messages; I frantically typed to try to turn them all off.

Moments later, I rebooted everything to ensure the configuration would persist through power loss; it did.

2 + hours of troubleshooting because I had to use a custom firmware because Bell won't give us modems with bridge mode as an option....

Usage Based Billing

I had a few thoughts that I originally posted elsewhere and thought it would be a good addition here too.

I havn't updated in a while and this is relevant.

Canada has been undergoing some changes in the form of Usage Based Billing, aka, use more internet, pay more...
ON THE SURFACE, aka a consumer view, it's completely unfair to charge someone for a service they've been getting. eg, 200GB, or an Unlimited cap, etc.
but the reality of the situation, that most people don't know/understand, is that UBB has existed for a long time, not just on the client side. It's actually fairly standard practice in the business internet sector to always provide the fastest links possible and just charge for usage. This is mainly due to, when you need the data, you need it now, not 50 minutes from now, so transferring it as fast as possible increases productivity, but normally, you'll have to transfer that much data regardless.

In Hamilton, Burlington, and the west-side of the GTA, give Atria networks (formerly fibrewired) a call and ask them about their billing. Atria is the fiber provider that used to be part of the hydro-electric company, they're geared towards extreme high-speed (typically business) applications. I'm sure they'll have a flat fee for hookup and a set usage that they don't bill for, but after the usage "cap" you're paying by the GB.

Since Consumer based usage is on so much of a dramatic increase, with youtube, netflix, torrents and other peer-to-peer sharing becoming even more popular as we fill up the IPv4, it used to make sense to give out unlimited, since most customers would not use a lot of it, and they wouldn't really notice, and/or care that their super fast connection wasn't really being used.... while others would use it to an extreme level, everything used to balance out. Now, the usage has gone up so much that they're losing a lot of profit because of the bandwidth fees that the ISPs are incurring due to high usage from their customers and the smaller ISPs.

All this aside, I don't fully agree nor disagree with UBB (I disagree for obvious reasons, so I'll only discuss what I agree with). UBB would be written into the service agreement between (for example), bell and teksavvy. each would have to sign it saying that for service X from bell, that teksavvy will contribute X to bell (where the latter "X" here would usually be money). THAT agreement should either include or not include UBB. if it does not, and bell applies it to the agreement without first re-negotiating with Teksavvy, then bell should be taken to court for breach of contract. This goes double for Bell's capping of "GAS" customer's p2p traffic. If they want to do it to their own customers, fine, but if those customers switch to Teksavvy, then Teksavvy should have a contract stating that they shouldn't be capped like they would be on Bell.
The distribution network is OWNED by Bell here, and as their property, they can police it as they wish. To me, this is no different than hiring security guards to keep your property safe. You set the rules and policies that the guards have to abide, then send them out to protect the land. If anyone trespasses or breaks some arbitrary rule that you've set fourth, then the guards should spring into action, protecting your land from usage other than what you permit.

The dilemma I have with this is that the lines used for the DSL distribution network that Bell is policing, is public property, has been for quite some time. This is why we have choices when it comes to home phones... The switched network is public, bell just maintains it. They established it, they know everything about it, so that just makes sense.

With your Cable providers, whether it's Rogers, Cogeco, or otherwise, they own the cable lines into your house, so they can regulate what goes on there too. AFAIK, those are NOT public property, so we're all focused on bell, rather than rogers or cogeco.
In the end I'm torn, because all of this makes sense, but I hate UBB just like everyone else. But I can't deny the fact that I can see both sides of this argument. I really hope UBB is regulated, because the current laws allow for the consumer, who doesn't have many good options, to be completely ripped off by the companies that provide internet. I can understand UBB, but at a reasonable level. Teksavvy had some overly generous levels, but they were better than overly restrictive (as bell has).