How not to use an AirPort Extreme with a DSL modem

AirportextremeinternetsettingsI’ll definitely be chalking this up to user error, but wanted to pass it along in case other folks could benefit. For the past few months, I’d been having a sporadic problem with my AirPort Extreme that was always annoying. Without any warning nor pattern, I would lose my Internet connection: the status light would blink amber for a minute or two and then everything would resolve itself. This was happening in the middle of Skype calls, during blog posts, reading RSS feeds; the activities completely varied. I checked the logs of the AirPort Extreme and found no useful info other than an informative “Disconnected” message for every incident. After two months of troubleshooting, Googling and head-scratching, I figured out the problem.

The issue appears to be based on the way I had set up my home network. It had been set up several years ago using the Westell Versalink 327W DSL modem that Verizon provided and a Linksys 802.11 b/g router I picked up. When I bought the AirPort Extreme, I simply swapped out the Linksys and used the AirPort Utility to create a PPPoE connection. This configuration essentially had the router initiate and manage the DSL connection. It worked without incident under Tiger, but ever since Leopard, I had been experiencing the network drops. I couldn’t quite determine if it was the router, the DSL modem, Verizon’s service or some combination.After stepping away from the problem a few days ago, I came back to it with a new outlook and basically asked myself: “Why is the router managing the DSL connection; shouldn’t the DSL modem be doing that?” That gave me the idea to bring a simpler approach to the connection, so I used the AirPort Utility to remove the PPPoE connection I had used for months and configured the modem to call out to Verizon for service. Sure enough, I haven’t had a single drop since I made that change, which seems like an obvious one in hindsight.I don’t know if this issue is specific to my router, modem and service combination and in all honesty, my original configuration should have worked (and mostly was), but simple is often better. If you’ve had mysterious Internet drops and you’re having a hard time identifying the source, this info could come in handy. I’m still not sure why the AirPort Extreme couldn’t handle the PPPoE connection on a stable basis, but at this point, I’m just happy I have my connection working 100% of the time.

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