BSNL DataOne Internet on Linux

Age : 34 Joined : 08 Mar 2008 Posts : 1264

The BSNL guys came and installed a Huawei SmartAX MT880 ADSL router
today. As my place is about 4 KM away from the telephone exchange,
I will not be getting the full 256Kbps promised by the telecom
department (it seems ADSL has a distance limit of about 3.5Km for
good quality).

The telecom department still seems to be not very conversant with
Linux - but the people who came to do the installation were very
helpful and friendly. I was given the phone number of a person who
was using the router with Linux in case I had trouble setting it up -
but that was not required as the configuration was very simple.

Here are the things to do to get DataOne working on Linux:

Plug in a LAN card and make sure that the required driver
is present in the kernel, either compiled-in or loaded as a module.
Connect the router to the ethernet card.
Assign an IP address for the ethernet card; the router has a
fixed interface address of 192.168.1.1, so you can use 192.9.168.2
for your ethernet interface. Just do `ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.2′.
Set up the route - just do `route add default gw 192.168.1.1′.
Enter the address of some DNS servers in /etc/resolv.conf (
eg: 61.1.96.69, 61.1.96.71)
Try doing a `ping www.google.co.in’. If it works, great! If
not, check whether it is some problem with the DNS settings by
pinging a machine with the I/P address rather than the name. If
that too doesn’t work, you will have to do some configuration on
the router.
You can access the router via a browser - just enter the
I/P address 192.168.1.1. You basically have to set the connection
type to `PPPoE’; on my MT880 box, this comes under `WAN Settings’.
You will then have to enter your user name and password (username is
of the form xyz@dataone) and reset the router. It will take 2-3
minutes for the box to come up again - when it comes up, it will
`automagically’ talk with the box at the exchange (via PPP?) and
will be assigned a proper IP address. You need not bother about this
address as you always see the router at a fixed address of 192.168.1.1.
Try pinging google.com again - it should work! You are now on
DataOne!
I am getting connection speeds of about 190Kbps consistently; that
should be OK, given the distance. Some of my students who are staying
near the telephone exchange report that they are even getting speeds
greater than the promised 256Kbps!