UtterlyBoring.com: The Actiontec 1520 DSL Modem should NEVER be used in a corporate environment

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The Actiontec 1520 DSL Modem should NEVER be used in a corporate environment

My DSL provider gets their bandwidth and uses the Qwest-distributed modems: The 1520 from Actiontec. This modem is fine and dandy for personal use, but please, for the love of God, don't use this piece of crap in a business environment.

The modem is single-handedly responsible for blocking random Web requests, and randomly not accepting SSL requests to the secure server I have here in the office (and it first started a while ago, but I've only now been able to fully eliminate every other possible cause for the problem). If you use the modem's firewall and routing features (which suck) things work fine, but if you try to run the traffic through a firewall (using Qwest's way to authentice the PPPoA) it starts randomly dropping requests.

So the tech (who, told me that the corporation that owns their office has basically said "Fix this or you're fired!") brought out a different firewall that played a bit nicer with the modem, so that's all plugged in, and we're at least able to get secure stuff through (for now). The modem itself is still giving me trouble, so they're trying to get a hold of the discontinued Cisco 678 modem for my use.

I think what annoyed me the most is that they gave me a modem, knowing that damn near every user forum out there says it's crap. Even the various levels of techs I talked to didn't even know how to use the thing, let alone how to fix it.

Regardless, it should HOPEFULLY be fixed by the end of the week, and our bill for the month doesn't have to get paid, which is VERY nice. However, we've probably lost a few grand because of this crap.

</rant>

Update: The modem was still dropping packets, so I finally have a Cisco 678 in place of the Actiontec, and put my old firewall back up, and lo-and-behold, everything works fine. Go figure.

Posted by Jake on 07/16/03 @ 04:46 PM
Posted in Rants | 25 Comments | Permalink
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25 Comments

brett said on 07/17/03 @ 07:31 PM:
I've got one of those bastards. It sucks. Constant random disconnects, and when I call Qwest they tell me to buy a Cisco. These Actiontecs must be cheap as dirt.

Vikram Jairam said on 07/25/03 @ 11:45 PM:
Sure! I have one of those bastards. The Modem just simply disconnects from the network when I turn my Primary Domain Controller on. When I turn off the Computer and restart the Actiontec 1520S DSL Gateway, it connects fine. And then I restart my box and things are ok.. for a few hours. And I go to bed and wake up to find that the bastard got disconnected again after about eight hours or so. Way Way sick. Should I dump the box, or the DSL Modem. If my PDC is off though (which is not what I want), then the modem behaves fine.. Any ideas out there would be greatly appreciated.

Lance Hilton said on 07/29/03 @ 11:39 PM:
I just went through the pain and agony of trying to get an ActionTech to work reliably. I was simply trying to hook a dlink wireless router downstream and the actiontech periodically dies and then reboots itself about every 20min.

Solution: Buy yourself a Cisco 678 from ebay for approx $100. I did this, hooked it up and have had zero problems ever since.

Andy McKnight said on 08/25/03 @ 04:59 PM:
I have a Cisco 675, I am moving and setting up a new service. Qwest says the 675 will not work and that I need to rent an Actiontec 1520. Is this correct?

Thanks in Advance
Andy

Jake Ortman said on 08/25/03 @ 05:20 PM:
If you're getting business-class DSL service from Qwest, they're full of it. I bought a Cisco 678 of eBay, plugged and played with no problems, and didn't screw with my firewall.

There are forums out there that will suggest about a dozen modems that work better than the piece of crap Actiontec. But get a Cisco 678 off eBay, and your life will be much simplier.

Mark Z said on 08/25/03 @ 08:53 PM:
I've got an ActionTec, and frankly, it's a peice of shit. I think I'm going to go for Cisco 678. I'm just looking up more info about it right now. This god damn gateway doesn't even port forward correctly.

Mark Z said on 08/25/03 @ 08:57 PM:
Hmm... Is the Cisco 678 a modem also, or is it just a router?

Mark Z said on 08/25/03 @ 09:01 PM:
I should wait before posting. Got my Cisco info. eBay, I love you. No more ActionTec.

Nameless One said on 12/01/03 @ 01:10 PM:
i got the NetDSL 800 from qwest, and all i wanted to do was be able to play games. but i couldnt see anyone. i am just at home and i need to know if this allows game playing or if someking of nat/firewall blocks it. i play a online paintball games and i cant see ppl on the NetDSL 800, so if this is the right modem then i dont care. thanks alot - kurt

agnosticj said on 12/17/03 @ 03:35 PM:
Qwest sent me a 1520 that drops every few days. When it stops, the modem itself is unreachable (at least via TCP and ICMP). They just sent me another. The new one fails to negotiate through the PPPOA/DHCP process on power-up. It will connect okay on a manual attempt. However, it didn't send packets out the DSL line. No pings to the next hop and a constant ICMP error 0 (network unreachable) to any external target. At first I thought it was the routing... then I thought that it might need RIP.

EX AEI said on 01/28/04 @ 11:46 PM:
The router, or could it be called one, sucks for many reasons, but mostly because Actiontec lacks any real engineering resource and the company cut corner anyway possible. Tech support can't help because they are simply not properly trained and the company has fewer than 1/10 of the resource than their nearest competitor. Avoid any product from this company.

Peter said on 07/29/04 @ 04:14 PM:
I would like to buy a used Actiontec 1520 or 1524. efemaile11@hotmail.com

Paul said on 12/08/04 @ 01:39 PM:
I recently started having problems with my Actiontec 1520 (Qwest DSL). The ethernet link appeared to stop working after a while (unable to ping or http 192.168.0.1). Sometimes I could reboot the modem and it would start working again -- for a while, but it would always stop after a few minutes or hours.
After discussing the problem with Qwest tech support, I found that there were sometimes problems with using 100/baseT connections on this type of modem. I changed my computer to run at 10/baseT instead, and everything is now OK again.

Kurt said on 12/16/04 @ 10:50 PM:
I'm not sure if my problems are with the Actiontec or with my iMac (OS 10.3.7). I'm suspicious of the modem, though. I've had a similar problem as Paul and it just recently started to do this. Qwest tech support got me to configure the machine manually, but each time I turn off the computer, I have to manually reset the ethernet configuration again. Sometimes it takes, sometimes it doesn't . Usually by the third or fourth time I get connected. The Qwest tech tried to tell me that it was a problem with my machine. Huh? --KS

Paul said on 03/25/05 @ 12:44 PM:
Update: I started having more intermittent communication problems between my Actiontec 1520 and the computer, even at the slower 10/baseT speed. It got so bad that I was unable to communicate at all. I called Qwest, and they sent me a new modem (a newer model 1520) to replace it. The new one is working OK so far.

movermanwa said on 05/05/05 @ 10:08 PM:
I have a client with a GT701-WG, which seemed to work well that is, tell port forwarding. They called me cause they needed to remote from home to office with PcAnywhere thru their DSL modem provided by Qwest. Though it was my first time forwarding with this router (Actiontec), I knew that it had the capablities for forwarding, but I found out later... after quite a few hours testing, bashing head on keyboard, snooping forums (even my normal hangs) that it didn?t in fact have the capabilities.

As a system engineer.. ppl and clients look to you to know these things. Which this one makes us look bad if we just say ?Ya mister client it will work for you?. Enough said on that piece.

The 1520,1524, and the GT701-WG seems to have a timing issue when you add port forwarding. I was monitoring the GT701-WG (wireless) over a several hour period and noticed that the WAN side would only drop sporadically when I enabled port forwarding. I have seen this issue several times with the Pix 515 & 506 manufactured during May-Sept 2001. Cisco finally reported they used a new hardware module during that time frame. Shortly after finding out about it Cisco has corrected the issue and now they allow RMA?s on them. I believe Actiontec may have the same or similar issues.

So besides the obvious answer (money, cheap, cost effectiveness), my question is: Why put out a piece of junk and say that is has certain capabilities when it does not?

I don?t know about you all out there but as an engineer and a user? I am fed up with companies like Actiontec turning us into their testing grounds for their cheap garbage just so they can undercut some of the big dogs. BTW I used Cisco 675 & 678 Commanders in the past with NO and I mean NO troubles with port forwarding no matter whether bridged or not. So I am getting the 678 on eBay for $70 and I would suggest you do the same. Sorry for the long windedness of this reply.

Scott said on 05/09/05 @ 08:20 PM:
I've had a Cisco 678 for a couple of years, but have always had the intermittent dropping that some folks here have described with their Actiontecs. (I've upgraded to the latest CBOS). Qwest's response has also been that I need to buy a new modem--an Actiontec, of course. I remain suspicious that this is a Qwest problem, but I'm curious if there are other 678 users with similar issues.

codedsolutions said on 05/12/05 @ 05:59 PM:
I just got my GT701-WG and I feel like chucking it out the window. I have port forwarding set on port 80 but it does not work. I still get the Actiontec configuration web page! I can't get the wifi to work either. I have a cisco 675 but qwest told me it would not work. Does anyone know how to get the 701 to port forward correctly or get the 675 to work with the 1.5Mbps DSL?

penguin2501 said on 06/27/05 @ 09:59 PM:
well people,
the reason why you still get the config page even after port forwarding is setup is because the 701 runs linux on the inside. if you look at the iptables stuffs, you see that it is forwarding traffic from the outside, but not from the inside. you can telnet into the modem to fix that, but the setting won't hold when the modem gets power cycled.

as to the original statement of not using actiontec modems in a corporate environment, sigh. i work for qwest dsl support. as far as technical specifications, i'm surprised the sales team can count to three. not because they are stupid, but because they are not properly briefed on the equipment. not that my department is either... haha. they should at least tell sales to not send those pieces of crap to people who need a semi-reliable unit.

yeah. i agree with you all about actiontec and here is why. they only design the case that the pcb comes in. the ic design and the firmware compilation are all done by TI. ti doesn't tell actiontec anything, actiontec doesn't tell qwest corporate anything, corporate sure as hell doesn't tell us anything.

about the 675, yeah. it won't work. the 675 only runs on cap signaling. the 678 can have the firmware flashed to use dmt, which i imagine you have if they sent you a 701. if you _really_ need to do good port forwarding on a 701, learn iptables, figure out a good config for what you need, and then write a perl script to restore the settings when the modem loses power. as for the wifi, just forget about it. i'd average that 1 in 5 access points are bad right from the factory. again, crappy hardware with firmware that only 5 people understand under the hood.

as for a permanently stable unit(until the hardware fails during the next lightning storm)there have been projects to actually modify the linux micro-distro on the 701, but i've only seen limited inovation. i've been thinking about taking that up myself if any of you are interested...

any takers?

NoMoreSnow said on 07/28/05 @ 01:31 AM:
Geez, I have to telnet into the 701 and do iptables stuff? Sounds hard to do. I googled iptables and it looks like a beast. I don't want to do firewall stuff or anything like that, just send port 80 traffic to the correct ip address.

bincoder said on 08/08/05 @ 03:38 PM:
I've been using Actiontec 701 on qwest for months and had no probs with disconnects.
Got a Cisco 678 from ebay so that I could connect to my webserver from the same local ip number. That worked on the Cisco, but will not work on the Actiontec. Problem is the Cisco drops conns. every few hours. Been telneting into the Actiontec and getting confused over iptables attempting to get local browsing (by typing the real wan address) and being forwarded to my local server.
What iptable setting can I add to make that happen on the Actiontec?
BTW... on Cisco, connecting from local to local using real internet address always works no matter what server I run (HTTP, WinMX, etc.) I'm on DHCP on the WAN via Qwest. Trying to get the Actiontec to allow the local pc's to their own (same local ip) servers... (no matter if it's HTTP or WinMX, etc.)
Port fwding is already done. On Cisco thats all thats needed. On Actiontec, I need to add a magic rule to allow it. What on earth would that be?

Incognito said on 08/12/05 @ 04:00 AM:
I wouldn't wipe my ass with an actiontec modem. Might piss off my shit.

pissed said on 07/04/06 @ 03:30 PM:
you know what pisses me off, is with the actiontech 701, you can't host game rooms without turning off the nat, can't turn off the nat without buying 5 more IPs from qwest every month for 14.95 each. now that's the stupidest thing i've ever heard. shouldn't i get full internet access if that's what i'm paying for each month. when i get my raise i'm switching to cable. they don't use a nat.

FeSTeR said on 07/19/06 @ 02:58 PM:
Alright.. i think this page has helped me.... ive got the 701 and its the biggest pos ive ever had in my life. i lose connection to xfire every 10 minutes. and then lose connectiong from the internet every couple of hours....; and have to reboot the modem and then every computer in the house has to reboot for the internet to work for them.. this is bull shit i had an older version of the 701... i think it looked the same but didnt have a power botton. and i never had a problem like this... i even formatted thinking i had some fkin spyware of somthing... still modem loses the connection yet all my lights stay green.. wtf???

yuppa said on 04/12/08 @ 07:06 AM:
Well i myself have never had a problem with this modem. I run winxp pro with a celeron 2 also so i run a very outdated system as well. Most of your guys problems are because you are tweaking stuff you have no business tweaking. I use verizon dsl with my modem.

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