How To Upgrade Your SpeedTouch Home to a Pro Version

This document descibes how you can enable the 'Pro' software features on an Alcatel Speed Touch Home ADSL modem. The most interesting feature that will be enabled is PPP. This means that you will not have to use PPTP anymore. This is great because PPTP is garbage and causes serious problems on all non-MS platforms.

The modem will also act as a router with NAT/PAT so that you can connect it to a hub/switch with as many devices as you want.

All modifications are done in software. No hardware changes are needed.

For more information about the configuration, see the manual! You also probably got the manual with your modem. All the 'Pro' features are described in it.

Disclaimer & Warning

You have the risk of changing your modem settings and not getting them back in the correct original state. The Alcatel Speed Touch Pro is a wonderfull piece of engineering, but has many problems. For example, I just thought I had lost my modem because it did not respond to a ping. Turned out that the modem had a f*cked up ARP table and simply couldn't find the attached machine. Weird stuff, it needs some expirimenting.

Do not ask me for help! It's your modem!

You are warned! Have fun :-)

Step One - Get the EXPERT password

You need to make a change to a setting that is only available in the modem's EXPERT mode. This mode is protected by a password that you can retrieve using this script.

The script takes a challenge string which can be found by telnetting to your modem. Log in as any user and the modem will show a string like 'SpeedTouch (00-00-00-00-00-00)' before asking the password.

Write this down! (I wrote it on the modem just to be sure)

Step Two - Enable the Pro features

Login to the modem using telnet. You can login as any user with any password (if you haven't changed it of course). Now do the following

=>EXPERT
'SpeedTouch (00-00-00-00-00-00)'
Password : 
Switch to expert mode.
Return to Normal mode by typing 

You are now in Expert mode. There are some other interesting commands available here. Ok, next step is to upgrade the modem:

> rip
rip> drv_read 2 1 b
the data in hex is :  8604

Now change the last digit to 6 and write it back. It's possible that you get another number back, but changing the last digit to 6 always seems to do the trick. (I'm not sure why my modem gave back 8604, others have reported to get 8600 for PSTN or 9600 for ISDN)

rip> drv_write 2 1 b 8606

And then reboot the box.

rip>exit
>system
system> reboot

That's it! Your modem now has the Pro features! That was easy, and it saved you a lot of cash :-)

Step Three - Reset your modem to Default

Warning, after this step there is no easy way back!

Turn the modem off. Stick a pencil in the little hole located at the rear of the modem. It's a little switch. Turn the modem back on while still pressing the little switch. Wait for 45 seconds.

Your modem should now have it's default settings. IP address of 10.0.0.138 and a netmask of 255.255.255.0.

The expert mode is still active :-)

Step Four - Configure your PC

use the following settings on your PC/Mac/UNIX boxes:

You can also connect a router, Airport Base Station or Wavelan access point. PPTP is gone so you can connect any IP device.

Step Five - Configure your modem for PPP

This has only been tested with KPN's MXStream ADSL service in The Netherlands. I'm using an XS4ALL account, but it also is known to work with Planet.

Connect to the modem via the web interface on http://10.0.0.138. Then go to the PPTP menu and remove all entries. Apply and Save the changes. Go to the Phone Book and remove all entries. Again, Apply and Save changes.

Now go to the Phone Book screen and add a new entry with name 'MXS' on 8/48 with type PPP. Save the changes.

Go to the PPP screen and add a new entry for the 'MXS' with type 'vc-mux'. Then configure the 'MXS' entry with the following settings

Apply and save these changes. On the PPP screen you can now turn the Status to On and Save the changes. it can take a while before the modem connects and changes to the 'on' status. If it does not change, check the settings :-)

Tada! ADSL Connection without PPTP!