Using Alcatel 'Speed Touch 570 Wireless' ADSL router
with BT 'Openworld', by David Tong
Introduction
In our household, two people each use their own laptop for work and play. The problem was that only mine had access to ADSL, the other was stuck with dial-up. As time went on, this became an ever more niggling issue, so I was delighted when the Alcatel ST570 came on the scene.
It is a slim box not much larger than a videocassette and combines ADSL modem, firewall, LAN router, and wireless interface. Ours sits on a shelf plugged into the ADSL line and the mains adaptor, and links by radio to two Toshiba laptops fitted with Orinoco ‘Silver’ PC Cards and running Windows 2000 (W2k).
I bought the 570 and the wireless cards from DSLSource, the day after I came across the review at ADSLGuide. I also found useful information at Alcatel and at Orinoco. The Orinoco cards are reviewed at Practically Networked.
Setting Up
Being new to LANs, routers and firewalls, I nearly panicked when I saw the bulky 300-page manual that came with the 570. Later I realised that this is a useful book in its own right. It is thorough and does a good job at making sense of a complex and jargon-ridden subject.
My first task was to install a wireless card in one of the laptops so that it could talk to the 570. I then set up the 570 so that it could access BT Openworld. Once that was working I installed the second wireless card and that was it. Everything was easier than I had expected. The 570 needed very little setting up to work with BT Openworld, the firewall needed no setting up at all, and the two computers conversed as soon as I had installed the two wireless cards.
Installing the Wireless Cards
The Orinoco cards come with a separate instruction sheet for W2k installation. It warns you to use the drivers on the CD instead of the ones built into W2k. The procedure went as follows.
- I logged into W2k as Administrator, and inserted the setting up CD. This produced the Main Menu screen for Orinoco Wireless Networking, dated Spring 2001 - even though the manual was labelled ‘Winter 2001’.
- I clicked the ‘Install Software’ button and then ‘Client Manager’. This offered to install ‘Variant 01, version 01.76’ and I accepted the default location, C:\filesmanager. It took about one second to load. I clicked ‘Finish’, and a Readme.txt file was displayed. I printed this out for reference and then closed the file. This produced the message: ‘Information: The driver for the card has not been installed. To start it insert the card.’
- As per the W2k instruction sheet, I ignored this and clicked OK which restored the install menu. Next I clicked on ‘Windows 2000 Driver’. I accepted installation of the driver ‘WLLUC48’ in the default folder and it was installed immediately. I then clicked ‘main menu’, then ‘exit’, and removed the CD.
- I then inserted the card - in the upper slot so the antenna bulge won’t impede insertion of a possible second card. The ‘Found New Hardware Wizard’ appeared. I clicked ‘Next’ and accepted ‘Search for a suitable driver for my device (recommended)’. On the next screen I ticked ‘Specify a location’ and navigated to C:\files.inf.
- A click on ‘Next’ installed the driver and brought up the ‘Add/Edit Configuration Profile’ screen. The ‘Default Profile’ was of type ‘Access Point’ - as appropriate for linking to the 570. For ‘Network Name’ I entered the ‘Service Set ID’, which is printed on the label underneath the 570. Everything else I left as default.
- The final OK produced a message ‘The control panel applet does not function correctly or an old version is used - OK’. Clicking OK on this finished the installation and a grey icon for ‘Client Manager’ appeared in the bottom right-hand toolbar.
Despite the warning, the card worked well enough to set up the 570, but later I encountered some inconsistent behaviour which ceased when I downloaded a more recent version of the software and driver from the Orinoco website (see later).
Accessing the 570
Following the instruction manual I proceeded as follows.
1. With the 570 switched off, I connected the ADSL port and the power unit. I then turned on the power using the switch on the 570. The power lamp flashed red a few times and then steadied at green. Then the ‘line sync’ lamp flashed green for a while and then remained on, signifying that the ADSL modem is synchronised with the exchange. The LAN lamp and the Line TX lamp kept flashing green every second or two as the 570 checked for LAN terminals.
2. A message above the Client Manager icon showed: ‘searching for Alcatel01D9D5 on Channel 11’. This is the default channel for the 570. I then pressed the ‘Association’ button on the back of the 570 to make it recognise and register the wireless card. After a few seconds the icon went all green indicating that a strong radio connection had been established.
3. I then started Internet Explorer and in /tools/options cleared the box ‘always dial a connection’. I entered 10.0.0.138 in the address line and clicked ‘go’. A warning message said ‘not available off-line’ so I clicked Connect. After about five seconds, the page ‘Welcome to World of ADSL’ appeared from the 570 and gave access to the various setting-up screens.
Setting It Up
At first, setting up the 570 looks scary because all the set-up pages are pre-loaded with a large numbers of settings. However these are merely examples of th821. This page was last updated on 10 December 2001 11:27:04 .