A good basic DSL modem, with no eye-candy features, etc... Yea! All text user interface! No glitchy graphics (eg. GIF/PNG/JPG) within the administration web interface. A little difficult at first to setup, as I always enter the incorrect password using the initial "quick setup" option. However, I further note below the three most important menu items you'll need to know after initially setting up this modem, including changing the ISP login password, and the menus for monitoring for service issues.
My modem log states this modem model having a Broadcom BCM96345 chip, for which Broadcom chips are supposedly strongly preferred for DSL modems. This modem states "Made in China", with D-Link's headquarters is in Taiwan. Regardless, this is the most recent DSL modem without wireless features available on the market, aside from the older TP-Link DSL non-wirelessmodem. Also, the manual includes GPL/LGPL disclosures. (eg. Yea! Linux & Open Source!)
Purchased this as a replacement for my apparently shorted TP-LINK TD-8816 DSL modem. The TP-Link worked great for 2-3 years, until just after a telephone repair man apparently checked the system. Shrugs, so I just bought another non-WindStream modem!
This is a good basic modem without any wireless features or eye-candy user interfaces. Very similar to the TP-LINK TD-8816 DSL modem, except there are no GIF/JPEG images within the web browser administration interface for which created problems when printing. This modem also offers telnet/ssh interfacing.
NOTE: The three most important menus within the modem's web administration interface are the following menus;
1) "Device Info" > WAN: Tells you if you are connected to your Internet service provider's network. For example, shows your issued IP address.
2) "Device Info" > Statistics > WAN: Shows your SNR Margin dB, Attenuation dB, speed rates and errors/corrections. In other words, line integrity problems. Also includes the previous menu's info.
3) "Advanced Setup" > WAN > Edit to edit your user name and password, along with augmenting any other DSL settings for logging into your Internet service provider. (eg. UBER, QOS, PPPoA or PPPoE, LLC, login password, redial/retry method, MTU ...)
Additionally, you may want to turn on logging within Management > System Log, as by default, logging is turned-off for some odd reason. Logging is very minimal with the default settings, likely providing some very informative information when trouble-shooting.
If this is your only router/device between your computer and your telephone line (eg. no router), than this device also provides firewall and NAT features. If you have a more recently dedicated wireless router or other router, than those dedicated routers may function better than this modem's routing/firewall/NAT (etc) functions as the dedicated hardware tends to perform better than hardware with add-on features.
The other great thing about these cheap modems, if the telephone repair person gets mad at your and decided to short your telephone wiring with 48V shorting any hardware connected to the line, than this $50 modem will likely short-out first and save the remainder of your network system (eg. telephones, wireless routers, ...) from the excessive voltage. Making this a $50 repair/replace scenario rather than a $150+ for replacing all-in-one DSL modem wireless routers!
Ok, just a few mentions quickly. First, this is a DSL ADSL2+ Modem, and not a Modem/Router combination. The description states that there is a newer version of this product, however the newer version is really a Router/Modem combo, a whole different ball game. Note that this modem requires it's own Internet address (IP). If you have a router installed and it's using 192.168.1.1 you will have a conflict when you install the modem which is easilly resovled. As an example, I used 192.168.4.1 for the modem. Another good feature about this modem is that it also has a built in firewall for additional security. The install is pretty easy for those that have done this before. Their technical support, as I worked with them once, is pretty good. They are responsive and will walk you through anything your not familiar with. The install directions are poor and I would review the carefully. Example, in the install diagram, they depict the modem cable plugged into the back of the PC. They don't seem to visually diagram the Modem to Router, to PC scenario.
I reccomend the product as there are few standalone ADSL2+ modems around anymore, at least as far as I can determine.
I bought this modem to replace the modem provided by AT&T/Bellsouth. The original modem died during a thunderstorm but this new modem now has a surge protector on the phone line to hopefully stop that from happening again. The modem connected normally after i put in the DSL password. Luckily I had that saved since you have to go on AT&T's website to retrieve it.
I didnt use the setup CD, i just opened the web admin and set it up from there. No problems with the connection so far. My connection is 6Mbps and speedtest websites are showing 5.5Mb so I think thats reasonable.
If you subscribe your DSL service from Frontier Communications, be aware!
Frontier has a policy in place that doesn't allow you to use your own equipment, hence the monthly rental charge for their equipment will stay on your bill, no matter if you use their's or your own equipment.
I call it "rip off, gouging or whatever you want to call it (to use Mr. Trump's words)".
Again, they found a way to reach into your wallet. There is no regulation / law about this in place.
** The D-Link modem works as expected, though. ** Makes it harder to return!
I called Frontier prior to purchase of this modem, since I have my own router with built in WiFi and wanted to use it.
Frontier provides a modem with built in WiFi (Netgear) and charges you a hefty rental fee.
When I asked if I can use my own modem to save the rental fee, I was told that I could use any modem that has an RJ11 (telephone receptacle). What they conveniently forgot to tell was that they still will charge the rental fee.
This I learned when I inquired about the return of their equipment.
In other words, it is useless to purchase a DSL modem replacement, the charge stays on your bill.
I am writing this so that other Frontier subscriber are aware of this dubious business of Frontier Communications!
I complained about the forced rental to our State senator and others in this trap should do the same.
What happened to freedom of choice?
The item name for this is incorrect, it is not just a modem but a modem/router. This makes it capable of handling many home devices out of the box, though the fact that it only has 1 LAN port means you'll be using an access point and/or a switch if you want to attach more than 1 wired device (typically a computer) to it. Since I have my own infrastructure of access points and switches this device does exactly what I was looking for, i.e. provide ADSL connectivity to my network. (Having no wireless access point and no bank of LAN ports built in has the advantage of making this device small and inexpensive.) It does that job and it does it fast. I compared it to two ADSL routers that my phone company provides in Uruguay (a ZTE zxv10 W300 and a Zyxel amg1202-t10b) using ookla and while the throughput was pegged for all at the limit of my ADSL service the latency was noticeably quicker on this modem vs the others (18ms vs 30+.)
Cable modems tend to be a no-brainer for the user to install (at most they require a call to the cable company top active them). ADSL modems are not as lucky as there are some parameters to specify, notably VCP circuit numbers and in some cases user name and password. This modem/router tries to automate the process with a setup CD that knows the most common ISPs in the US, but it offers little help for the rest of the world. I know my ISPs VCP numbers (0 and 35) and I know the ISP uses PPPoE LLC and disregards whatever user/password you specify so I had no trouble setting the modem/router up manually.
The web UI of the modem/router is downright spartan (it looks like the developer looked for efficiency, not fancy graphic design.) But all the options are there, including an ADSL statistics page that gives you all the stats you might ever want and more (my favorite is "Super Frame Errors", no idea what those are but they sound mighty.) There is a "Diagnostics" page that stays blank a looong time and then shows a bunch of PASS/FAIL test results. One option that other ADSL modem/routers (e.g. those of TP-Link) offer but is not available here is support for DynDns and NO-IP type IP address reporting, something that is handy for people hosting any kind of server behind an ADSL connection with dynamic IP.
It remains to be seen how this modem/router holds up in the long term in the rural medium I am in; I've lost a number of them to electric discharges (lightning etc) and/or poor thermal design that leads the modem to run hot and eventually die. But so far so good.
BOTTOM LINE: If your ISP offers plain ADSL (not VDSL) and you want a zippy, low cost modem/router to take advantage of it this unit does the job.
Feature Product
- Port: 1x RJ-11 ADSL, 1x RJ-45 10/100BASE-TX Ethernet LAN Port with auto MDI/MDIX
- Routing Information Protocol (RIP, RIPv2) RFC 1058, RFC 1723, Network Address Translation (NAT) RFC 1631
- Get high-speed ADSL speed
- Firewall protection & Qos
- Safety Certification: CSA International; CE; RoHs Compliant
Description
D-Link DSL-520B ADSL2+ Modem Router, Get high-speed ADSL speed
Old modem for Century Link/Qwest DSL was going out and I needed a replacement that wasn’t more than 100 bucks! Microcenter and Best Buy had the expensive options.
But wow, Amazon. $38, same day delivery for free?? Yes! Saved my sports and bowl games over the New Year’s holiday weekend! Stream at will!!!
It does work with Century Link. Once I found the right rep, #3, he gave me the PPP security info and I was able to complete the set up in a minute. Then had to reboot a few devices to get it all working.
I think this new modem has helped with a lot of other issues I thought were not related. The old one was probably deteriorating a little bit over time and I couldn’t really tell that picture quality issues and WiFi dropping was more the modem than bandwidth, Direct TV Now or Century Link?
Anyway, very happy with this purchase and very happy with Amazon!
Inexpensive DSL modem to replace my unreliable 10 year old ISP provided one. Web interface is no-frills but functional, boots up faster than the combination modem/router it replaced. Also note that you can store your PPPoE credentials in this device, so your router or hub doesn't need to provide them. So far working fine for 2 months on Fairpoint DSL in Vermont.
update: getting it to work with wifi was easy--just reinstalled wifi.
I have just spent 5 hrs on the phone over two days to get this modem working with a macintosh. Granted, most of it was wind stream's fault. But have your vpi, vci, username and password for your account ready for ppoe network protocol accounts. And if you don't know your network protocol, find that out. No auto setup for macs. And I had to call wind stream three times to find someone who knew what I meant when I asked for the various info. DLink complicated things by saying find "connection type" instead of "network protocol" as well. As of now the modem works with an old computer but not with a newer one and neither work with wifi, although it is possible the wifi firmware needs an update--that is for tonight or tomorrow as I'm really tired of all this. I still gave it four starts as much of the issue was windstream, but instructions could have told me what to look for at start and the poor terms for network protocol created an issue.
I was having slow DSL performance and wanted to replace a Verizon provided DSL modem with something that could show me at least my DSL line was running well. My criteria was to find a DSL modem that supported the later standards (ADSL2+ Annex M, etc), at least have some sort of recent support (datasheets or firmware dated within past 2 or 3 years) and have full statistics. As another reviewer mentioned, there's not a lot to choose from overall.
This modem fit the bill for me, it has detailed WAN, ATM, ADSL statistics that at least showed me my local loop was clean. It supports OAM and BERT tests.
There doesn't seem (as of this review anyway) any firmware updates from DLink, so whatever is loaded is basically what you get. It seems likely this is because there is some country specific firmware.
The manual shows settings for Internet Time (NTP) which is missing in my firmware and can't set the time, This is a little annoying when looking at the logfile and trying to understand when an event happened.
My DSL performance issues didn't change with this modem and it turns out it was a Verizon issue, which they have now fixed. I see many reviews for various DSL or cable modems which claim to have solved performance, but I would caution problems can always be somewhere else. The statistics from this modem, plus some detailed speed tests I ran, made me confident the problem was not on my side of the wire.
Got it to replace a flaky TP-Link modem and it works fine but only after fiddling with the settings. Apparently it's not compatible out of the box with my ISP's ADSL2+ service. Good thing I still had access to Google (with the TP-Link) so I was able to track down the correct settings. So I'm deducting one star for that problem. Otherwise, it's able to maintain a fast & stable connection so no complaints once it's been set up.
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