PPPoE on Motorola 2210-02

March 24th, 2008

Motorola 2210-02-1002

The Motorola 2210-02 is an ADSL2+ modem recently distributed by AT&T for its residential customers. It features a handsome form factor and reasonably-useful LED status indicators. As it is most commonly introduced through a PPPoE-based provider, it is sometimes necessary to switch it over to a straight ATM<->Ethernet bridge. Here’s what you do:

  1. Connect your computer directly to the Motorola. Browse to http://192.168.1.254/ in the browser of your choice. If your system has assigned itself a 169.mumble address, you will first need to manually assign your computer an IP address like 192.168.1.5, a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, and a default gateway of 192.168.1.254 to do so.
  2. You should be challenged for Modem Access Code in order to change anything. This should be a ten-digit number on the bottom of the modem. It should be on a yellow sticker.
  3. The Motorola will present a page prompting you for your PPPoE authentication info. You don’t need this any more, as you’re about to disable PPPoE. Click “Advanced” in the left-hand navigation bar instead.
  4. Once the Advanced navigation has expanded, select “PPP Location.”
  5. You should get a big red warning about the dire consequences of changing PPPoE settings. Ignore the warning and select “Bridged Mode (PPPoE is not used).”
  6. Click the “Save Changes” button. Wait 15 seconds or so.
  7. Switch your computer back to DHCP, hook your router back up, or whatever makes you happy. That’s none of my business; this document is just supposed to help you turn off PPPoE, not find meaning in life, achieve spiritual fulfillment, or any of the other things you should be working on.

Please note that the default Motorola 2210-02 firmware as detailed in the user’s guide available on Motorola’s site has a significantly different interface, as do the Motorola 2210-02 models distributed through BellSouth. I am located in SBC’s incumbent footprint, so the above instructions only apply to the stuff they distributed. I think the BellSouth one is 2210-02-1006 whereas the SBC version is 2210-02-1002, but don’t bet the rent on it. I mention this just in case you run into something purchased on eBay or trucked over during a interstate move.

17 Responses to “PPPoE on Motorola 2210-02”

  1. Phat Says:

    Precisely the information that I was looking for. Nice one! Thx!

  2. Larry Says:

    I have the modem as stated above, I have it connected to an Apple Time Capsule Router/HD I am getting a double NAT error, how do I get rid of the double NAT, I should say how do I disable the NAT on the Motorola 2210-02. I have two Mac and PC that is connected to the network, I can get on the internet, but I can not access my MAC over the internet with Back to my Mac because of a Double NAT. Please help

    Larry

  3. Burrowowl Says:

    @Larry: That’s a bit outside the scope of this article, but here are a couple of angles for you:

    1> The most frequent cause of double-NAT problems is if both NAT devices are using the same subnet as each other. In this case the Apple device is probably using the same 192.168.1.*mumble* group of addresses that the Motorola is trying to use. Changing either to something like 192.168.5.*mumble* would probably straighten this out.

    2> If you really want to just have one NAT server on your LAN (you don’t really need two), then plug directly into the Motorola, log in as described above, and turn on the advanced settings on the left-hand list of links. You’ll get a scary warning about how you’re about to break your connection. Don’t worry: you can’t do much here that resetting to factory defaults won’t fix. Anyhow, once you’re in advanced, click the “configure” link on the left. You’ll get a bunch of extra options you didn’t have before, but the only one that matters is “Connection.” Click that, and it’ll give you information about your VPI/VCI and such. All you really care about here is whether bridging is enabled. Use the pull-down menu to set Bridging to “Enabled” and then let the modem reset itself (it should prompt you). Then hook up everything the way you had it before (computer -> Apple device -> Motorola) and (provided the computer and Apple device are configured correctly and your Internet service works right), you’re good-to-go. Happy hunting!

  4. Burrowowl Says:

    It occurs to me that the second option I just put up there was for a Sonic.net-distributed modem. Your mileage may vary; I don’t have an AT&T-distributed 2210-02 handy at the moment!

  5. Guardian Says:

    ATT need’s better documentation for those of us who are not stupid….

  6. dan Says:

    This is exactly the fix for me. I could not figure out why the PPPOe kept hanging up. One clue was that the Internet LED would flash or go red. There were times when I would have to keep resetting the modem or the router of both. This fix seems to have resolved the problem. Thanks for the info

  7. anthony Says:

    is this thing wireless

  8. Burrowowl Says:

    @anthony – nope. 1x phone cord in, 1x Ethernet out.

  9. Anthony Says:

    I AM TRYIN TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO OPEN NAT ON MY MOTOROLA 2210 AND THATS ALL I HAVE IS THE MOTOROLA 2210 HOW TO I OPEN NAT SO I CAN PLAY XBOX LIVE ON IT

  10. fausto Says:

    i emailed motorola abouth the xbox live and NAT problem. they said u cant use port forwarding all you can do is change the connections private IP adress and change it to public in the connection configuration panel

  11. stra04 Says:

    I have a Motorola 2210 and it is set exactly as stated in the directions however, I do have a Linksys router that I am using with it. Although the network seems to be working there is a very annoying problem that I can not figure out. When I try to pull up web pages it may or may not open them and I can never get it to open the page that allows me to sign into my financial institution. Does anyone have any suggestions?

  12. Burrowowl Says:

    @stra04 – If you’re able to get past your modem at all to any web pages, you’ve got the PPPoE end of things sorted out.

    There are several things that could be causing what you’ve described. If you want to bark up a fairly arcane tree, find out from your ISP what your subnet mask should be (it’ll be something like 255.255.255.0 or 255.255.254.0) and compare it to what your computer is actually using. If you’ve got you subnet mask wrong, you will have problems getting to seeming-random hosts that have similar IP addresses.

  13. indie_dev Says:

    After my D-Link ADSL modem died over the weekend, I picked up a Motorola 2210-02-1006 (a re-badged Netopia modem) and set it up to work with my D-Link DIR-655 router.

    After that, I couldn’t get any access to my internal network from the net. Even when I disabled the modem’s own NAT – which just totally blocked everything from working.

    Then I remember the “double NAT” problem (since my router also has a NAT) after reading this post just now.

    So I accessed the modem using 192.168.1.254, changed it to bridge* mode and saved the settings.

    I then went to the router and changed it to PPPoE, entered the login info my ISP gave me, added the ISP’s DNS addresses, saved it. And it works fine now.

    *Note that when I changed the modem to bridge mode, I could no longer access the modem from that 192.168.1.254 page due to the fact that my internal network uses the IP range of 192.168.0.x instead of 192.168.1.x. That wasn’t a problem because I can still access the modem by connecting my computer directly to it temporarily if I needed to change anything there in the future.

    Hope this helps someone else.

  14. John Says:

    I want to change my NAT type from type 3 to type 2 in order to help with my PlayStation 3 online. I can get to the modem settings page but I am unsure how to change the NAT type. I have tried to call my internet provider but they are no help. AT&T wants me to pay them $150 for them to send a technician out to my house to change my NAT type. They won’t even walk me through any steps. Any suggestions?

  15. mike Says:

    i have 2210.and i update the firmware last week after this its change my default ip addres from 192.168.1.254 to 192.168.0.1.and its asked mme user name also its change the name to like netopia need usernmae and password i try to give user name and password many kined like user password admin admin acces code annd s n.pls advise

  16. Jessica Says:

    What is this fix for? I am looking to stop frequent disconnects…..will this help?

  17. Burrowowl Says:

    Jessica, if the problem with your 2210 was that it’s using PPPoE but shouldn’t, you wouldn’t be getting online through it at all. I wouldn’t expect this to do anything but break your connection if you’re on sbcglobal.net

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