What Can You Do w/ 170,000 DirecTV DSL Gateways?

An anonymous reader asks: "I'm sure everyone here is already aware of the impending demise of DirecTV DSL. The latest twist is that, apparently, they're not going to want subs to return the DSL gateways, at least that's the buzz in the DSL Reports DirecTV DSL forum. If true, this means that we'll have around 170,000 of these things floating around, just begging to live again in some other capacity. So, what can be done with them? Seems a shame to let such neat little boxes go to waste. Does anyone care to come up with some creative ideas on how to hack them and make them do something useful?"

Comments

Make a beowulf cluster

[anthony_dipierro]

of DirecTV DSL gateways, of course.

Specifications

[Drakon]

these babies are 50 mhz PPCs with 4 megs of ram and 16 megs of flash
they have an ethernet port (rj45) and a DSL port (rj11) and a USB port
I'm not sure if I can add more capacity, and I won't check until the thing stops working :-(
LinuxPPC :-)

This one's too easy

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Gimp up a legit looking "Postage to be Paid by Addressee" RMA tag

2. Get 170,000 people to print out a copy and box up their DSL gateway

3. Send 170,000 DSL gateways to Hughes/DirecTV, postage-due, with a "Thanks for cutting off my DSL, you insensitive clod" note attached.

Of course, this would be mail fraud, so I'm not actually suggesting it or anything :)

Use them with the next DSL provider.

[mcgroarty]

Before trashing the things or getting overly clever, first hunt around a bit. Many different DSL providers use the same hardware, and you may be able to skip a startup fee while still opting out of a contract if you can find another provider who uses them.

If these models have a password for remote configuration, it would also be a good idea to try and land that for yourselves before the ISP goes tits up for good. Band together to bribe a techie. I'm sure one of their support dudes who's about to be out of work anyway could be bought if you round up a couple hundred bucks. :)

Keep using them for DSL service

[I Am The Owl]

I thought this was rather obvious. Just plug them into another phone line and pirate a stray DSL signal. I believe they run through all lines in the PSTN, so you shouldn't have much trouble logging on. I've done this with my cable modem once or twice, no sweat.

Can't be done.

[-dsr-]

DSL isn't a shared medium, bucko. Each PSTN line gets provisioned to a central office, and from there is either sent to an ISP-specific aggregator or a CO-aggregator that sends each connection off to an ISP-specific aggregator.

Now, these boxes could probably be reprogrammed to act as DSL gateways for another service -- but you would need to get an ISP to reprovision the line to your house.

Assuming you can boot Linux/PPC or NetBSD on them, you could use them as high-speed links on dry pairs. Either run your own wiring, or get the telco to string you an "alarm circuit" from point to point.

Step 1

[Apreche]

Step 1 - Find nearby University
Step 2 - Check to see if their internet connection is adequate. (OC3 should be enough)
Step 3 - Pay freshman in the dorms to keep a computer in his room and never touch it. Pay him the 20$ a month you usually pay for your ISP.
Step 4 - Two nics in the pc, one on the college network. It should work automatically with DHCP. The other nic in a DSL modem. Use something like Mandrake Security and install a PPPoE (PPP over Ethernet) server.
Step 5 - Connect to your personal DSL service from home using something like Enternet. Yes, they make Enternet for linux.

Not sure how well it would work, but there are lots of sites that tell you how to roll your own DSL. We though of doing this because one day we're going to have to leave college and our internet connection will suck! T1 for us!

Eat them

[Guy Harris]

DirectTV won't be around to complain, so bon appetit!