Update: FibreOP is now called Fibe.

If you are searching for a solution to remove the Actiontel Router provided by Bell and replace it with another device.

In my case, a Cisco ASA 5505, for the ASA 5505 is important to have the Security Plus license, as this license is required to use trunking. This should be possible on other brands of network devices, provided you can make the necessary configuration changes.

Warning: Before you begin, be warned that if you need to call in technicians in to troubleshoot, they will unlikely troubleshoot any problem that doesn’t involve their hardware, and you may incur a fee for the call. If you do run into line issues, etc, you can place the Actiontel Router back into your network for the duration of the call.

What you will need:

• Cisco ASA 5505 Firewall with Security Plus License or similar device that can use VLANs in the 30-35 range, some older devices have limits.
• Bell FibreOP connection
• Alcatel-Lucent modem
• MAC Address of Actiontel WAN Port
• Knowledge of Cisco ASA or other device

What are we attempting? To remove the Actiontel Router and have a Cisco ASA 5505 firewall host our leased RFC1483 DHCP IP address on the outside interface.

To accomplish this we will have to configure the Cisco ASA to use specific VLANs and MAC addresses, so it can communicate with the Alcatel-Lucent modem. This task requires networking knowledge and every specific knowledge about Cisco ASA devices or whatever device you have at your disposal. If you don’t understand this article, please do so before making any changes, as you could render your connection inoperable.

This is not meant to be a guide, just a post about how you can replace the Actiontel router with a Cisco ASA device, nothing more.

Physical Configuration

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Physical Configuration

Port GE1 on the Alcatel-Lucent is connected to Port 0 on the Cisco ASA 5505.

Cisco ASA Configuration

Next configure Ethernet 0/0 (physical port 0) on the Cisco ASA for VLAN trunking and allow VLAN IDs 33-36.

In this example we are using a Cisco ASA 5505, with the 5505 the interface configuration is done on the VLAN interface, VLAN 35 in this case for FibreOp. We also set the MAC address to match that of the Actiontel router WAN port, set Vlan35 interface as outside, obtain address via DHCP and set the default route using the leased DHCP address.

interface Ethernet0/0
switchport trunk allowed vlan 33-36
switchport mode trunk
interface Vlan35
mac-address xxxx.xxxx.xxxx
nameif outside
security-level 0
ip address dhcp set route

Don’t forget to wri mem or copy run start to save your changes.

Verify connectivity

If we run show int ip br | include Vlan35 from Cisco ASA enable mode, you should get back output with your external IP address as the Vlan35 interface, like the following output.

fw# show int ip br | include Vlan35
Vlan35 192.0.2.106 YES DHCP up up
fw#

You can use just about any router / firewall, if you can use VLAN 35 and set MAC address.