Help in selecting VPN modem for home use

[pizzicar]

I have DMT, static IP, ADSL from QWEST who supplied a Cisco 678 modem. I have been unable to VPN into work. My work tech support says that the 678 will not support their VPN security but that the 800 series will. My ISP says that they only offically support the 678 which is supplied by QWEST.

Is the 827 compatable with the 678 - put in the same paramaters as the 678 and it should work? Any guidance appreciated.

[bstremp]

The 827 runs Cisco standard IOS where the 678 does not. Your SP will definitely notice if you switch. Also, it’s probably their router so they probably have it configured the way they want it.

My suggestion, terminate the IPSEC tunnel inside past their router. Get a small PIX firewall, a VPN concentrator or just a dual Ethernet router (like a 1700 series) and just terminate the tunnel on that. One word of caution, if your SP is doing Port Translation (PAT) on your network, then the only solution you have is the Cisco 3000 series concentrator which has a feature called NAT transparency mode. This feature will allow you to do IPSEC in a PAT/NAT environment (which is pretty likely by the sound of things).