The Alcatel Speedtouch Home and SOME versions of the Alcatel 1000 ADSL modem have a HTTP and Telnet management interface. The procedures for accessing these interfaces are documented in the Alcatel user guides, however, they lack some key steps/caveats. This document documents the FULL procedures.

Note: As exciting and as promising as it sounds, the Alcatel management interface is about as useful as a hole in the head. Its main purpose is to allow you to configure the modem. There are almost NO diagnostics, no way to determine your sync rate, no DMT foot print, no ATM errors, etc... About the only useful information is current local VPI/VCI setting (e.g. 8/35), bridge table contents, and current software version.

You must have one of the following Alcatel models:

• Alcatel Speedtouch Home (any versions)
• Alcatel 1000 Rev. G (product code on bottom of modem contains "ADAB")

Alcatel 1000s modems with product codes of "AAAA" (Rev E.) and/or "ABAA" do NOT have a HTTP or Telnet interface.

I. Configuring PC IP address

All Alcatel models default to a private IP address of 10.0.0.138, and a subnet mask of 255.0.0.0. In order to access the modem, your PC MUST be configured with an IP address on the same subnet as the modem (e.g. 10.0.0.1, mask 255.0.0.0).

Ideally, you'd like to be able to surf AND access the management interface at the same time. Well, you can't surf the Internet with a private IP address...you would need a private IP AND a public IP.

1) Bridged (DHCP) connection

There is simply no way to define a second IP address on a bridged/DHCP connection. You must disable "server assigned IP address" and hardcode an the (10.0.0.1) address. This means that you will NOT be able to access the modem and surf at the same time. This also means that for most operating systems, you'll have to reboot your PC everytime your want to access the modem...kinda handicaps the troubleshooting process.

2) PPPoE connection

Simply assign IP address 10.0.0.1 to your Ethernet adapter. If you already have a private LAN and are currently using one of the other private IP address ranges (e.g. 172.16.x.x., or 192.168.x.x.) then one of your first tasks should be to change the IP address of the Alcatel to an available address in YOUR subnet range. (You can do this once you get into the web interface). This way you'd be able access the Alcatel 1000 AND your LAN without any re-configuration.

IMPORTANT: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ACCESS THE MODEM, YET.

II. Communicating with the modem

Like any other IP and Ethernet device, the Alcatel modem has an network layer (IP) address (10.0.0.138) AND a datalink (Ethernet) address, aka a "hardware address". When you attempt ot access the modem by IP address, your PC must first discover your particular modem's hardware address by transmitting an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) broadcast packet.

The ARP packet contains the IP address we are looking to discover (e.g. 10.0.0.138). When your Alcatel modem receives this packet, it will respond back to your PC with an ARP Reply. This reply, contains the modems hardware address, your PC will then update its ARP table with the appropriate hardware address.

Problem: (You're going to love this) Because the ARP Request is a broadcast, your Alcatel modem forwards it out your ADSL connection (a bridge by default forwards all broadcasts out all ports). If your connection is bridged, then the ISP's ADSL router/bridge will forward that ARP request to all other ADSL users connected to that same bridge. Since many of the other customers connected to the bridge have Alcatel modems (with a default IP of 10.0.0.138), all THOSE modems are going to respond to the ARP Request your PC sent.

So, a few milli-seconds after your PC updates its ARP table with the correct hardware address of your modem, it receives a flood of ARP responses from REMOTE Alcatel modems. By default, Windows overwrites the ARP entry with the LAST response it receives. Thus, when you ultimately try to communicate with 10.0.0.138 you'll most likely be trying to connect to someone else's Alcatel. Although the remote Alcatels respond to ARP, they will NOT accept a HTTP/Telnet connection via the ADSL port...thus your connection attempt will appear to hang.

*NEW* for a detailed study of this issue see: Alcatel Duplicate IP Address

To work around this problem you need to do the following:

1) Disconnect your ADSL line

(this will prevent remote Alcatels from responding to the ARP request for 10.0.0.138)

2) Make sure ARP table is clear

Open a DOS window

c:\ arp -a

(should NOT contain any entries for 10.0.0.138)

3) Delete ARP entry, if exists

If there IS an entry for 10.0.0.138, then delete it:

c:\ arp -d 10.0.0.138

Do an 'arp -a' again to confirm deletion

4) Ping Modem

c:\ ping 10.0.0.138

If you get a response, then proceed to next step.

If you get no response, then you need to re-check your IP address configuration and/or make sure you have a modem that supports the management interface.

5) Determine hardware address of modem

c:\ arp -a

Interface: 208.61.190.92 on Interface 3
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  10.0.0.138            00-80-9F-03-D9-C1     dynamic

Note: The first 6 digits of the hardware address (aka Physical Address) is the VendorID that manufactured the Ethernet controller. The list of registered VendorIDs is maintained at the following site:

If you were to do a lookup on "00809F" you would get the following results:


00-80-9F   (hex)                ALCATEL BUSINESS SYSTEMS
00809F     (base 16)            ALCATEL BUSINESS SYSTEMS
                                54, AVENUE JEAN JAURES
                                92707 COLOMBES CEDEX
                                FRANCE

6) Add static ARP entry

In order to prevent our ARP table from getting overwritten by remote Alcatels in the future, we can add a static ARP entry that permanently maps 10.0.0.138 to the specific hardware address of your modem, as follows:

Now do an 'arp -a' and you should see the following:

Interface: 172.16.1.101 on Interface 2
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  10.0.0.138            00-80-9f-11-22-33     static

Note how the "Type" column indicates this is a "static" entry vs. a "dynamic" entry.

I'm not sure if all operating systems will maintain this entry after a reboot. You may have to create a batch file and add it to your Startup entries.

Once you have the static entry defined, it's safe to re-connect your DSL connection. Again, if you are using PPPoE, then you should now be able to surf and access the modem whenever you want. If you're on a bridged/DHCP connection you'll have to manually change your IP configuration anytime you need to access the modem.

Wasn't that easy?

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