@bdpf (and other people baffled by DSL setup)
My setup:
1: My machine talks to my router via a cat-5 cable from my machine to the router (the multi-port side, called the LAN side). This in-house LAN network has a 192.168.0.xxx network address set. The router is 192.168.0.1 (traditional and necessary), and my machine is 192.168.0.8 (from back in the days when I had a wife with a computer at .2, and 5 children's machines on the same LAN with addresses from .3 to .7).
2: The other side of the router, called the WAN side, uses a CAT5 cable that goes from my router to my DSL modem. This side's IP address can change without my knowing it. This address comes from my ISP when my router logs into the ISP network. This WAN side of my router knows my account and password, and automagically logs in whenever the ISP resets this connection (or when I tell it to by logging in to the router and telling it to).
3: My ISP is actually a set of machines, each of them has a distinct IP address. I never know nor care which of my ISP's machines my Router (WAN side) has logged into. This ISP does the domain-name-to-IP-address translation to connect to the Chaos Empire network.
4: Talking to my router (to configure it) is as easy as opening my web browser and giving the "URL" of
http://192.168.0.1 Immediately the router's admin interface, a web page, pops up on my screen asking me for my admin password. I give that password and go to the setup page and enter the DSL log-in information: my ISP account name and password, saying "always connect" and similar.
How closely does your setup look like mine?