Thank you for the info - do you know if there's an ADSL modem that's good for DD-WRT these days? Last I looked (yeeeaaaars ago) there were only two models, long since out of production, and they didn't seem to be going in that direction anymore.
I used to do this until something happened at my ISP and my router can no longer authenticate against my ISP's PPPoE server. Now I have my modem providing NAT and DHCP, and my router is just a dumb access point. The only problem is my modem has an externally accessible administration page running on port 4567, and telnet on port 1111 that I can't turn off, even when all remote management configuration options are turned off. I've had to set up a cronscript to attempt to telnet into the thing continuously, and if successful it will kill the httpd server and telnet daemon.
It's absolutely ridiculous how insecure home network equipment is.
But remember not to leave your wireless access open to passers-by. That helps hackers, and Al-Qaeda, and pedophiles, and drug dealers! /sarcasm
There is a good reason why reverse shells exist.
Cable companies might still ship modems (they did the last time I had cable internet, but that was probably 8 years ago).
That coupled with a router/wireless ap running tomato or the like should work well from what I understand. I, however, never have used DSL so I'm not an expert.
There's nothing to return, I get DD-WRT instead of whatever garbage they're running, and usually measurably faster in both internet speed (usually lower latency) and wifi speed. In particular, I've never had a bundled device get within 50% of what 802.11n is capable of, especially when you have 4 or more devices. All my dedicated routers have done just fine.
Amusingly, they always set the SSID to 'insight_wifi_XXXX' and their formula for WPA keys is `firstname[0] + lastname + housenumber`.