Can Timecapsule be used strictly as an external drive?

A neighbor in my office complex has a Timescapsule she was using for both wireless and backup. now, she has a 2wire dsl/router device and wants to use the timecapsule as strictly an external drive. is that possible? will time machine recognosize the time capsule in this kind of config? i tried using a network drive with timemachine but was not successful (so i bought time capsule). any responses welcome.