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Using your own router

bobbyinpa

Good day all, I would like to hear from others who use their own routers to connect to Verizon Fios. Are there any pro's or con's to using your own? Will your connection be more secure using Verizon's equipment or your own. Any difference in speeds noted? Thank for your opinions.

Comments

JoelOB

The Verizon MI424 router that was installed in May 2010 (new) embodies 7-10 year old technology: 100MegaBit ethernet, B/G 2.4GHz only WiFi, no USB connection for network hard drives.

I connect the Verizon M1424 router to my modern Netgear router.

I use a Netgear WDR3700, the latest and (currently) greatest thing they offer: 1Gigabit ethernet, dual band A/B/G/N wireless, and a home network 1 TB harddrive hooked to it through the native USB support.

I do this and not use the verizon router because:

1. I want a 1 TB network hard drive that can deal with file sizes > 3GB that all my home computers can access either wired or wireless.

2. So I can have N spec WiFi service for acceptable WiFI vidoe streaming (G at 54 mb just doesn't cut it when the signal gets weak/fades).

3. 5.4 GZ A/N service to avoid 2.4 GHz interference (microwave EMI, portable phone, remote driveway video etc) .

Unfortunately of course, I can't bypass the MI424 and connect directly to the ONT with my router. The ONT will only connect to the registered Verizon router, so even though my home network interally can run 1Gigabit ethernet speeds, connections to the ONT going through the MI424 limit that effective speed to 100Megabit per second. Which of course creates the comical situation, that while I pay for 25 Megabyte per second speed from FiOS, 100 Mega bit per second ethernet chokes this down by almost a factor of 8.

Good luck. Maybe Verizon FiOS one day will bring their home installation router technology up to match their over-hyped, much touted fiber optic technology.

Hubrisnxs

This FAQ goes in depth.

basically there is no real need to put your own router in, unless you are a high demand internet user, meaning you do a lot of torrents, you do a lot of online video game play, multiple machines, a lot of FTP and a lot of Video streaming all at the same time with multiple machines.

OR for wireless needs, if you have a mammoth house, a lot of SQ footage, or have found that in the past your wireless has been spotty with a G series router, then you may want to bring in an N router or a Wireless access point.

OR have heavy internal LAN requirements where you are moving MAMMOTH files across your internal network

if you're a DIY kinda guy the above link will help you out quite a bit.

If you're not really that heavy a internet user and don't have that bad a wireless range in your house, then there isn't a real need to add you're own router. It will be more trouble than it's worth.

lasagna

Are you using FiOS TV as well?

If so, then you're really going to want to stick with the Verizon router as your primary connection device. The Verizon router is an integrated wireless, lan, and MoCA lan device -- the MoCA piece being essential for the STB's on FiOS TV to function in order to get their guide data and on demand titles.

From personal experience, the Verizon router can be a bit more difficult to understand and configure then some consumer grade routers, but from a security perspective it's just fine. Verizon central office does have access to the router to affect it's configuration, apply firmware updates, reset it, etc. -- so the extremely paranoid might have some concerns there.

What services do you subscribe to? ... says the guy who just a few minutes ago drove thru the intersection of Chocolate and Cocoa Avenue ...

lasagna

JoelOB ... some of your facts are a bit off there.

While using the Netgear as an in home network NAS device and to get Wireless N are both good reasons to utilize such a piece of equipment if you are pushing data around inside your home, some of your other citations are not correct.

While 802.11g has been an approved standard since 2003, it remains the flagship wireless networking technology. Only recently, 2009, did 802.11n become an approved standard allowing vendors to move from their pre-N implementations to a standardized configuration. Regardless 802.11n still uses the same radio frequencies as 802.11a and 802.11b/g -- it just makes some important changes to allow faster wireless networking to occur which is important for "home" network applications, but not so much for "Internet" applications. The biggest bump in the 802.11n space comes from the range improvements.

You can, in fact, not use Verizon's equipment if you are an Internet-only user. You would need to have Verizon provision you on Ethernet and then need to wait until the DHCP reservation on the WAN side -- which gets bound to the last active device -- times out so that the alternate router can be assigned it. Verizon does this to prevent multiple devices from interfacing to the wide-area network where only one device should exist. No magic is required here ... you will find quite a few discussion threads on this board which touch on that very topic. There are some who run with no Verizon gear at all and are quite happy with it. As soon as you put FiOS TV in the picture however, you need their router because it bridges the MoCA lan for the STB's to get their guide and on demand information and to insure the STB's are assign the right QoS information.

The biggest issue with the 2.4ghz vs 5.0ghz bands (not 5.4ghz) is not interference from the device you cite (although they certainly do create some -- but many such as phones also create it in the 5.0ghz range as well), it's the overuse of the 2.4ghz for home networking -- some many other radios on other wireless network devices which crowd the spectrum. The 5.0ghz band being for the more expensive 802.11a band which never really caught on in the consumer space (still used heavily in enterprise spaces -- particularly manufacturing floors) has more channels and less radios which are utilizing and thus a better experience. The best use of this split radio technology is to place regular data traffic on one band (typically 2.4ghz) and dedicated streaming video to a single device on the other (5.0ghz).

And while I like the Netgear device -- you are confusing the functions of a "router" with that of a NAS or other home network device. These greatly increase the cost of the device -- in most cases for users here unnecessarily. In my home network my NAS happens to be a seperate BuffaloTech device -- which is functionally equivalent. I really wouldn't want the cost of my internet service to increase to provide me with some Verizon supplied router with all this imbedded (and to have to continue to pay higher costs to allow them to constantly swap out this technology) -- particularly when as a network savvy individual I can do all that myself. What their router provides is "entry level" and that's just fine -- I just line up my more bleeding edge stuff behind it and use Verizon's gear as a simple gateway to their network.

However, that's all personal preference and there is cerfainly nothing wrong with wanting one device to do everything. Electronics device clutter is certainly a concern for many people. My equipment rack in the basement looks like a Christmas Tree with a server, NAS, router, phone ATA, wireless access point, etc.

The biggest issue however is a fact correction on your speeds ... unfortunately many people mix and match mb and MB terms as if they are the same -- and they aren't. However, the 100mb connection from your Verizon router to the ONT (assuming you're on Ethernet provisioning) is not the Internet bottleneck. Your downstream is not 25MB as you speculate -- but 25mb (1/4 of a regular 100mb ethernet connection). Plugging a gigabit connection into an ONT -- even if it had a gigabit interface would not improve your throughput one iota let alone 8x.

For many implmentations, an 802.11g running at 54mb (or direct wired 100mb) is more than enough bandwidth to saturate the service levels people subscribe to (15/5, 25/25, or even 35/35). Only as you approach the 35/35 and 50/50 packages should 802.11g be a real issue for pure internet traffic (other interference and distance considerations aside).

JoelOB

Like I said I can't get rid of the Verizon router for the reasons you mention (Fios TV).

The 1Gigabit ethernet spec has been around since 2001-2002, and advertising 25 megabyte Fios internet service to customers while supplying 100 megabit routers is misleading at best.

Draft N routers have been available for 5 years and even those are firmware upgradeable to the full N spec (which didn't change in 2009 in going to N) , which of course Verizon can upgrade the firmware on their devices remotely without the customer even being aware. And with only 4 ethernet ports on all Verizon routers, many if not most homes need 5-8 connections today for network TVs/DVD players, 2 or 3 computers, network printer etc, so even an ethernet switch is still necessary component, which may or maynot be 100 megabit or Gigabit depending on what one buys.

lasagna

I went and checked online just to see what you're talking about ... and this is what their advertising says:

FiOS Internet- download speeds up to 25 Mbps, blazing-fast Internet and 100% pure fiber-optic connection

That's not saying that there aren't other places where someone used a "B" instead of a "b", but every vendor of broadband is selling by "Mbps" not "MBps".

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As for the other stuff ... sure it would be nice to have it, but I don't want my bill to go up just so that the local network device for every user is overconfigured for their needs.

My point was, for your application needs, it's perfectly acceptable to use the Verizon router as the "access gateway" to the Internet only. Connecting the WAN port of your Netgear to single LAN port on the Verizon device (and even make the WAN address of the Netgear the "DMZ" device on the Verizon router so you don't need to touch the Verizon router ever) and turning off the wireless on the Verizon router. Then you do everything on the Netgear.

I use a Belkin instead -- but since it has an "access point" mode instead of just a "router" mode, I use it as an access point with the local gigabit ports for connecting together my NAS and local machines and wireless N for my wireless clients. I also use a MoCA bridge to connect some desktops from upstairs to the network since I don't have wireless on them.

At the end of the day, the choke point in such a configuration is the 25Mbps server, not the 100Mbps link to the ONT or LAN port. Now, once Verizon starts offering 100Mbps+ service to the home? Well .. then you have a very valid point.

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For most people however, this is all moot. They will never tax what's installed and it is more than sufficient. YMMV.

bobbyinpa

I appreciate your reply and work around.

JustGotFiOS

Just got FiOS today and faced the same issue. I need to keep the Actiontec router for the TV STBs, but it has not the same features as my D-Link 655. There are instructions online on how to turn the Actiontec into a network bridge, but that may interfere with services.

Here is what I did:

1. Change the IP of the Actiontec router to something different than the 192.168.1.1 so that it doesn't interfere with your existing router (unless your router already uses a different IP, then you can skip this). I followed the instructions from here: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20329726-northeast-how-to-change-the-default-IP-on-Actiontec-M1424WR

Note 1: Once you change the address you need to reconnect to the other IP address!

Note 2: You also need to change the DHCP range on the Actiontec to no longer include the new IP. This can be changed on the same page.

2. Make sure that you power cycle the STBs, otherwise they still look for the router on the old address

3. Plug your router of choice in and connect one of the LAN ports of the Actiontec to the WAN port of your router

4. You now should be able to access Internet through your router.

I use DynDNS so that I can remote into a system at home using a domain name. If you have such a setup be aware that the web admin of the Actiontec will be accessible from the Internet!

I fixed that by

1. Setting the Actiontec's firewall to the lowest setting

2. Forwarding all TCP and UDP ports to my router except for the port 4567. That apparently is used by something for Verizon (the TV STBs??), so you may need to create multiple forwarding rules. If you choose custom ports you can specify a range, which is really nice. This way all traffic except for port 4567 hits my router and either goes where I forwarded the ports to or goes nowhere as there is no service.

This setup should provide the best of both worlds. I say should as I yet have to test it for a while,but so far things are working out OK.

If you have your own wireless and don't need the wireless from the Actiontec then turn the wireless off on the Actiontec and detach the antenna.

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