I spent precious minutes of my life fighting through the torturous Community login and registration process so that I could try to point out the EXACT method I used to get an IP Camera working over the internet, and not just inside my home network.
The reason I am writing this is because I have 3 web cameras, and I spent at least an hour with each one fighting through the even more torturous configuration settings on the Actiontec MI424WR.
Come to think of it, it seems every Verizon user interface is torturous - each click or button press seems ot take 10 seconds, from the web site, to the router, to the TV remote. I do love the FIOS speed though.
So anyway, the goal is to have an IP camera on my network, itself configured to use a specific IP address and port, and then to configure the router to open that port to the internet, so I can login and view the camera from anywhere.
1. Configure your camera to obtain a SPECIFIC IP address from the router (NOT a dynamic or DHCP address). The IP address must not be in use already. Pick a port number and set the camera to use it. Hopefully the port number you picked is not blocked by Verizon for random reasons. Your guess is as good as mine. I picked 8889, 8090, and 8091 for my three cameras. This step is really related to your camera, not the real point of this post. Help for this step alleges to come from the link on your router home page "Adding a Webcam". It's kind of funny because it sets up your camera inside your home network, and vaguely disclaims, in a way no non-technician could understand, that it's instructions are not to make your camera available from the interenet, even though that's what everyone in the world who ever read that page actually wants.
At this point you should be able to access your camera from inside your network by IP:port, like this:
http://192.168.[whatever IP you picked]:[whatever port you picked], for example
http://192.168.1.20:8090
Now to expose the camera to the world
2. Login to your router, usually at http://192.168.1.1/
3. Click "Port Forwarding" on Quick Links
4. It seems like different versions of the router software have just enough difference to make this hard to follow, but there should be a drop-down to locate the IP address of your camera. My drop-down is labelled "Create new port forwarding rule:" and then a list of assigned IP's. Pick your camera, AND THEN WAIT FIFTEEN SECONDS FOR THE SCREEN TO REFRESH.
5. Under Applpications to Forward, pick "Custom Ports" AND WAIT FIFTEEN SECONDS FOR REFRESHY
6. There are now liek 6 drop-downs, with no explanation of any, each with several options all of which take at least fifiteen seconds to refresh when you pick them. The way I finally figured this solution out is to write down every possible combination and painstakingly try each one until it worked. Waiting fifteen seconds between each of dozens of clicks. So maybe you can understand the tone of my post...
7. Protocol: BOTH. No one knows why you would ever pick only one of these.
8. Source Ports: ANY. This is the most confusing setting and has burned me many times. I guess it refers to the port on the client computer from which the request came. On the internet, this is always the same, so no one knows why this setting is available here. If you are a nerd, please do not explain why that statement isnt quite right.
9. Destination Port. Choose SPECIFY, and then WAIT FIFTEEN SECONDS. Enter the port number of your camera.
10. Forward to Port. Choose SPECIFY, and then WAIT FIFTEEN SECONDS. Enter the exact same port number as above,
11. Ignore the other useless and confusing drop-downs (WAN connection type: All broadband devices and schedule: Always)
12. go to http://whatsmyip.org, and note your external IP address.
13. Open a web browser and surf to External IP: Port, like this
http://96.100.101.102:8090
14. Weep quietly with joy that you finally got this fixed. I use "IP Web Cam Viewer" for Android to view my cameras on my phone.
Tech support will not help you with this. Expert Care will help you for $39.95/30 minutes. They will walk you through the above steps. 877-718-6716 if you are interested.
Many people have kind of answered this question in other forums, and we should all appreciate that non-Verizon humans are trying to help. But I never saw anything with the full details that a non-tech could use, so hopefully my pain can be of use to some of you. Why Verizon does not have the above instruction available somewhere is another universe baffler. In the name of all that is good and holy, it should be a link on their public homepage. Good luck!
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