Verizon FIOS debacle

[mknabster]

Hey all, I have this problem I need some help with, so if you'll bare with me, i'll explain it below.

My family has Verizon FIOS Internet and TV in our home, 25/25, so not Quantum, and I wanted to make the leap and use my own router for Wireless-N instead of the FIOS provided Wireless-G. So I had the ethernet port enable on the side of our house, and that goes straight into the N router, and then the old coaxial goes to the TVs. Verizon said I need to have the old router hooked up from it's WAN port to the N's LAN port for the on-demand to work for the TVs.

So this is where it gets tricky. I have a media server in the house, and for some reason, the old and new router assigns it its own separate IP, and when I go to use it, they cancel each other out. The only way I can get the setup to work, is if I disable DHCP on the old router, but in doing so, this also disables the on-demand as well.

So my question is, does anyone know how I can set static IPs to each coaxial cable for the set-top boxes for their on-demand privileges? If this doesn't make sense, what's happening is that there is a coaxial port on the FIOS router, which hooks into a coaxial switch, and pushes internet to all the boxes, for the on-demand to work.

Or should I just scrap all this, go back to having almost no wireless coverage in my house, and just use the FIOS router? When I spoke with Verizon when I was first setting this up, the engineer said to just plug its WAN to the LAN of the new, and everything should be good. Then I call Verizon today, and they said they don't support this configuration at all. So why would they have a separate port on the side of the house, if it wasn't supported? I don't get it, but i need to figure something out if i want this to work. Any suggestions?

 

[USAFRet]

Or should I just scrap all this, go back to having almost no wireless coverage in my house, and just use the FIOS router?

The Verizon router needs to talk to the STBs via DHCP.

Your best bet is to probably look into an Access Point. Something in the center of the house that picks up, and rebroadcasts the WiFi to whatever and wherever you need.
Let the original Verizon router do its own thing.

 

[mknabster]

Last night I tried something else on the Actiontec, see if this makes sense and might work. So far it has, but i hope it doesn't drop off on me again. I turned off DHCP Server on the that router, then changed it to DHCP Relay. Once I turned that on, only the set top boxes that were on picked up IPs. So I tried running the largest movie i had in my library, plus an HD video on-demand, and it didn't cut out on me, while before, it probably did every 5-10 mins. Does this sound like it might do the trick?

On a side note, i never even thought about an access point, because i have a Cisco Aironet 1200 sitting in my basement.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, that will probably work. You don't want two DHCP servers in the same subnet. Conflicting functions.