Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 17:53 Post subject: DD-WRT with Verizon FIOS TV Service??!!
I have Verizon FIOS Internet & TV service. The Actiontek router that Verizon provides (which is terrible) is needed so that the TV's in my house can get TV guide updates and for the use our multi-room DVR. The router has a coax cable connected to it that connected to all the TV's.
My question is, are there any people out there who have FIOS TV & Internet and are still able to use DD-WRT firmware? I'm already using a wireless-N AP attached to the Actiontek to server as my wireless since the wireless on the Actiontek sucks. So is there a way for me to say put a DD-WRT supporter router in place of that AP and use that as my main router while still having the Actiontek server my TV's?
As a former U-Verse customer I feel your pain. I had the exact same problem. Here is what you can do.
Turn the FIOS WiFi off and change its subnet to something else, 192.168.2.1 for example. Plug your DD-WRT router's WAN port into one of the Ethernet ports on the FIOS router (DD-WRT will be in routing mode, not AP mode, might want to factory reset to be sure). Assign DD-WRT's WAN port a static IP address, like 192.168.2.2, gateway should be 192.168.2.1 and DNS whatever you want (probably 192.168.2.1).
Set the DD-WRT's LAN ip address up as 192.168.1.1 and all the other settings you prefer. Now, connect to the FIOS admin page (you should be able to connect to 192.168.2.1 even from behind the DD-WRT router, if not, just plug directly into FIOS for this). On FIOS, Setup 192.168.2.2 as the DMZ and disable all other firewall settings (you are going to use DD-WRT for firewall). My U-Verse router came up with a "router behind router error" when I did this, if you see that, just disable the warning message.
That should be it. Now everything that hits your FIOS public IP address should be forwarded to the DD-WRT WAN interface and handled by DD-WRT as if it was directly connected to the internet. The only thing that may not work correctly is DDNS, it might post 192.168.2.2, which is not routable. If that happens you might be able to load a custom DDNS script on the router that forces the service to auto-detect the IP address, or just load a DDNS client on a computer on that network.
EDIT: If you have wireless TV receivers, then you want to leave the FIOS router's wireless turned on for them, but set its SSID to something different than your DD-WRT router. If you want/need to keep using your 11n access point for the TVs, then same thing, set its SSID to something different, keep it plugged directly into the FIOS router, but don't connect your computers to it, just the TV receivers.
Joined: 21 Sep 2007 Posts: 373 Location: pittsburgh pa
Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 19:49 Post subject:
instead of going the DMZ route, you should go the 'bridge' route. it will, in effect, turn your actiontec into a simple 'cable modem' (its still a glorified cable modem, even being fios). your dd-wrt router should be able to get a real wan ip address from the actiontec. since the moca connection is still active your STB guide should still update.
I am at a loss however, as to how FIOS tv customers have working set top boxes without any internet. My mother was able to get fios TV at her house without phone or internet while retaining her dsl connection, and all of her set top boxes seemed to work just fine without an actiontec router. just a thought....
Thanks for the replies guys, I'm going to look into both ways and see which works for me. I do use DDNS so that's definitely going to be a factor. I also need VPN to work on my DD-WRT router since I use StrongVPN. Therefore turning my Actiontek into basically a cable modem sounds like the best way to go if I can do so while still having all the set top boxes play nice.
instead of going the DMZ route, you should go the 'bridge' route. it will, in effect, turn your actiontec into a simple 'cable modem' (its still a glorified cable modem, even being fios). your dd-wrt router should be able to get a real wan ip address from the actiontec. since the moca connection is still active your STB guide should still update.
I am at a loss however, as to how FIOS tv customers have working set top boxes without any internet. My mother was able to get fios TV at her house without phone or internet while retaining her dsl connection, and all of her set top boxes seemed to work just fine without an actiontec router. just a thought....
I don't know about FIOS, but U-Verse did not have a bridge mode. The way those servers work is that they provide you an on primes router which you have only very limited rights to control. If you subscribe to TV and phone but no internet they simply lock the router so that it only provides a connection to the services you are paying for. It is for that reason they cannot support a bridge mode, because bridging the modem would break everything but internet.
What they SHOULD do is give you 2 IP addresses, one for services and the other for Internet. If they did that, then it would be possible to route the internet IP address directly to any router (would not actually be considered a bridge, but would work the same way). AT&T at least did not do that. The one IP address they gave you had to be used for TV, phone and internet.
Thanks for the replies guys, I'm going to look into both ways and see which works for me. I do use DDNS so that's definitely going to be a factor. I also need VPN to work on my DD-WRT router since I use StrongVPN. Therefore turning my Actiontek into basically a cable modem sounds like the best way to go if I can do so while still having all the set top boxes play nice.
Test DDNS and see, it might work. I don't know if DD-WRT sends its WAN IP address as part of the update, or if it simply sends a blank update request. If it sends a blank update request then the DDNS service will see the true IP address the request is generated from and will update correctly.
The other thing you can do is ask about a static IP address. If that is an option it will fix the DDNS problem. AT&T gave out static IPs in blocks of 5. The cool things was that you could set their router to assign one of the static IPs directly to a device (it did no use NAT for the statics) so in that case you could have a true public IP address that will never change on your DD-WRT router, but it probably costs extra money per month.
I very much appreciate you taking the time to chime in on this sph. I completely get what you're talking about in terms of the setup and basically just turning my Actiontec into a "cable modem" of sorts with the set top boxes still connected to it. Then sending the internet connection through to my DD-WRT router. I'm just going to have to play around with it this weekend and see what I can get to work. Getting a static IP is not an option because it does cost much more and I'm already paying a boatload for TV & Internet.
I will do some work on it this weekend and report back. Thanks again for all the replies.
Joined: 21 Sep 2007 Posts: 373 Location: pittsburgh pa
Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2013 17:51 Post subject:
sphbecker wrote:
Also, You probably already know this, but wired FIOS TV receivers need to stay plugged into the FIOS router, not your DD-WRT router.
Sorry for so many replies, I am one of those who types something, presses send, and then thinks of more to say.
fios tv receivers only have a coax connection. they use a moca bridge to communicate with the fios modem.
when i had fios, the router did contain a bridge mode. it was an actiontec mi24wr rev d.
i think the fios installation at my mothers house with tv only included a moca-ethernet bridge adapter, like a motorola NIM100 that provided the bridge to set top boxes so that they had network connectivity.
either way, you can still put the actiontec in bridge mode, or you can call verizon and have them enable the ethernet port on your ONT, pick up a cheap moca->ethernet bridge, and ditch the actiontec altogether.
Also, You probably already know this, but wired FIOS TV receivers need to stay plugged into the FIOS router, not your DD-WRT router.
Sorry for so many replies, I am one of those who types something, presses send, and then thinks of more to say.
fios tv receivers only have a coax connection. they use a moca bridge to communicate with the fios modem.
when i had fios, the router did contain a bridge mode. it was an actiontec mi24wr rev d.
i think the fios installation at my mothers house with tv only included a moca-ethernet bridge adapter, like a motorola NIM100 that provided the bridge to set top boxes so that they had network connectivity.
either way, you can still put the actiontec in bridge mode, or you can call verizon and have them enable the ethernet port on your ONT, pick up a cheap moca->ethernet bridge, and ditch the actiontec altogether.
Awesome, in that case FIOS is 10,000% better than U-Verse, and that is the way to go!!!
Awesome! Thanks man I'm gonna try it out this weekend. Major thanks.
EDIT: Hmmm, reading the second post on that thread it looks like that guide is only for those who use ONLY a coax connection going into their Actiontec. I obviously have the Coax connection to my set top boxes and a Ethernet cable for my Internet service.
