What's the point of having another router?
What's the point of having another router?
I once bought a router to use for my internet when I moved into my new house just to find out that it "wasn't compatible" with Verizon's service. I still have it (because I'm terrible about returning things). Is there any point in keeping it? Is there anything fun or interesting that I could do with it?
"Not Compatible" usually just means "We're extracting a monthly fee from you to use out provided router". Most likely, if you were to poke around, you could turn your ISP router/modem into a dumb modem and disable the inbuilt router, then connect your (better) wifi router to that.
Official guidance from Verizon is you can use your own router as a router, by setting your Verizon router as a modem only, then connecting it to the WAN port on your router. See e.g. https://kb.netgear.com/31100/How-do-I-set-up-my-Orbi-system-to-work-with-Fios
Unofficially, it's fine. You can just use your router. The modem is in the white box on the wall (the ONT) with fibre on one end and ethernet on the other. I've been running my router directly to the ONT for 3 years without issue. It just works fine.
Thanks for confirming my suspicion. I appreciate the link too.
You could look into flashing a different firmware like DD-Wrt or Fresh Tomato. I use my second router to connect everything at my desk
I've never heard of these before. I'll have to check them out. Thanks for the suggestion.
It probably is compatible with your service. If you buy your own modem then you can use that router. You'll avoid the monthly fee.
I bet it's compatible and they don't get punished for lying. All they have to say is "Oh, it looks like it IS compatible after all."
is it a wireless router? You could turn it into an access point and extend your wifi.
make it a separate, unconnected and open router to troll your neighbors/wardrivers
Trolling people sounds interesting. Is there any way to have them auto-navigate to a rickroll upon connecting?
If you have anywhere in your home with poor Wi-Fi signal, you could set up the router in bridge mode to effectively act as a range extender. Just make sure to disable DHCP on the 2nd router or it will wreak havoc!
A wifi extender would be awesome! Thanks for the suggestion.
When I upgraded to a mesh system a while back, I turned my old router into a dedicated access point just for playing VR games wirelessly on my PC. Performance improved noticably once it didn't have to compete with the regular house WiFi traffic.
I assume you had a hardline from the VR router to the central router? Otherwise wouldn't the wireless communication between the VR router and the central router be in the same competition as the VR headset was before?
Custom firmware like tomato or ddwrt can be fun to just play around with and learn more about networking. I used my old router temporarily as both a wifi repeater and as a wifi receiver using custom firmware. I didn’t need it for any particular function, but it was fun to experiment with
Yeah, I think I'm going to tinker with it in this way. I have some knowledge about networking, but I know that I could learn more, for sure.
I run double firewalls.
I just don't fully trust the ISP router, so I disabled the wifi and hooked it up to my own router. If the ISP router gets hacked, my internal network doesn't get exposed.
Port forwarding is a bit harder, but you probably aren't even doing that at all (and it still works anyway, it's just an extra step).
If you're not going to hook it up to the internet (bridging, access point, etc.), name it something funny or provocative for the neighbors.
For example, I live in a college student neighborhood with a lot of Chinese students. I have an old router that I'm going to use the network name 六四屠殺 which is Chinese for the June Fourth Massacre (the Tiananmen Square Massacre). It's a term banned on the Chinese internet.
I feel like a good name around me would be "FreePublicWifi". Can you get in trouble for naming it something like "[city name]WifiNetwork"?
Yes, usually falls under impersonation.
Why? seems unnecessarily rude.
Seems pretty based to spread freedom of knowledge and history in spite of an oppressive, authoritarian regime.
Might be able to get a few bucks for it on craigslist or fb if it's not too old
I may end up going this route if I can't turn it into a wifi extender. Having some coverage on the other side of the house would be amazing.
You could probably turn it into an extended access point or something like that. You could also set it up to be used in like let's say a lab or something like that. If possible, check what router it is and see if you can put OpenWrt or something like that on it.
If not, collecting dust in a box isn't a bad idea either, just if you decide to take it out again to clean it thoroughly.
No point get a modem
You could make a pretty nifty looking hat
Maybe for Halloween, I could be "Internet Man".