Back to square one :( Need help!

BanjoB

Everyone here knows how bad the bundled cisco modem/router that UPC provide is and I happily bridged my old lynksys router to get a stable connection a while back.
My problem started 2day when we decided to upgrade to 30mb with the phone.I now realize that I cannot bridge the modem any longer because the phone uses ports on the cisco router. I'm absolutely pis-seed off to say the least.
I'm hoping someone here can tell me that buying a new router with phone ports will work for me. Ie. Can I use bridging mode as before and stick the phone line into the new router.???.
Thanks.

bhickey

Is there a particular reason why you want to use the Cisco router in bridge mode? What do you mean by a stable connection?

If you don't need to pass the UPC public Internet IP through to the WAN interface of the Linksys then can't you just set the WAN port on the Linksys to get its IP via DHCP from the Cisco. Everything (including phone) should be fine unless you've got some very funky inbound port forwarding requirements.

jor el

BanjoB wrote: »

Can I use bridging mode as before and stick the phone line into the new router.???.

No, it won't work at all with UPC's phone service.

BanjoB

bhickey wrote: »

Is there a particular reason why you want to use the Cisco router in bridge mode? What do you mean by a stable connection?

If you don't need to pass the UPC public Internet IP through to the WAN interface of the Linksys then can't you just set the WAN port on the Linksys to get its IP via DHCP from the Cisco. Everything (including phone) should be fine unless you've got some very funky inbound port forwarding requirements.

Sorry. I should have been more specific. The cisco modem proved to be terrible when playing online through my Xbox, lots of lag/disconnections.
I switched the settings to bridging mode on the cisco and turned the wireless off. I then just connected the linksys and connected to my network through that.
I was very happy with this set up but from what I've read in some posts here, i can't do that if I want the phone to work.
Is there another way that I can use the linksys as I had it, while still having the phone work connected to the cisco??.
Thanks for your reply

jor el

The 2203 modem has phone ports, but is not a router, so you can use one of these with your own router and the UPC phone service. UPC may or may not provide this to you though, all you can do is ask.

BanjoB

jor el wrote: »

The 2203 modem has phone ports, but is not a router, so you can use one of these with your own router and the UPC phone service. UPC may or may not provide this to you though, all you can do is ask.

That's exactly what I'll do. Thanks for your help man.

bhickey

BanjoB wrote: »

The cisco modem proved to be terrible when playing online through my Xbox, lots of lag/disconnections.
I switched the settings to bridging mode on the cisco and turned the wireless off. I then just connected the linksys and connected to my network through that

So had you been connecting the Xbox via wireless or cable to the Cisco before you put the Cisco in bridge mode? If so then the improvement might have just been simply down to the Linksys being a better wireless router as opposed to anything to do with bridging the Cisco. It sounds like you can still test whether or not disabling the Cisco wireless and using the Linksys wireless instead makes any difference.

vibe666

BanjoB wrote: »

Sorry. I should have been more specific. The cisco modem proved to be terrible when playing online through my Xbox, lots of lag/disconnections.
I switched the settings to bridging mode on the cisco and turned the wireless off. I then just connected the linksys and connected to my network through that.
I was very happy with this set up but from what I've read in some posts here, i can't do that if I want the phone to work.
Is there another way that I can use the linksys as I had it, while still having the phone work connected to the cisco??.
Thanks for your reply

someone posted that they'd been told that a firmware update recently fixed the phoneline/bridging issue on the epc2425 but i can't confirm that either way unfortunately.

unless there's a DMZ option on the cisco (not sure if there is or not) the only real bridging without bridging option you have left aside from replacing the epc2425 is to set up the cisco in it's default configuration and then turn off the wireless and set the WAN port on the linksys to DHCP and then use a different subnet on the LAN side of the linksys to what the cisco is dishing out via DHCP and then use the linksys as normal (with it's own DHCP etc.) as if it was connected to a modem looking after your wired & wireless LAN.

the bad news with that though is that you'll be double NAT'd and if you're planning on any online gaming or anything like that it's very likely going to be a real PITA for you.

BanjoB

bhickey wrote: »

So had you been connecting the Xbox via wireless or cable to the Cisco before you put the Cisco in bridge mode? If so then the improvement might have just been simply down to the Linksys being a better wireless router as opposed to anything to do with bridging the Cisco. It sounds like you can still test whether or not disabling the Cisco wireless and using the Linksys wireless instead makes any difference.

My understanding of bridging mode was that it must be enabled to allow the linksys to be used as a replacement router.
If this is not the case, can I simply disable the wireless on the cisco and use the linksys as I did before without having to do anything with the bridging settings???.

lynchie

vibe666 wrote: »

someone posted that they'd been told that a firmware update recently fixed the phoneline/bridging issue on the epc2425 but i can't confirm that either way unfortunately.

unless there's a DMZ option on the cisco (not sure if there is or not) the only real bridging without bridging option you have left aside from replacing the epc2425 is to set up the cisco in it's default configuration and then turn off the wireless and set the WAN port on the linksys to DHCP and then use a different subnet on the LAN side of the linksys to what the cisco is dishing out via DHCP and then use the linksys as normal (with it's own DHCP etc.) as if it was connected to a modem looking after your wired & wireless LAN.

the bad news with that though is that you'll be double NAT'd and if you're planning on any online gaming or anything like that it's very likely going to be a real PITA for you.

Thats exactly what you do and the cisco does allow you to use a dmz. Watty posted instructions months back on how to do it on the 2425 and Ive been using it the same setup for months without issue even with double nat.

bhickey

BanjoB wrote: »

My understanding of bridging mode was that it must be enabled to allow the linksys to be used as a replacement router.
If this is not the case, can I simply disable the wireless on the cisco and use the linksys as I did before without having to do anything with the bridging settings???.

Exactly. There are 2 ways then to proceed depending on how you want to handle DHCP on the network

1. Disable DHCP on the Linksys, make sure the Linksys LAN IP is not the same as the Cisco and that it is outside the DHCP range of the CIsco. Connect from a Cisco LAN port to one of the LAN ports on the Linksys. All devices, wired and wireless all are on the same LAN (e.g 192.168.1.x) and get their IP details from the Cisco.

2. Use DHCP on both. You control a separate LAN on each device, e.g. Cisco does 192.168.1.x & Linksys does 192.168.2.x. Connect from a Cisco LAN port to the WAN port on the Linksys and set the WAN port to DHCP. In this setup, devices connected to the Cisco have an IP 192.168.1.x and devices connected to the Linksys have an IP 192.168.2.x.

Either way is fine but the first one would be the one to try first.