[Discuss] Fios direct connect to router?

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey (blu))]

Wait, what?
I was just about to write you can't, because their actiontec router isn't a real router, but a thin device.  You did something, and I want to do the same, and I've tried long and hard ... but can't.

So - when they delivered mine, I talked to the verizon guy (like 5-6 years ago) and he said I have the option to connect between the ONT and the Actiontec with either coax or ethernet.  They normally do coax, but I requested ethernet, and said I want to control my own firewall and wifi.  He said it was unusual, but I seem pretty geeky, so he gave it to me that way.  Ethernet instead of coax.

I find that if I disconnect and power off the actiontec, plug in some other device (my laptop), power cycle the ONT, then the line was unusable.  I forget what I saw, but I'm sure I wireshark'd it, and concluded that the ONT ethernet handoff was doing something funky, that put some of the "router" functionality into each of the devices - the ONT and the Actiontec.

So I said screw that, and I decided to plug the WAN of my private firewall into the LAN of the Actiontec, while the WAN of the actiontec goes to the ONT.  So all the traffic in my home goes WAN <--> 192.168.1.x <--> 192.168.15.x

So the question for you is:

I gather you eliminated the actiontec, and plugged the ethernet directly into the WAN of your personal firewall.  You get DHCP on the WAN, right?  And you get a public IP address?  Or you get 192.168.1.x as your WAN?

If you're still getting 192.168.1.x as your WAN, it sounds like there's no advantage to mucking around with anything.  You would get the same by simply daisy chaining the ONT - Actiontec - Personal Firewall, as I've done.