Setup: Vonage cuts off router's Internet access

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 17, 2004 Posts: 2

My preferred setup is as follows:
1. Comcast Motorola cable modem
2. Vonage digital adapter
3. Netgear MR814 wifi router
4. Computers

The digital adapter connects to the Vonage phone network just fine via cable modem, and if I plug the adapter directly into one PC, the adapter and PC handshake properly and I can surf the Net. But when I go modem-adapter-router-PC, the adapter provides no IP address to the router. I can't even log in to the adapter -- there is no connectivity at all, beyond the router. The router seems unaware that it is connected to the adapter; it cannot find an IP address using its setup wizard, nor could it connect through the adapter using a static IP and DNS provided by Vonage customer support.

Vonage claimed they had no info on the MR814, though it's been selling at Best Buy for a year or two. Vonage blamed the router and told me to ask Netgear to make Vonage work. Needless to say, I'm outraged at Vonage.

The router is configured correctly to look for a dynamic IP address. I blame the adapter for not passing along whatever info is needed by the router.

Suggestions, anyone?

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 17, 2004 Posts: 2

Here is some additional information.

When the adapter is outside the router, the port lights on the adapter are as follows:

Adapter WAN port (to cable modem), green and yellow
Adapter PC port (to router), green only (not fully active)

However, when the adapter is inside the router, the adapter port lights are as follows:

WAN port (to router), green and yellow
PC port (to PC), green and yellow

With the latter approach, I am able to go online and use the phone. But I cannot log in to the adapter -- there is no response. And I obviously miss out on the adapter's voice prioritization.

Any thoughts on how to make this work with the adapter outside the router? Or how to log in to the adapter by any means other than direct modem-adapter-PC approach?

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jun 02, 2004 Posts: 13

Ignore the missing yellow light. It means only that the uplink/wan port on the router is only 10mb instead of 100mb. Not an issue unless your service provides more than 10mb throughput.

Connect the PC back to the MTA and pull up its admin interface. Is the "Enable DHCP/NAT" box checked on the advanced page?

What IP address range to you use behind your router and what's the internal address of the router?

Does your cable system require MAC addresses to be registered?

Does your cable system allow you to get 2 IP addresses?

See if this works...
Make sure the "Enable DHCP/NAT" box is checked.
Make sure the MTA's MAC Address Override is set to the MAC address of the router.

This isn't ideal but it's a start.

Posts: 33 · Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:23 pm Post subject:

with Comcast you will probably need to put the MTA behind the router. I have MTA's and two PC's behind the router and all is fine