Hook Vonage Up WIRELESSLY?

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 30, 2006 Posts: 3

I have a linksys Rt31P2 that I connect an apple airport express to to run the internet to my computers. I also connect the phone lines for my house to the RT31P2.

cable modem---RT31P2----Apple AE and home phone lines

Seems that the combo of the apple wireless router (set as WAP, not NAT router) connected to the RT31P2 causes connection problems sometimes and I have to reset everything (unplug/restart). When I connect the apple airport express directly to the cable modem and use as a NAT router instead of a WAP behind the RT31P2, I have no problems. I think the router side of the RT31P2 is not very reliable.

I want to...

Connect cable modem---apple AE---vonage (wirelessly)---home phone lines. The airport express has no outgoing ethernet ports, only incoming. All outgoing connections to the apple are wireless.

Is there a way to connect vonage to a home network/internet with only a wireless connection, that I can then connect my home phone lines to?

Posts: 323 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jan 29, 2006 Posts: 323

You can do this, but performance and call quality is probably going to suffer.

You can do this by using a wireless bridge to connect the Vonage adapter to. Something like the Linksys WET54G would do this. The problem that people have found with this type of setup is that the call quality suffers.

I just wanted to point both items out because you can do this, but this has been posted here in the past and people have not had much luck getting it to work AND getting good call quality.

You might want to consider getting another router for the front of your network and then connect both the RT31P2 and the Apple AE to it. This will allow you to use the Airport however you want and will keep the Vonage device connected via a wired connection. You will see that people on this forum often call the Vonage devices good VOIP adapters, but poor routers.

I personally use a RT31P2, but have it behind my main Linksys wireless router so all the RT31P2 does is to act as a phone adapter.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 30, 2006 Posts: 3

Thanks for the reply. What is a good router to get? Obviously I won't need wireless from the router, so I could get a cheap wired-only.

Posts: 36 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Dec 27, 2006 Posts: 36

I also have found that any and all vonage devices are not good routers, be it wired or wireless. (or any phone adapter from any service or manufacturer).

Let each device do the job it does best.

just my $0.02

Posts: 208 · Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 9:09 am Post subject:

Since you're an apple person, like myself, I would recommend you check out the airport extreme base station. It's a little more expensive in terms of the router-side of things, but from a networking standpoint it's a little more secure.

It has a passthrough function so you can connect it hard-wired to something else like the phone adapter or another pc.

It also sets up your DHCP pool in the 10.x.x.x range, somethign that's not as widely known as say the 192.168.0.1 or 1.1's etc.

Otherwise, I have always had good luck with Linksys WRT54G's.

I would recommend staying away from the wireless N's because it's new technology.

Can you describe a little bit more about this Wireless Bridge thing? It sounds kind of neat and I don't know anything about that. Do you mean set the Vonage device into a specific "mode" ?

Thanks

Posts: 323 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jan 29, 2006 Posts: 323

noct wrote:

Can you describe a little bit more about this Wireless Bridge thing? It sounds kind of neat and I don't know anything about that. Do you mean set the Vonage device into a specific "mode" ?

Thanks

Products like this allow you to setup a device that only had an Ethernet port to be used on a wireless network. This is most commonly seen with game consoles for their connection to the internet, but can be used for most types of devices that only have a wired connection.

Basically the device takes the ethernet input from the device and converts it to a wireless signal and then it connects to your wireless network.

Here is a better explanation about it if you are interested.

http://wireless.about.com/od/hardwarenetworkgear/ss/wirelessadapter_4.htm

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 30, 2006 Posts: 3

Butterman, your sig has almost the exact setup I wanted to use:

"Network Setup: Motorola SB5101->Hawking HBB1->Linksys WRT54GX4 ->Vonage RT31P2"

Except I ordered a Trendnet TW100-S4W1CA router (which was highly rated on Newegg) to put in between the Hawking and the RT31P2. If I connect the RT31P2 wired after the new Trendnet router, is that it? Will it just work, or do I have to open ports on the Trendnet for the RT31P2 to get through to make phone calls? If so, which ones, and what is the name of the app I have to use on the line where I forward ports (i.e. on linksys routers when you fwd ports, you have to type in a name of the app you are fwd'ing, like "Skype" or "Azureus"). How is yours setup? Connect and that's it or configure ports on first router?

Reason I ask is I tried something like this already. I tried to have the apple AE connected directly to the Hawking and set up as a NAT router. Then on my Mac, I bridged the airport wireless the wired ethernet port. I tried plugging the RT31P2 into the mac so it would bridge to the mac wireless (used a crossover cable), which then connected to the Airport express wirelessly, then out the cable modem thru the Hawking. The RT31P2 "internet" light came on, which I took to mean it saw the internet over the bridge, but when I connected a phone to the RT31P2, it never recognized it. Should I have opened up some port on the apple AE router to let the RT31P2 talk to the outside internet and recognize the phone?

Thanks for your help.

Posts: 323 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jan 29, 2006 Posts: 323

I did not have to do anything other than place the RT31P2 behind the main router. Port forwarding should not be necessary.

You will need to configure the RT31P2 to disable DHCP and I also assigned it a static IP address, but other than this you should not have to do anything else. (A static IP isn't required, but this way I know what IP address the device has at all times)

I also setup remote administration on the RT31P2 so that I could log in to the router without having to plug in to the router directly. This isn't needed for the service itself to work just to be able to log in to the Vonage device.