4 phone adapters, 4 pc's, file and printer sharing?

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 09, 2004 Posts: 1

Hi,

I have 4 Vonage phone numbers on 4 different adapters.

My linksys router has 4 ports and I have set up my small office like the diagram below:

My phones are working great and my Windows XP PC's can reach the internet but I can't share the printer with the other PC's using Microsoft file and print sharing - I guess because the Adapters are acting as routers and now each PC is on it's own subnet.

Would disabling the NAT feature of the adapter and turning it into a bridge allow this to work? Could anyone suggest an alternative way to accomplish this - having 4 phones, 4 PC's using 4 linsys router ports?
Also, if I disable the routing using the advanced screen on the Motorola web interface will I be able to connect to the control screen of the adapter again to change it's settings.

Thank in advance for any help.

Regards,
Phil

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 01, 2004 Posts: 1

Here's what I would suggest.

You may not need four phone adapters. I believe each adapter can handle two lines. Vonage can probably reassign two of the numbers to the other adapters. That would bring the number of devices down by two. That makes things a little less complicated.

Next, purchase a hub and connect all the computer together with that. Connect the hub into one of the phone adapter/routers. Then connect the other adapter/router into the first router. If you can't eliminate two of the phone adapters its ok, just connect them into the first router as well.

Connecting the adapter/router to the cable/dsl line ensures that QoS (Quality of Service) is implemented. QoS lets voice traffic take priority over regular network bandwith to improve sound quality.

Using this setup should allow you to have all the computers on the network see each other and share files.

Best of luck!

Cullen

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 28, 2005 Posts: 1

phersh wrote:

Hi,

I have 4 Vonage phone numbers on 4 different adapters.

My linksys router has 4 ports and I have set up my small office like the diagram below:

My phones are working great and my Windows XP PC's can reach the internet but I can't share the printer with the other PC's using Microsoft file and print sharing - I guess because the Adapters are acting as routers and now each PC is on it's own subnet.

Would disabling the NAT feature of the adapter and turning it into a bridge allow this to work? Could anyone suggest an alternative way to accomplish this - having 4 phones, 4 PC's using 4 linsys router ports?
Also, if I disable the routing using the advanced screen on the Motorola web interface will I be able to connect to the control screen of the adapter again to change it's settings.

Thank in advance for any help.

Regards,
Phil

Sorry that it's too late to help you, but others may benefit from my solution. Your suggestion of disabling the DHCP/NAT function is exactly what will allow the PCs behind the Vonage adapter to bridge to the linksys router. I have just configured my Motorola VT1005v voice terminal to do just that. I have one PC directly on my linksys router as is the VT1005v. The other PC is connected to the VT1005v port. The linksys router is performing DHCP IP address assignments. Both PCs and the voice terminal are getting their IP address assignments from the linksys router. Both PCs are thus on the same subnet and can share files and printers. The only downside is that the VT1005v management web server cannot be used unless one reconfigues the attached PC with a fixed IP address that is on the subnet of the VT1005 (192.168.102.XXX). However, it's easy to configure the attached PC with that IP as the alternate network configuration.

Good Luck to all who try this

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

phersh wrote:

My phones are working great and my Windows XP PC's can reach the internet but I can't share the printer with the other PC's using Microsoft file and print sharing - I guess because the Adapters are acting as routers and now each PC is on it's own subnet.

Would disabling the NAT feature of the adapter and turning it into a bridge allow this to work? Could anyone suggest an alternative way to accomplish this - having 4 phones, 4 PC's using 4 linsys router ports?

Take a look at this thread: http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic9126.html . Apparently you can make an RTP300 work like a switch rather than a router by plugging its WAN port into its own LAN port (!) and plugging another of its LAN ports into your main router. That may accomplish what you want.