gateway

I asked someone about using my router instead of Comcast's gateway's router.

I run Win 8.1 and have their triple play where the gateway seems to bee an integral part of the digital phone and there is a separate TV cable.

My pc is connected to the gateway and I set the router up but this person feels Comcast is snooping and I need my own router.

He said to create a full bridge and connect my pc to # 1 port. I guess this is in the gateway's back at the top,

I would like to use my own router but don't want to lose phone service or complicate things as the installer was mentioning back feeding and different set ups.

Does his suggestion sound straight forward and doable?

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I set the router up but this person feels Comcast is snooping and I need my own router.

 

This person is a clueless, paranoid fool. Stop listening to him or he will turn you into one too.

He is suggesting Comcast intentionally installed spyware in your router. Nonsense!

Comcast is not listening to you. But if your buddy and you refuse to accept that, then you need to terminate your service agreement with Comcast, return their network equipment and stop using the Internet, use a land line for your telephone, the post office for your mail correspondence, and an antenna for your TV. I am 100% serious!!!

Sure, you can run over to Best Buy and buy your network equipment. But then what? You will then have to call back Comcast, Time Warner, or whatever ISP services your neighborhood to get connected again. And just as it is right now, ALL your network traffic will again, be going through your ISP's network. And they will see ALL your network traffic and you will be right back in the same boat you are right now. But seeing a zillion 1s and 0s fly by is NOT seeing what you are typing or hearing what you say into your VoIP phone.

Again, Comcast is not listening to you. But if they were, they would not waste their time or money by installing spyware in their routers when all your traffic is already going through all their servers. And that is the same, regardless which ISP you go with.

Now for sure, much of the data will be encrypted so even if they receive a court order to monitor your traffic, they will know you visit Wells Fargo Bank, for example, if you connect via SSL (the padlock is locked in your browser) but they will not be able see your password or account information.

"I would like to use my own router but don't want to lose phone service or complicate things, etc."

This was my original inquiry. You have sufficiently explained the issue.

Because of the VoIP phone service, you might still have to use their device for your phone - you will have to contact Comcast for that. But you can always connect your own router to their device and run the rest of your home network through your router. But it will not change anything else about your original inquiry. All your traffic still must go through your ISP, regardless who that is.

Thank you for the additional information, sir.

"Yes. The phone component will still work. The NAT / router portion has nothing to do with the phone service (eMTA portion).

Just put your gateway device in to FULL bridge mode so that it acts as a plain vanilla cable modem and use a high quality router with it connected to ethernet port number 1."

The above quote is exactly what I was told to do in the Comcast forum.

The reason I am entering it here is to make clear what I had paraphrased.

I do not know either way.

To be sure, I knew the phone component would work if you kept the Comcast router. I read your initial inquiry to mean you were asking about replacing everything, including the Comcast router, with a 3rd party device.

What I didn't know was if you could use a 3rd party device and still use Comcast's phone service. And after looking further, it seems there are such devices, but they are not cheap and this is the only one I found that is "Comcast approved".

Thanks for the research.

Due to the cost of the device, my lack of knowledge and Comcast's unwillingness to support my own device, I will accept what most are doing.

I would not blame the ISP for its non support of a 3rd party device.

I really liked my own router but securing Comcast's is okay.

My son has done something with his  so I could not find his passphrase the traditional way.

I used to ping then enter the info in the address bar. Once in the router I could see the passkey. He changed something so I cannot do that to his.

I Guess those in the know can establish VPN's but those have restrictions if I understand it correctly.

As you can tell my knowledge is quite limited here but it appears much can be done to configure your system if you know what you are doing.

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I would not blame the ISP for its non support of a 3rd party device.

 

I am not so generous. I don't like service providers forcing me to buy or rent these devices from them. They already charge an arm and a leg for the service and that is generally so they have money to expand their reach. For example, I have Cox and I have had it in this house for 25 years. And in that entire time, they have only had to come out once and that was only because a storm blew a tree branch down and took out my cable. Yet my rates keep going up and up only so they can expand into new neighborhoods.

Yes, the bandwidth has gone up, but it is still the same cable and infrastructure in my neighborhood.

It might be different if we had a wide variety of ISPs to choose from, but typically you have the choice of 1 DSL provider and 1 cable provider.