Can I replace the thomson metro modem ?

Kristok

Can I buy my own modem for metro broadband ? As far as I can see its just a cable modem am i correct ? The thomson one provided seems a bit rubbish and dosnt seem to be able to do a simple thing like dhcp.

Asok

I don't know if you can. One thing you could do would be to buy say a wireless router like the wrtg54 from linksys and just connect it to the thompson. Thats what I do here and it gives me DHCP and wireless and does everything i need including port forwarding the lot

event

Kristok wrote:

Can I buy my own modem for metro broadband ? As far as I can see its just a cable modem am i correct ? The thomson one provided seems a bit rubbish and dosnt seem to be able to do a simple thing like dhcp.

no you cant replace it

though what do you mean it cant do DHCP?

Kristok

Well it seems to be unable to do dhcp, ie just plugging in a pc and getting an ip address. As far as I can figure out from the rubbish manual you have to plug in what you want to use and then restart the modem which i presume then gives out an ip when it starts up but if you plug something else in you have to restart it and get a new ip address which is a joke imo.

Sponge Bob

Just do what asok said with the linksys wrt54g and then flash the operating system on the linksys to dd-wrt (free) which sings and dances as an operating system .

The metro box is just fine for a single pc or a single linksys router behind it .

do the complicated stuff in dd-wrt which is designed for complicated stuff

watty

The metro modem is a modem, not a NAT/Router.
You can't replace it.*

There are DOZENS of 4 port switches with WiFi (or without) that do Routing/NAT and have an ethernet WAN socket instead of a DSL socket. Almost all the popular ADSL routers com in ethernet WAN versions to.

You don't need to flash it or anything..

Linksys, DLink, Netgear etc from 50 Euro to 150 Euro. See www.komplett.ie or goggle.

The Thomson does DHCP perfectly, but just for one device. (Which can be your Linksys, DLink or Netgear etc NAT router). You can also use an old PC with two network cards as a dedicated Proxy based firewall (Or XP internet connection sharing it the PC has two network cards), but NAT routers are so cheap now I can't imagine why you would!)

*Cable modems are "registered". The ISP decides which one connects or doesn't, unlike DSL where you can swap the modem. There is a good reason for this.

event

Kristok wrote:

Well it seems to be unable to do dhcp, ie just plugging in a pc and getting an ip address. As far as I can figure out from the rubbish manual you have to plug in what you want to use and then restart the modem which i presume then gives out an ip when it starts up but if you plug something else in you have to restart it and get a new ip address which is a joke imo.

it caches MAC addresses, thats why

watty

Even if it didn't, since it only gives out one IP, until the expiry of existing DHCP lease it won't grant another one. Sometimes "ipconfig /renew" will work.

Sparky

At first your PC gets a modem IP, then when registered with the network, it gets a digiweb IP.
Your best thing is as said above, get a wireless router that connects to your modem and your off.