My ISP has provided a crappy Thomson cable modem with 4 LAN ports and wifi, which constantly crashes and reboots itself. I am going to ask for a replacement, but here is my question:
--> I have a WRT54G that I don't currently use -- can I just use that instead?
I suspect that I can't use it, because the WRT54G has 4 LAN ports and an Internet port which is also RJ-11, not RJ-45 that matches my phone line (the current cable modem connects directly to the phone socket in the wall, I have no wired phone or anything else on that "phone" line).
On the other hand, the WRT54G has settings for PPPoE and several other login types, so this makes we think that maybe it can work as cable modem after all...?
If I can't replace the cable modem, I would still like to add the WRT54G so that everything connects to that instead. For this, I would need to set up the cable modem to not do all the DHCP and port stuff, and set up the WRT54G to do all that instead. This question pretty much describes what I want, but provides little information. I will have to dig into the cable modem manual to see if it's even capable of that trick.
--> Is this recommended? I'm "good with computers", but not a network admin...
