Chad's Ramblings: Replacing a buggy AcctionTec router on Verizon FiOS

I've had FiOS from Verizon for about 4 months now. It's blazing fast, but the one drawback was that the sub-par ActionTec MI424WR router Verizon bundled with the service would lock up about once a week. The fix: Replace the router.

As a part of a new PC I'm building, I purchased Vista Ultimate, with that came a free D-Link DGL-4300 Gaming Router. I knew I'd be able to at least replace the wireless functions by setting this router behind the ActionTek, but thought I'd take this one step further: what about replacing the router entirely?

My FiOS install has a Ethernet connection between the termination point and my living room, so I thought the router replacement could be as simple as just replacing the router, so I tried it. The router appeared to work OK, link lights were up, but it wasn't getting a valid DHCP lease from Verizon. The fix was to simply use the router's built in MAC address cloning feature to clone the MAC address from the ActionTec - Voila! a working system without the buggy router! :)

If you were unfortunate enough to get a 'Coax' install, then you may need to keep the ActionTec up and running in bridging mode...

Chad's Ramblings

Replacing a buggy AcctionTec router on Verizon FiOS

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