Vonage with a home network

How to hookup a Vonage box so that it doesn\’t interfear with your home network.’, ‘Ok.. Here\’s how I ended up setting up my Vonage box (motorola VT1000) so that it didn\’t interfere with my home network. This will allow the router to forward ports as needed so that your games will still work, and the Vonage box can regulate bandwidth for the best quality phone service.

Now, because a cable modem will hold the MAC address of the device it was “talking” to, you need to uplug it and let it sit for a few minutes (2 or 3 should be good) so that it will look for the newly connected device. If you have DSL or ISDN, you may not need to do this.

First, let\’s plug our cable modem back in, and let it go through it\’s boot sequence. After the internet or online light has lit up, we plug the CAT5 cable from the RJ45 port on the cable modem to the WAN port on the Vonage Box and plug it in. The power light will blink.. Wait till it goes solid. Your supposed to wait 5 minutes before using your phone, but it does work right away. Anyway, plug your phone in and see if you have a dial tone. If so, that part is all set.

Now, to get your home network back up and running like it was. Plug the WAN port of your router into the PC port of the Vonage box. Plug in your router and if you have it configured to use DHCP, it will get an ip address from the Vonage box (probaby 192.168.102.100). Next, plug in your computer to your router and turn it on. It should receive and IP address from your router (if you have it configured to do so). Next, log into your router web interface so that you can manually configure the WAN IP address of your router. You want to set it to 192.168.102.2. Click save, and now you should be able to get to 192.168.102.1 from your computer with your web browser. This is the admin interface on the Vonage box. On the status screen, note the DNS server IPs. From here, you want to setup a DMZ host of 192.168.102.2. This will forward all traffic to your router as it did before you hooked up the Vonage box. This also gives you the ability to manage both devices from your computer. Next, Log back into the web interface on your router and enter the DNS server information displayed on the Vonage web interface.

So, you can manage your router as you have in the past and you can manage the Vonage box at 192.168.102.1

Disclaimer!!! I take no responsibility in your inability to follow these directions! If you destroy your vonage box, it\’s not my fault!

Also, keep in mind that you can “activate” all of the phone jacks in your house using the Vonage box. NOTE!!! you MUST disconnect your local telephone company wires prior to doing so. This DOES NOT mean have the phone disconnected from your company! This means you must physically remove the phone company wires from your house phone wires. In my case, I have a 1959 block that 2 wires are screwed down to. I just removed those wires. In most cases, it will be a plastic box on the outside of your house. You will need to remove the incoming line prior to hooking up the vonage box to your house lines. If you do not remove the phone company wires prior to connecting your vonage box into your house wires you may destroy your vonage box!!!

So, you disconnected the phone company wires from your house, and you are sure about it? Well, just take a standard phone cable, and plug it into any of the phone “outlets” in your house. Then connect the other end up to your Vonage box. This will activate the rest of the outlets in your house using the Vonage box.