3rd Party Router

[doughty]

I know that this has been asked before, but I still do not see a clear answer since every discussion seems to immediately veer into techspeak and an alphabet soup of acronyms. So I seek a simple direct answer.

I have the bundle. I want to add a third party router. I read that I must put the Xfinity box into bridge mode. The question is what happens to the TV signal to the entertainment box?

*Added Labels*

[Biollw]

Nothing happens to the TV entertainment boxes. Just make sure once you bridge the rogers modem that your new router's wifi is the same SSID and password as what it was previously, just makes it easier. The rogers modem has a hidden SSID for the TV boxes for verification. This can not be shutoff BTW.

I have had the modem bridged for years with my TV entertainment boxes and using my own router. I have TV boxes both hard wired with CAT5 and wireless and all work flawlessly.

Good Luck

Bill

[doughty]

I don't see how it's possible to hardwire the Xfinity to the entertainment box, only has an ethernet input connector. I tried looking up the manual for the Xfinity box for help, but of course it was useless as it didn't even bother explain what the 6 ethernet ports were for on the back. And I don't see how I could hard wire an entertainment box on another room to the Xfinity. Maybe this is all obvious to some people but not to me even though I've spend many years "hardwiring" logic circuits.

[Biollw]

I was referring to the ethernet port on the TV boxes xi6 and xiOne not the xb6 xb7

Yes once you bridge the modem then connect your router to the port 1 of the xb7 xb8 then use your router's ports and a switch if needed.

[-G-]

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@doughty wrote:

I know that this has been asked before, but I still do not see a clear answer since every discussion seems to immediately veer into techspeak and an alphabet soup of acronyms. So I seek a simple direct answer.

I have the bundle. I want to add a third party router. I read that I must put the Xfinity box into bridge mode. 

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Please don't take this the wrong way but if you have limited networking knowledge, why do you feel the need to add a third-party router and put yourself into a configuration where Rogers will be unable to provide you with any technical support?  If your networking needs are simple, you will be far better off just running on the Rogers-provided equipment.  For most people, it works great, it is simple to manage, it is secure, performs well, it is provided to you at no cost, and if you were to run into any technical issues, help is just a phone call away.

The question is what happens to the TV signal to the entertainment box?

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The Xfinity Entertainment set-top boxes are not like the old coax-connected receivers.  There is no "TV signal" per se.  The STBs work similar to an Apple TV or Roku or Amazon FireTV stick.  They connect to your home network via Wi-Fi and the tv channel is streamed over your Internet connection, similar to how Netflix streams their movies.

The set-top boxes were designed to connect to an Xfinity gateway.  Get the gateway up and running, configure Wi-Fi, and then simply power-up the set-top boxes; they will automatically connect to your Gateway via Wi-Fi.

[doughty]

I am bothering with a router because I want to put my VPN on it, which has many obvious advantages.

As far as my limited knowledge of networking is concerned, that would not be an issue if technology companies would make even a modest effort to provide useful documentation.  It's not like I haven't learned to use (and deign) a lot more complex technologies that Rogers TV. But they don't because it cost time, effort and money.  Instead, they outsource their responsibility to forums like this but most of the people who respond are so  into this stuff they they speak technojargon probably because they are usually just talking with each other.  (Note above that in the OP mention the problem with acronyms and guess what?  the first response contained an acronym.) I realize that the concept of networks in particular makes it very easy for companies to always say that's someone else's problem. 

Of course, Rogers is hardly unique. Just try getting help on a linux forum. The community is killing the technology because the documentation stinks and the forums are nothing but technobabble. The same here. I'll ditch Rogers the moment an even halfway reasonable alternative presents itself. 

[-G-]

What kind of VPN were you planning to configure?

A VPN server, to allow you to access your home network from anywhere?

If it's a VPN client, were you going to configure split tunneling or do you plan to run all of your outbound traffic through a VPN service for privacy reasons?  If it is the latter, that will cause problems or perhaps totally even break Xfinity TV.

When you get Xfinity TV + Internet from Rogers, it is sold and supported as a turnkey service that should "just work".  That is why the underlying technical details of how the service operates are totally undocumented; there is no need for you to know... and those that do are usually limited in what information they share by non-disclosure agreements.  Comcast's official position is that Xfinity TV will not work over customer-owned third party equipment.  Rogers' customer-facing tech support teams do not have the training or expertise to support any other configurations.  They are unable to even provide full support for more advanced features such as port forwarding and will defer any problems that they cannot resolve to the Community.

Rogers does not go out of their way to prevent you from running on your own network gear but if you do, you are totally on your own.  Rogers cannot and will not support you, and at some point, you may be forced to revert back to a Rogers-supported configuration.