After experiencing frequent interruptions while watching Netflix, YouTube, and streaming music on Spotify, I called my internet provider to find out what was going on. They told me everything looked fine on their end, but mentioned that my router was getting old. They offered me a contract upgrade along with a new router.

My brain immediately went, “YAY! New tech!” Oh boy…

🧑‍💻 New Router

A day later, the new Fiber Home box arrived—and dude, that thing is a mess. No web interface, everything has to be configured through my provider’s app. Even worse, the router was stuck in a boot loop for four hours until it finally registered in their system and appeared in the app.

In my old setup, I used my previous Fiber box as a gateway and ran my own router behind it, giving me full control over my network and allowing for custom DNS settings for my self-hosted services.

Guess what? The new box doesn’t support gateway mode, DNS configuration, or much of anything else. I’m just glad I could change the Wi-Fi name. Speaking of Wi-Fi—it’s bad. Like, really bad. I have a pixel display in my living room connected via Wi-Fi, and it loses connection and reconnects every 20 seconds. Every time it reconnects, it lights up green. The whole room glows green. I feel like the Green Lantern.

So, how do I fix this mess?

💭 Options

I had two choices:

  • Live with it
  • Configure my old router to take over routing duties

🎯 Solution

I had to act quickly, because while fiddling with the app, I managed to disable DHCP—and it wouldn’t let me re-enable it.

In typical Andy fashion, I expected the solution to be complex, but it turned out surprisingly simple. I set the WAN port on my old router to a static IP and configured the IP address of the Fiber Home box as the default gateway.

I plugged everything in and BOOM—internet! Everything works again, and I’ve got my custom DNS setup back.