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Finally, I was able to set up my 1 Mbps subscription with Globe Broadband with my more than 2-year old Linksys WRT54G wireless router.

Let me explain first the timeline. Since 2006, our family shared a Smart Bro connection with our neighbor. I bought a laptop in 2007 and would want to go wireless, so I purchased a router. By June this year, I resurrected our telephone subscription with Digitel and along with it is a DSL connection. The wireless router worked flawlessly in both ISPs. The only thing that I changed was the local IP address to 192.168.2.1. So I have two ISPs, until….

…Until the typhoon Ondoy last September 26. My neighbor migrated to Canada, so the Smart Bro connection has to be cut off. Digitel services also went down. There was a dial tone but there was no DSL. I have been calling them everyday (literally, everyday), even twice on some days and all I hear from the customer service agent is that they will make a follow-up report, that this is part of a network problem, etc. I got so pissed off that after futile attempts to get a connection, I texted an agent of Globe to give me a subscription form. Eight days after I filled up the form, they went to the house and set up the phone and modem connection. It took them an hour and 15 minutes to set it up.

I now have two telephones, and supposed to be, two ISPs as well. Notice that I also have a Linksys VoIP box and an answering machine.

So much for the introduction. I know that as long as I get Internet connection from the modem, Globe will not take care of my wireless set up. The problem is that if I plug the cable coming from the Hurricane ProLink 5200 modem and connect it to the Linksys WRT54G, either I will only have one Internet connection. That’s either via wireless or wired. I followed the instructions in The Greek Brewery, but it didn’t do any good.

Take note that in the instructions, it asks you to delete the pre-existing setting under the WAN configuration in 192.168.1.1/globe. That didn’t help me because once I do that, I lose my Internet light in the modem. My officemate also suggested to do MAC address clone, or to copy the MAC address of the modem to the router. That didn’t work either.

I was finally able to setup my wireless router via the following instructions. All you need is, of course, a network cable. This is the only configuration that worked for me, so others might have different suggestions.

1. Do not make any changes in the modem. Just leave it as it is. (I just found out that this modem is also a router.) Turn off the router for the purpose of hooking it up with the wireless router.

2. Go to the GUI of your router via 192.168.1.1 (or whatever local IP that was set before.) Go to Basic Setup, look for Local IP Address. I set mine to 192.168.1.2 so as not to be in conflict with the default IP of the modem.

3. On the same page, look for DHCP Server and select disable.
4. Turn off the Linksys device. It will now act as the access point instead of router. Connect the cable coming from the Hurricane modem to the Port 1 (not the Internet). Notice the blue cable in the picture. It is connected to Lan Port number 1.

5. Turn on your modem, wait for the lights to stabilize. Turn on your Linksys device. You should be able to browse using a wireless device, and via cable (notice the gray and yellow cables above).

If you will be networking your computers, make sure you check the IP address under 192.168.1.1/globe, Lan Interface > DHCP Settings. It will give you the IPs and the MAC addresses of your devices. If you will visit the DHCP Client table of the Linksys machine, you will see nothing because it already acts as an access point, and no longer a router. Your Hurricane model is now the router.

I have to thank my officemate Ryan for suggesting this setup.