I live in an apartment complex and each room has 2 ethernet jacks. I directly hooked up my xbox to the jack and am recieveing a moderate.. sometimes strict NAT setting. i've researched this topic and found that you must open certain ports to allow an open NAT. My question is.. even if I hook my xbox to a router in my apartment could I open these ports? or does the apt. complex's server/router determine what ports are open? Thanks! Jay

I'm not sure I understand. While I own an xbox, I've never networked it. I suspect it would get it's IP information from DHCP. As long as you're connecting to games remotely, there should be no reason to open a port. If however, you want to host a game and have someone connect to you then you would have to. If this is the case, then whoever controls the router you're connecting to would have to setup the 'port forward' for you. Adding your own router would only allow you to port forward as far as their router, it would still control traffic coming in through it. What I mean is, even if you installed your own router, forwarded the necessary port(s)...incoming traffic would still be stopped by the router downstream from you and it would never actually reach your router.

You ask the apt people for more info. You can't open ports. I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you peanut.