Hi there, I have perhaps an odd problem. I have two cable modems in house, each modem is connected to its own router that runs DHCP and there's several computers connected to each router. I would like to connect the two little networks together into one LAN. How can it be done? Recently I got a router that has two WAN ports and can share two modems for one LAN behind the router but it seems now that it won't work with this particular cable service (ZOT AF420B with Rogers Cable High Speed internet in Canada) and I am now trying with two Linksys routers that do work just fine. Only I am not sure how one connects together two LANs each with its own router internet gateway. Do I have to switch DHCP off on both routers and assign static IPs?? I suppose so but wonder if I can run cable from a port on one router to a port on the other, if that's the way to go about it to make one big LAN out of it... I know the second cable modem is a luxury, but given that I have it, I am trying to make use of it before I cancel one acct. (it also gives the whole family email addresses with some to spare which wouldn't be the case with one acct only.)

Van, It seems you have a very interesting and unique dilemma on your hands. I have no way of testing this theory, but here's what I would try: 1) Leave DHCP on, but assign different IP ranges to the two servers. 2) Throw a crossover cable inbetween the two routers on the LAN side. That should get allow you to communicate between computers, but if you can't get out to the net, it's probably because your clients don't know which gateway to use. In that case, you would then probably have to go static with the same cross-over cable setup directing each client to the correct WAN gateway. Good luck! EtDiGiTaLiS.

thx, I will try it when I get the other router to work, funny enough, older BEFSR41 v1 connects to cable no problem, the other is new BEFSR81 v2 and I can't make it work!! Only difference is that the newer routers from Linskys are 'version2' and that means v2 firmware (that begins with '1' - both routers have the latest firmware but the old router has 1.44.2 (v1) firmware whereas the new has 2.44.2 (v2) and it can't connect even if I copycat exactly what I setup on the older one... hum, now I am investigating this problem, after its solved, will return to try yout solution which is interesting. I noticed you can set up several gateways in TCP/IP and the order how you enter them determines how they get used... does this mean if I give the two routers different gateways [I think I should so that the computers connect through that router which they are directly connected to (and not through the other via that cross cable if that works)] that if one modem would go down, the computers on that part of network would then default to the second gateway which would be the other router and so still be on internet... it would work sort of as failover backup however I found this on another forum: "a router breaks up both collision and broadcast domains. It is a layer three device that can read the layer three encapsulation (IP) of data and determine which network it is heading to--allowing the router to move data between IP networks. That is why different IP networks can not "talk" to each other without a router in between." I think I should leave one router set at default IP which is 198.168.1.1 and set the other one say at 192.168.1.2 and assign different ranges of IPs to the two networks and so far its ok but what that quote says that I would need to connect the two different IP networks together via router then... unless I keep both router gateway IP at 192.168.1.1 its gonna be interesting :) Van