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What you're describing is probably a "double NAT" situation, where both your ISP router and your own router are providing NAT. This can work fine albeit with so

What you're describing is probably a "double NAT" situation, where both your ISP router and your own router are providing NAT. This can work fine albeit with some extra latency for simple use cases, but if you ever run any services on your home network that either rely on UPnP or port forwarding, it'll fall apart. The best-of-both-worlds solution here is to have the outer ISP-provided router put your own router into some kind of DMZ, or use a bridge mode if the ISP router provides it. This basically turns your ISP-provided router into a dumber modem, and leaves all NAT and routing to your own hardware.

yumraj 6y ago
Yes, you're correct, it is a double NAT. The latency measured inside is around 9-11ms, so much higher than the 3-4ms measured at the ATT gateway. I am not doing any port-forwarding, but I can definitely see it run into all kinds of problems, or require some configuration beyond my simple skills. I'll investigate your comment: The best-of-both-worlds solution here is to have the outer ISP-provided router put your own router into some kind of DMZ, or use a bridge mode if the ISP router provides it. This basically turns your ISP-provided router into a dumber modem, and leaves all NAT and routing to your own hardware.
linux2647 6y ago
The AT&T router I have has an "IP Passthrough" mode which basically does a DMZ with my downstream router, but the router receives a public IP address. The AT&T router is essentially "invisible", but it takes up so much physical space, power, costs me $10/month, and is one more link in the fragile chain between me and the Internet. Other comments here mention how to put the AT&T router behind a Ubiquiti gateway and proxy the authentication to it via some scripts. This reduces the reliance on the AT&T router for direct traffic, but you still need the router operational for those authentication handshakes.

yumraj 6y ago

Yes, you're correct, it is a double NAT. The latency measured inside is around 9-11ms, so much higher than the 3-4ms measured at the ATT gateway. I am not doing any port-forwarding, but I can definitely see it run into all kinds of problems, or require some configuration beyond my simple skills. I'll investigate your comment: The best-of-both-worlds solution here is to have the outer ISP-provided router put your own router into some kind of DMZ, or use a bridge mode if the ISP router provides it. This basically turns your ISP-provided router into a dumber modem, and leaves all NAT and routing to your own hardware.

linux2647 6y ago

The AT&T router I have has an "IP Passthrough" mode which basically does a DMZ with my downstream router, but the router receives a public IP address. The AT&T router is essentially "invisible", but it takes up so much physical space, power, costs me $10/month, and is one more link in the fragile chain between me and the Internet. Other comments here mention how to put the AT&T router behind a Ubiquiti gateway and proxy the authentication to it via some scripts. This reduces the reliance on the AT&T router for direct traffic, but you still need the router operational for those authentication handshakes.