Getting MioTV and Internet surfing to play nice

Well, I'm sick of having to manually switch the network cables between my wireless router and the MioTV set-top box to the ST536v6 ADSL modem/router each time I wanted to surf the Internet or watch MioTV respectively. (Look here for the reason why I'm in this predicament.) So I took some time out to check out my options.

The quick and easy way is to shell out for a wireless ADSL modem router like the 2Wire 2700HGV-2. This is the standard triple-play (IPTV, VoIP and Internet surfing) modem provided by SingTel when you choose the wireless modem option. Its not really that expensive given that you can easily find fairly new one on eBay for around S$100. But going with this option means that I will have to junk both my spanking new ST536v6 as well as my trusty DI-524 wifi router.

The poor man's option is to reconfigure the DI-524 as a wireless access point (as compared to its current role as a WAP cum router) and let the ST536v6 be the router instead. Although I personally will prefer to let the DI-524 be the router (it has much better security features) while the ST536v6 play the modem role only. However, getting the latter into bridged mode seems tedious and complicated so I'm giving that thought up for now.

Here are the basic steps to set up the above configuration:

• Plug the ST536v6 into one of the LAN ports on the DI-524
• Plug the MioTV set-top box into another LAN port on the DI-524
• Login to the admin console of the DI-524 (i.e. http://192.168.0.1/ if you did not change its IP previously)
• Disable DHCP
• Change the IP to fall within the subnet of the ST536v6 (e.g. http://192.168.1.1/)
• That's it!

So after nearly a week of cable swapping, I can finally sit back in my couch and enjoy both MioTV and Internet surfing at the same time!