I regret in advance that this will be a lengthy and intricate explanation. A few months back, my parents adopted a 10-year-old child, and as part of the adoption procedure, it was required that my mother install parental controls on her network to block the child from using social media. After examining the router's settings, I realized they weren't ideal for this purpose. There’s no client access control option—parental controls are either fully active or inactive for everyone (a rather simplistic design). This meant she couldn’t use Facebook anymore, which she relied on to stay in touch with friends abroad. I proposed she purchase a wireless access point so I could create a separate WiFi network with parental controls enabled, allowing the child to connect there while my mother used the primary network. After consulting a family member, she received a cable router from my uncle, which I discovered was intended for cable connections only and not DSL. I spent about two hours on Sunday installing it. The configuration looked like this: Phone line → DSL Filter → Sky Router at 192.168.1.1 (with DSL modem) → Cable router at 192.168.0.1 (later explained about gateway choices). Once set up, the new router offered more advanced parental controls, supported 5GHz and G/N/AB WiFi, while the old one only handled 2GHz and G/N. It would only function properly on network N when no G devices were connected. I resolved another issue she’d faced for years—WiFi coverage gaps in her home. Initially, the router was set to 192.168.0.1; I changed it to 192.168.1.1 and disabled WiFi entirely, then reconfigured the new one with the same SSID and password as before. All devices connected seamlessly. The network is now stable, and coverage problems disappeared. The challenge comes from her cabled equipment: she uses a NAS for documents, movies, and music streaming over the network to her laptop, Android device, and TV. She also has a network switch that splits one cable into two to connect her TV and Android box (so only one cable runs through the room). While installing the new router, I connected all wired devices to it, thinking it would be fine. However, the new router only supports 100Mbps over Ethernet, causing buffering when streaming. To fix this, I moved all wired devices back to the old router. But here’s the catch: devices connected to the old router aren’t reachable from the new one (a point I now fully understand). My dilemma: either connect everything to the new router (risking slow speeds for streaming) or connect to the old router (making it inaccessible to newer gear). I considered making the old router a DMZ in the new one, but that’s not feasible since the problem isn’t about port forwarding. There seems to be a hidden solution I’m missing—how can I keep all wired devices linked to the old router while still allowing access from the new setup? Help!
Consider using a gigabit switch from the cable router to establish a high-speed network for wired devices. Data movement between Wi-Fi and wired connections will remain unchanged. You might also attempt placing both routers on the same subnet, turning off DHCP and DNS services on the new one, and ensuring its IP matches the existing ones. Be mindful to pick an IP address not already in use. Note that filtering functionality may vary based on implementation details. Another option is to configure the new router as the DHCP server, adjusting its gateway to align with the old routers' IP addresses. This advanced feature is likely unavailable on standard routers.