this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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Can I faraday cage my ISP-issued router in order to use my own? (reddthat.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/technology
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I have a family member living on my property in a separate but adjacent living space, close enough together to share my router's wifi. She likes to let her youtube app endlessly autoplay talking head news videos at full volume due to her hearing loss, and this goes on for a few hours in the mornings. The sound through the walls is annoying but headphones block enough that it's a non-issue as long as I can load something to play through them. The real rub is that I also would like to do something on the laptop during breakfast and her neverending news autoplay eats up all the bandwidth I am paying for when I want to use it. I can't cut off her internet, but I could prioritize my traffic over hers in the morning so that I can load an episode of something and listen through headphones. Yes I know this would be a bit unscrupulous but I have already suggested she not doomscroll via youtube all morning, to no avail.

Setting up a separate ISP account for the adjacent space isnt an option for the time being. The router/modem combo is ISP-issued and locked down by default due to too many service calls from people breaking stuff in settings. As far as I know it is not able to be swapped out to an off-the-shelf due to this being fiber optic internet, plus I'm only so-so in tech knowledge.

Which leads me to the title, can I put the ISP-issued router in a faraday cage, connect my own router via ethernet and be able to control settings via that route? Any reason I shouldn't/couldn't?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

See if your ISP can set their router to bridged mode, then you should be able to use your own while plugged into their equipment. It will turn all the functionality off on it so you won't be doubled natted and traffic should flow properly.

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Alternatively, if you are a bit tech savy, you could explore see if there is a DMZ setting, which should also allow you to use an alternative router with the ISP's one.

Just a note to OP: a Faraday cage would block all WiFi signals from what I understand. If that's the result you're after, there should be a setting to cut off WiFi in the router, it's pretty standard. This is for when you want to only use wired internet.

Also, if you want to prioritize your traffic over theirs, you couldloonk for a QoS setting (quality of service).