Often, if you are a business or home user using Verizon FIOS for Internet, you will want to use your own firewall. It provides superior protection of the network, virus scanning, vpn access, and many other resources for your business’s digital infrastructure than the provided Verizon FIOS router. Although I don’t want to put down the Verizon FIOS router, which is actually excellent for its purpose as a very general router/firewall, companies like Fortinet and Sonicwall provide firewall security appliances that are extremely powerful.
Steps to program a Fortinet firewall to work with Verizon FIOS:
- Have Verizon FIOS change your connection to use the Ethernet port on your ONT (white box around back or sometimes in garage) rather than the coax port for Internet access. If you are a business, you should have a static IP as well so that it’s easy to get to your firewall to access.
- Login to your existing Verizon FIOS router and click on ‘My Network’, then click on broad band connection and take note of the following items (aka WRITE THEM DOWN):
- IP Address
- Subnet mask
- Gateway
- DNS Servers
- Plug the ethernet wire directly from the ONT (white box around back or sometimes in garage) into the WAN1 port of your Fortinet firewall
- Login to the firewall, by default at 192.168.1.1 and go to ‘Interfaces’. Edit the WAN1 details to match the notes you took down from the Verizon router changing the IP address resolution from DHCP to static. If you are having trouble finding the ‘Gateway’ field, you may have to use the Wizard to do the settings correctly for WAN1.
- You should now have Internet ONLY through the Fortinet router and no more Verizon FIOS router needed!
