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I have a macbook.  I purchased a thunderbolt to gigabit eathernet adaptor from apple.  What I am trying to do is to connect 1 rj45 cable to my router and connect the second rj45 cable to my macbook.  (i will turn off wifi on my macbook)  the reason I want to do this is, I purchased a nighthawk AX6 from netgear.  In talking to them, this is a new item and I have found software issues when using it where   I assign networks for each device, the network can change from netgear59 to netgear59-5g and it should not because I want to assign what is connected to my hardware because some hardware only supports 2.4  ghz vs 5 ghz.  in doing this, I can possibly the issue wth my router with netgear’s help.

I am confused, do I need my isp to assign 2 ip adresses to use both connections on my modem or is that a dynamic assignment.  or do I only need one ip address for my modem and even though I have 2 rj45 connections in the back of my router and using one conection for my router and the second connection for my macbook.

bottom line

  • do I need my isp to assign 1 or 2 ip addresses
  • or they do not assign any ip addresses and the modem assigns them dynamically rather then my isp assigning them as a static ip address
  • and do I need 2 ip addresses for my modem or 1 ip address since it is only 1 modem with 2 rj45 connections.  I am hoping the answers go to my email since I never had used this before.  if not can you please send the answers to dlorfel@yahoo.com
  • thanks for the help

A couple things. 

  1. who’s your isp? most isp’s on a consumer line only assign 1 public ip address. To get another one usually you have to switch to a business line (more expensive) or pay for another public ip address (some ISP’s won’t do this). So a lot depends on your isp and whether they support it. 
  2. What actual model router do you have from netgear? I’m on there quite a bit to and help there. What actual issue are you having in detail? Most of the RAX series routers can split the 2.4ghz and 5ghz or use bandsteering depending on what you prefer. 

Thank you for the response.

according to my isp i have to contact arris because they do not assign another ip address.  when talking to arris, even though i have two rj45 ports on my modem, I can only use one port at a time.  the second one is a backup. (modem is sb8200)

I did try to use the 2 ports, one to my laptop and the second one to my router but it did not work.

so if I want to use one hardwired, I have to add the rj45 cable to the router. or if my router goes down, i would have to connect the modem rj45 to the computer rj45 port.

thank you for the help


If the ISP doesn’t support more than 1 public ip address then the 2x ports can only be used for wan port aggregation.