Away from wood - Personal router behind Verizon FIOS router

OK, this post is not woodworking related, but something I've been struggling with for a long time since living in Maryland.  So I thought I'd document it.

When we moved here, we got on Verizon FIOS for internet (and TV, which we hardly watch, and phone which we don't even use...cheaper to get all 3 than just internet).  FIOS is great for speed, way better than Comcast.  However, the big downside to FIOS if you get it bundled with TV is that you pretty much HAVE to use their terrible router in order for the TV set-top box to work properly.  I tried different methods of bypassing/bridging their router, and none of them worked well.  They all left the TV set-top boxes without the guide or anything else that it needs that internet connection for.  However, I recently got this to work flawlessly and very simply.

Leave your FIOS router as-is for the most part, including leaving it with the 192.168.1.x LAN.  However, set up DMZ on the FIOS router to point to an IP address within its LAN.  Let's say you have the DMZ on the FIOS router point to 192.168.1.49.  This IP address will be assigned as the WAN IP of your personal router.  Now setup your personal router so it has a static WAN IP address matching the DMZ address on the FIOS router.  In this example, you would set the WAN IP address on your personal router = 192.168.1.49, subnet = 255.255.255.0, gateway = 192.168.1.1.  Give your personal router a different LAN subnet than the FIOS router.  In this example, the LAN subnet of the personal router might be given 192.168.7.x. 

Now connect the WAN port on your personal router to any LAN port on the FIOS router.  Connect all the stuff you want on your personal network to the personal router.  Bam, you're done.  This is so simple and so effective.  All the set-top boxes work, remote DVR works, and you get your personal network direct to the internet.

This works with Dynamic DNS and OpenVPN on your personal router, if the router supports this.  I highly recommend Netgear R7000 with DD-WRT installed.  Super easy to install the DD-WRT on the R7000.