Setting up a home computer lab

Switching ISPs from Roadrunner to U-verse, i was puzzled why my personal router wouldn't connect to the network as it had with Roadrunner. But the problem soon dawned on me.

The big honking gray modem att provides is the 'residential gateway' (RS). It IP address is usually gonna be 192.168.1.254. As I suspected, this was the same address that my router was setup at the factory to use. This is a private (or local) address meaning that if you connect to that address then you will be connecting to something (in this case your own gateway) within your own network be it at home or the office and not a some remote server. Script kiddies, you have been warned! Keep in mind, that some models may have a different network IP range like 10.x.x.x or 172.16-31.x.x which i suspect my roadrunner modem had.