Abarceo

I that you were trying to enable someone to "Direct Connect" to you but your recent question about your IP address is somewhat confusing because firewalls have nothing to do with IP addresses.

An IP address for a home PC, and I presume you are using a home PC, is allocated by your ISP automatically. If you check my screen print below, you will see I have a standard XP set up designed to accept an IP address sent by my ISP and, if your set up is like mine, you will see the same thing as well, check your TCP/IP properties.

Next, the IP address you are seeing I believe it is the one that your modem-router is using to search the internet on your behalf. You see, what the NAT router table does is to substitute your PC's IP address for one in its table when you initiate a search, download, etc. Now, when your modem-router receives a reply it converts it's substitute IP back into the one your PC is expecting.

The thing that makes modem-routers so good it that unlike simple modems if it receives an unexpected internet communication the modem-router will drop that internetsignal like a hot brick while an ordinary modem will pass it through to your PC. That is why PCs with modem-routers do not get probed or suffer the kind of internet attacks other PC owners suffer with.

To get past a modem-router requires the PC owner to visit a booby trapped web-page, download malware (Trojan, virus or spyware) or load something from a floppy disk or CD.

Back to your "Direct Connect" problem, as I said before direct connect may not work because your modem-router will see the communication as an unwanted probe and automatically drop it. That is why I said that you should contact Thomson-Speedtouch technical helpdesk to see if they can advise you how to get around your problem.



UK Bob

PS. Seems that I have lost my screen print, I'll add it to the following post.