Xbox Live Compatible Router

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Written by Dan Schaefer

Problem: When connecting your Xbox to your Xbox Live account, you get a message about NAT being “Strict” or “Moderate”, and your multi-player gaming is affected.

Explanation: Your Xbox is attempting to implement a special type of connection to the Internet, but your router is standing in the way. Your router uses something called “Network Address Translation” (NAT) to give your Xbox access to the Internet, but NAT does not allow incoming connections by default. Your Xbox may recognize this problem and attempt to “trick” your router into allowing incoming connections, but this action may fail, depending on the configuration of the router. The degree to which it fails is denoted by one of three designations:

Open NAT – Completely compatible with Xbox Live.
Moderate NAT – Somewhat compatible with Xbox Live. Multi-player games can be played with others who have either Open or Moderate NAT, but not Strict NAT.
Strict NAT – Highly incompatible and almost unusable for multi-player games. Multi-player games only possible when everyone else has an Open NAT connection.

Solution: Change the configuration of your router, if possible, so that either the “UPnP” function is enabled or something called “Cone” or “Full Cone” NAT is enabled. If your router allows none of these options, then it’s time to consider purchasing a different router.

How to do it: It’s difficult to come up with an answer that covers the setup procedures for all routers, so I’ll keep this “How-To” section brief.

Basically, you will need to get administrative access to your router and look for one of the following:

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) – This option allows your Xbox to communicate directly with the router and configure it for incoming connections. If this is disabled, then enable it at this time.
Network Address Translation (NAT) – Look for the ability to implement “Cone” or “Full Cone” routing. This allows your Xbox to perform some tricks on the router to configure it for incoming connections.

Most likely, your router implements a firewall that prevents suspicious traffic from entering your system. Generally, you won’t want to mess with the filtering policies, as your Xbox should be able to either trick the router into accepting an inbound connection or implement UPnP to fully control some aspects of the router. Degrading your security settings just to play games is … er … a dangerous game to play.

If you’re still not successful connecting to Xbox Live, here are just a few more things to check:

Make sure that your Xbox is connected directly to the main router in your home. In other words, if you have more than one router in your home, then make sure the Xbox is connected directly to the router that interfaces with the Internet. Your Xbox cannot play tricks or run UPnP protocols if it cannot talk directly to the main router.
Do not try to use another PC as a gateway to the Internet. The Microsoft OS allows you to share its network connection. This works reasonably well for sharing a connection with other PCs, but it will not work for playing Xbox Live games. The problem is that the shared Internet connection automatically implements a very restrictive firewall that does not implement UPnP, Cone or Full Cone.
If you decide to purchase another router to work with your Xbox Live account, make sure the router implements the UPnP protocol. You may also want to check with Microsoft to see whether or not your router has earned the Xbox Live compatible logo. I have included a copy of the logo here so you know what to look for when making your purchase.