G3100 Losing Connection and Video/Audio Freezing

[drt-v]

Just joined the group and have read & studied all posts so far.  Thanks to all for sharing the information. Here's my story (sorry for the length!):  I've been a Verizon FiOS customer for a long time (phone, internet & TV) and a few months ago upgraded to their max g-byte internet service speed and latest ONT and the G3100 router. The G3100 is connected to the ONT simultaneously via BOTH ethernet and coax cables.  I too have experienced frequent occasional random drops of my internet connectivity but the much more serious problem I've been having is random "video/audio freezing," or complete disconnection, of many of my TV sets (all connected via high quality coax).  FYI, I have turned off the G3100's wifi because I'm using my own (industrial quality) AP for household wifi.  (Therefore, SON dysfunction cannot explain my problem.)  I have many devices (~45) hooked up to the internet ethernet network, although all are obviously not always active simultaneously. Thus, my problems with the G3100 also include that (1) I can't get MANUAL port forwarding to work at all (which a couple of my ethernet connected devices require to allow remote access); (2) sometimes outside internet access connectivity drops (similar to what others report here); and (3) the TV STB's (all 10 connected via high-quality MoCA coax directly to the router/ONT through Verizon-supplied splitter) will "freeze" and/or totally lose connection to their associated DVR STB (of which I have two on the coax network).  So far, I've never had any issues with the phone service which also goes through the ONT (but not the G3100 router).  Powering off everything and then rebooting everything (including the G3100 and my ONT box) will "sometimes" fix the problems but only temporarily, because the same issues will randomly occur a day, couple days or month later.  I also normally have a commercial grade WD NAS device and a multi-unit (~16 devices) Sonos music system all connected individually via ethernet which I have now completely shut down since my last total system reboot to see if those connected devices might be causing my internet and TV problems.  It's been about a week since I did that and so far no more black-outs, but I can't say this permanently resolved things because I've sometimes gone this long without problems.  Verizon support (both via telephone and onsite technician visits) have been worthless and not fixed this recurring issue, which I suspect is most likely caused by the (probably poorly designed) G3100 getting "over-loaded" with traffic. My idea for a possible solution is to maintain JUST the TV system connected to the G3100 via coax/MoCA but stop using the G3100 for my internal ethernet activity by getting my own high quality router (like the Netgear Nighthawk) to plug in directly to the WAN port connection on the ONT. That way, I can configure the more sophisticated router any way I want (with port forwarding, address reservation, MAC filtering, etc) independent of the G3100 but still let the G3100 manage the MoCA/TV system as apparently required for their set-top TV DVRs & other boxes .  However, I don't know how to do this. Does anyone think this would work and still preserve all the FiOS TV functions? Another possible solution would be to plug the independent router into one of the G3100's ethernet ports with JUST the "ethernet half" of the G3100 placed in "bridge mode" (leaving the MoCA for the TVs still working), but I could NOT find any way or option in the G3100 set-up to put its ethernet functioning into bridge mode.  The really frustrating part of all this is that I never had similar problems with the older, no longer supported internet/TV STB equipment from Verizon.  Any thoughts or suggestions from the group would be most welcomed!