Hi everyone on Geekzone, 

I'm a quite a tech-savvy person, but I've never really been able to grasp networking. I've been playing around with computers and their software since I was about eight, and now I'm starting to get in to programming and that sort of stuff. I'm having a little trouble understanding how my home network operates and what I need to do to optimize it. I've been browsing the internet on information for the last four hours and I've been unable to find a post that fits what I'm looking for, so sorry if this has sort of already been asked.

I live in an apartment, which is wired with RJ45. There is a cabinet which has all I need to patch each port up to where I want it to go, this I understand. 

I am with Telecom and I have the stock wireless modem from them, the Technicolor TG582n. I also have the Huawei HG630b Fibre/VDSL modem as well, because they were meant to set up Fibre, they sent us the modem and then told us that it was unavailable. Great. I'm currently using the Technicolor because I find it easier to use and has the features I prefer. 

Now, I have a TP-Link WDR4300 wireless router that I absolutely love, it has some great features, but I can't seem to find out where it should fit in my network configuration. I want to use the TP-Link router's features, but I'm pretty sure I need a DSL modem to connect to the internet. So what I think I want to do is to put the router in a DMZ of the modem, which I've done, which allows the router to do the network translation or something like that, instead of the modem doing it. 

So, do I need to purchase a new modem that doesn't have the wireless access point and ethernet switch built in, or can I keep using my Telecom one while disabling all of it's router features? Sorry if this doesn't make too much sense, feel free to correct me on anything I may have wrong, I'm here to learn. Link me to a handy video if you have one, or a forum post that describes a router's position in a home network. 

Thanks all :)