Author Topic: Wifi router suggestions? (Read 4279 times)

Brad Johnson · « **on:** November 27, 2020, 01:05:43 AM »

My parents wifi router is getting glitchy. Age and accumulated dust have taken their toll. I want to get a replacment and install it over the Christmas break. Appealing to the Hive Mind for input.

The biggest requirement is durability. Their power isn't the cleanest or most reliable and the unit lives on the floor. (Don't ask. I've tried. Where it is now is where it's going to stay.) It doesn't need fancy feature sets as they will go completely unused. No sophisticated security protocols necessary, either. Their nearest neighbor is several miles away so I turn off password protection, mostly for my own sanity. No set budget. I'll pay what's necessary to get something that works reliably and will take the conditions.

Suggestions?

Brad

zxcvbob · « **Reply #1 on:** November 27, 2020, 01:14:52 AM »

I have an Asus TM-AC1900 that I got because someone here recommended them (Calumus?) It has worked flawlessly for several years, sitting on top of the freezer in my basement. With the right service provider, I think it can even be used as a micro cell tower. One thing I like about it is it has a guest network; I set up a second SSID, and when Mrs Z has students over (she's a tutor) they can use it to access the Internet but cannot see my systems or network printers.

RocketMan · « **Reply #2 on:** November 27, 2020, 10:07:02 AM »

Quote from: zxcvbob on November 27, 2020, 01:14:52 AM

I have an Asus TM-AC1900 that I got because someone here recommended them (Calumus?) It has worked flawlessly for several years, sitting on top of the freezer in my basement. With the right service provider, I think it can even be used as a micro cell tower. One thing I like about it is it has a guest network; I set up a second SSID, and when Mrs Z has students over (she's a tutor) they can use it to access the Internet but cannot see my systems or network printers.

I have the same Asus AC1900 as zxcvbob except my nomenclature is actually RT-AC1900P. I think it's the same router, his is perhaps a big box store version. Works well. Lots of decent features should your parents situation change and they are needed. It does have beam steering so that might overcome its placement on the floor to some extent.

edited with exact model number.

zahc · « **Reply #3 on:** November 27, 2020, 10:56:17 AM »

I have an Orbi. I like it.

lee n. field · « **Reply #4 on:** November 27, 2020, 11:02:54 AM »

Something from the Mikrotik home and office routers, like maybe this.

If the ISP's equipment feeding this is in bridge mode (the WAN port on this is directly reachable on the Internet), you'll want to keep up on the firmware.

Ben · « **Reply #5 on:** November 27, 2020, 11:09:08 AM »

I don't know if all routers these days allow remote admin, but it sounds like you might want that feature.

RocketMan · « **Reply #6 on:** November 27, 2020, 02:26:21 PM »

My Asus RT-AC1900P allows remote admin access if desired. I disabled that feature on mine as it's not needed for my application.

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #7 on:** November 28, 2020, 08:34:14 PM »

AC-1900 ordered. Didn't think about it being Black Friday but lucked out and found it on sale.

Brad

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #8 on:** December 12, 2020, 10:23:51 AM »

A quick update to say Thanks. Installed it this morning. Night and day difference. At it's best their old router wasn't this fast or stable. It has me thinking about getting one for the house and bypassing the POS Uverse-supplied unit.

Brad

Ben · « **Reply #9 on:** December 12, 2020, 10:53:57 AM »

Quote from: Brad Johnson on December 12, 2020, 10:23:51 AM

A quick update to say Thanks. Installed it this morning. Night and day difference. At it's best their old router wasn't this fast or stable. It has me thinking about getting one for the house and bypassing the POS Uverse-supplied unit.

Brad

If Frontier hadn't already had "run away fast" reviews, I would have still skipped them because they forced you to use and lease their router, no exceptions. My fixed wireless provider is way more lenient. In fact when it was installed, the tech had never installed with an Orbi net, so stuck around and worked on it with me just so he could learn about it for future installs (their normal policy is, "Use whatever router you want, but you're responsible for getting it to work).

Most of these ISPs use horrendous routers, often because they are the easiest for them to remotely monitor.

MillCreek · « **Reply #10 on:** December 12, 2020, 11:10:15 AM »

After years of using the combined modem/router/wifi units from Motorola, I will never go back after switching to a separate Netgear modem and Asus AC-1900 router/wifi.

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #11 on:** December 12, 2020, 11:18:14 AM »

I'll probably take the easy way out and set up the supplied modem/router in bridge mode, leaving everything else be. No sense in making it more complicated than necessary.

Brad

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #12 on:** December 21, 2020, 04:46:44 PM »

New router arrived today but I won't have time to mess with it until we get back from Christmas.

One quirk when setting up Mom & Dad's new unit... when I logged into the IP it threw me directly into some kind of setup routine rather than simply going to the router menu. It ended up causing me to set up a redundant network. Any way around this or is it an eccentricity of ASUS?

Brad

RocketMan · « **Reply #13 on:** December 21, 2020, 06:39:10 PM »

You should be able to access the main router page from ip 192.268.1.1. I just configured one today that was 192.168.50.1 for some reason. Don't know if Asus made a change recently, or if it was just this particular model. It was an AC1200 unit from Asus.
They also come default to http, not https, so make sure your browser is not appending the 's'. That can be changed in the router admin if necessary.

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #14 on:** December 21, 2020, 09:50:21 PM »

192.268.1.1 is where I went but it popped up an initial-config utility the first time I hit it. Never happened after that but it still caused me an extra bit of time getting the redundancy removed. If I can avoid that it would be nice.

Brad

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #15 on:** December 25, 2020, 01:43:32 PM »

Installed the router on my home network this morning. Uverse has some quirks but it went relatively smoothly with the exception of the UVerse TV connectivity. Turns out even though you may have set the gateway (modem) to bridge mode, the UVTV equipment must still be connected to the gateway and not the new router. None of the documentation I could find, which is surprisingly lacking, mentioned that fact. Fought it for almost an hour before I found an out-of-the-way mention of it. Reconnected the UVTV equipment to the gateway and all is well.

No increase in speed, nor was any expected. Main benefit is wifi stability and general responsiveness. Unlike the AT&T gateway's peak-n-valley waveform, the SpeedTest graph of the new router is dead flat. Uverse equipment was bad about significant speed inconsistencies, I'm guessing due to the gateway/modem's lack of processing power for the multi-function aspect. The Asus seems to do a much, much better job in those regards.

Brad

zxcvbob · « **Reply #16 on:** December 25, 2020, 02:44:15 PM »

I've got a general question not worth starting a new tread.

Do static IP addresses have to be on same the subnet as everybody else to be reached? For instance, could I put a local device at 10.10.10.10 when everything else is at 192.168.1.x? What about 192.168.2.something? My subnet mask, which I can change, is 255.255.255.0 (I just barely know what that means) 10.whatever is non-routable.

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #17 on:** January 11, 2021, 05:30:18 PM »

Update...

Ended up having to run a second drop to the basement to feed the switch I installed earlier this year. The UVERSE box has to be plugged into the supplied UVERSE router but I want the switch plugged into the new ASUS router. Everything is up and running and tests fine in normal use, but now I'm getting "Double NAT" messages on the XBox. I have a feeling I missed something when changing settings on the UVERSE gateway and new router.

There is amazingly little specific information on setting the UVERSE box into IP Passthrough. Rather, there is little in the way of a comprehensive set of step-by-step instructions. Most of what I find is either overly generic or piecemeal. Culling through everything I could find, I developed the instructions below as a more complete instruction set.

Before I start punching buttons, could you more network-savvy types to give them a glance and see if I'm going to totally FUBAR something?

Thanks,
Brad

__________________________________________________________________________

IP Passthrough setup for AT&T UVERSE service which includes UVERSE TV and uses an NVG510/589 modem/gateway.

NVG510/NVG589:
Unplug all ethernet cables. This includes cables for any UVERSE TV and WAP equipment.

Plug the computer being used for programming into LAN port 1.

Login to the NVG5xx (192.168.1.254)

Go to 'Home Network' then 'Subnets & DHCP'.

Leave the Device IPv4 address as 192.168.1.254.

Leave the Subnet Mask as 255.255.255.0.

Change 'DHCPv4 Start Address' to 192.168.1.1 (or whatever your above Device IPv4 address is but with a 1 at the end instead of .254)

Change 'DHCPv4 End Address' to 192.168.1.253.

Click 'SAVE' at the bottom, if available.

Under 'Home Network' go to 'Wireless'. Turn off wireless.

Click 'SAVE' at the bottom, if available..

Under 'Firewall' go to 'Packet Filter'. Disable Packet Filters.

Click 'SAVE' at the bottom, if available.

In NAT/Gaming, delete any personal settings or entries.

Click 'SAVE' at the bottom, if available.

Under 'Firewall' go to 'IP Passthrough'. For 'Default Server Internal Address', enter 192.168.1.1.

Click 'SAVE' at the bottom, if available.

For 'Allocation Mode' select 'Default Server'.

For 'Passthrough Mode', select 'DHCPS-Fixed'

Enter the MAC address for your personal router

Click SAVE. Do not reboot if prompted.

Go to 'Firewall Advanced' at the top and turn everything OFF.

Click SAVE.

Reboot the router.

PERSONAL ROUTER (in this case, text below includes values and menu locations for my ASUS application -Brad)
Unplug all ethernet cables. Plug the computer being used for programming into LAN port 1.

Log into your router using the router’s IP address. (192.168.1.1).

Under ADVANCED settings, go to LAN and change the address from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.2.1

Under ADVANCED settings, go to WAN and make sure the WAN connection type is set to AUTOMATIC IP.

SAVE if the option is available.

Turn off or power down your router.

Disconnect the programming computer.

Connect your router to the NVG5xx. The cable should run from the LAN port 1 connection on the NVG to the blue WAN port on your router.

Reboot the NVG5xx by unplugging the power cord for ten seconds, then reconnecting.

When the NVG5xx is fully rebooted, power up your router.

Once your router is fully booted, check network and wifi connectivity. If satisfactory, plug your cabled devices into your router. Log on wireless devices using the wifi password for your new router.

Reconnect all UVERSE TV equipment to the NVG5xx router’s LAN ports.

Jim147 · « **Reply #18 on:** January 11, 2021, 05:42:31 PM »

Now see if you can flash it with tomato and see what happens.

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #19 on:** January 16, 2021, 12:34:38 PM »

Had a chance to make the config changes this morning and can confirm the above instructions are viable. Everything works, is stable, and no error or incompatibility notices. Total actual time involved was maybe fifteen minutes, including chasing wires and waiting for reboots. My ham-fingered session? Most of an hour due to sloppy handwriting (darn MAC addresses).

Also, if your XBox is complaining about Double NAT issues with this config (ISP-provided gateway/router set for passthrough to an ASUS router) the solution proved deceptively simple. In the ASUS router menu go into the LAN settings, select the DCHP tab, scroll down to the Manually Assigned IP section, select your XBox from the drop-down list, and click ADD. It's that simple.

With that, I'm off to park my butt on the couch with a hop cuppa Joe and spend some quality time being blissfully useless. Y'all have a good weekend now, y'hear?

Edit to add: I found out the hard way that you you must open up DHCPv4 a bit or UVerse TV will puke. With the start and end addresses set the same (both at xx.xx.1.1) the ASUS router did fine but UVerse TV steadfastly refused to operate (hard-wired or WAP-connected). Opening the DHCPv4 end address to xx.xx.1.253 fixed the problem. With that change, a quick restart of the UVerse boxes had everything going again.

Brad

RocketMan · « **Reply #20 on:** January 16, 2021, 01:37:59 PM »

The manually assigned IP setting on Asus routers is very similar to address reservation on other routers. It's a very handy feature if you don't want IP addresses on some devices in your network to change over time. That setting also reserves addresses on the wireless side of the router.
I use it for that purpose so several devices on my network always have the same IP address.

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #21 on:** January 19, 2021, 09:51:06 AM »

Quick update...

After three days with the revisions, everything appears in order. Once I figured out the UVerse TV / DHCP thing, we've experience zero issues. As hoped, overall responsiveness is much improved.

Brad

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #22 on:** January 19, 2021, 10:25:08 AM »

Also, a quick revisit to my parents' service, which started this whole show. Prior to the new router their service was fluctuating all over the place with signal drops every few minutes. Now? Rock steady. We were there over New Years and I ran a test with three computers streaming from three services each, four phones and a tablet streaming on either YouTube or Netflix, and both their Dish receivers streaming from Netflix. Speedtest results attached. Note the blue line at the top. That's not a graphic element in the menu background, that's the signal graph. Dead flat. Ping is actually a little slow for them. It normally tests at 3-4. Keep in mind they live in the boonies. Just past the boonies, actually... last dirt road on the left and keep going until it dead ends. Five miles west of a town of 800 in a county of less than 1500, total. Calling their locale "rural" is a laughable understatement, yet they have data service that's the envy of most city folks.

Here at home with the new router and setup we're getting 26-28mb consistently and graphs show it to be noticeably more stable. Ping usually hovers in the 35-40ms range and jitter is negligible. Much better than what we were getting (18-22mb with severe fluctuations and consistent latency issues) but still a far cry from what the Parental Units are seeing out in BFE.

Brad

Phantom Warrior · « **Reply #23 on:** January 19, 2021, 09:16:27 PM »

Quote from: Brad Johnson on January 19, 2021, 10:25:08 AM

Calling their locale "rural" is a laughable understatement, yet they have data service that's the envy of most city folks.

Are they getting service from a rural telephone cooperative?

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #24 on:** January 19, 2021, 09:32:17 PM »

Quote from: Phantom Warrior on January 19, 2021, 09:16:27 PM

Are they getting service from a rural telephone cooperative?

Affirmative. Santa Rosa Telephone Co-op. Same co-op that's been serving the area for longer than I've been alive. We were on a party line system until I was almost ten. After that, three-digit dial to anyone on the system until it converted to tone service in the early 80's. Far cry from that now.

Brad

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Author Topic: Wifi router suggestions? (Read 4279 times)