Apple Airport - hook to telus modem or the box on the wall?

[Frznrth]

Hi
I recently had telus upgrade my tv service to Optik. They put in a new telus router too. Before this I was using just my apple airport/time machine and an apple express - not telus at all. The installer hooked the airport directly to the new telus router. He explained that I will have the one internet signal coming in and that this splits it into the telus wifi signal and the apple signal. I wanted the apple still so I could use the time machine.

I was hoping there might be a way that I could have two separate internet/wifi signals to help spread the load - get more internet. I asked the installer about running a separate cable to the box on the wall that the fiber optic goes into (sorry I don't know what this box is called) to hook directly to the airport - instead of having the airport hooked to the telus router. At first he thought this might be Ok - but he didn't know for sure as he doesn't mess with the "boxes on the wall". Would this give me a separate internet/more internet- or would it be the same difference as hooking it to the telus router?  "More internet" seems like a long shot but I thought I would ask.

Thanks for the help.

[giantbrownguy]

All your internet traffic has to start from the Telus router. If you want to extend the distance, you’ll have to run an Ethernet cable from the Telus modem (black rectangle or tall white cylinder) to wherever you put your time capsule. The white square box is a decoder for your fibre optic signal and needs to feed directly into the Telus modem.

[giantbrownguy]

Also, your Optik TV can only run off another router through a word collection (i.e., it acts like a hub). I don’t believe it can run off a separate network. You’re almost better off turning off Wi-Fi on the time capsule and using it as network attached storage. That’s what I did for my parents.

[Frznrth]

Before I got Optik the Apple router was connected directly to the “box” that the fibre cable goes into. I didn’t use a Telus router. The box has multiple ports.

Can I hook the Apple router directly to the box? Would this be any different than hooking it to the Telus router?
Thanks

[NFtoBC · Accepted solution]

Sure, you can do that, but expect your Optik services to fail, as they need multicast services, which are not likely to be available through the Apple routers.

Only one port is active on the ONT, so you can’t connect multiple routers to it. You can try placing a switch between the ONT and your routers, but you will then have 2 networks, one for the Telus Router, and one for the Apple router. Depending on how you want to use your network, this may cause issues.

[Frznrth]

Thanks. Knowing that only the one port on the ONT is active is exactly what I wanted to know.

[NFtoBC]

I just attached my Time Capsules to the Telus router, and turned off the router aspects of those devices. They still happily work as Time Machine clients,  but the Telus router acts as the network hub. The rest of my network, including TV operates from the Telus router.

[RonAKA]

@Frznrth 

When my oldest daughter still lived at home she used the Airport system. There was an existing hard wired ethernet cable outlet in her room. It just connected to one of the ethernet ports on the T3200M. I think it worked well. Overall I suspect your maximum speed will be determined by the throughput you pay for. Wireless is always less reliable and may be more limited depending on distance from the Airport and the speed of the wireless card in the devices. Also be aware that if you are running short of ethernet ports you can get an ZyXEL extender from Telus to increase the number of ports.