Switch and Router Connected Directly to ONT

[gigabituser1234]

Hey everyone,

I have had an idea brewing for a bit now on how to fix the Wi-Fi upstairs. Long story short, we have a pretty big house that's been finished already. The previous owners only wired the first floor for Ethernet, and I've already ran a 100ft cable downstairs to the basement from the router to hard wire there. That leaves the upstairs above the garage basically a dead-zone for wireless. I'm talking speeds of around 1mbps when we have internet 750.

So anyways, my idea was to connect port one of the ONT to a dumb switch that I have already, which then connects to a Nightgear R7000 setup in AP mode via the LAN port. I would still be using the T3200M and the Optik TV boxes as well. So basically it would go like this:

ONT -> Switch -> R7000 in AP -> T3200M -> DLink in AP

Quite a bit confusing, but please do let me know if you notice any glaring issues right off the bat. I've tried it once and made it work properly, we get speeds of 400Mbps upstairs now with pings of less than 5ms but I want to make sure I'm not exposing any security flaws or something along those lines to the outside.

Thanks for your time everyone!

[Nighthawk]

Can't quite figure out how you're going to connect things. Is it:

                +--  R7000
                |
ONT -- Switch --+--  T3200M
                |
                +--  Dlink AP

or

ONT -- Switch --+--  R7000 ->-> T3200M
                |
                +--  Dlink AP

?

One problem I could see is if you connect the R7000 directly to the ONT/Switch in AP mode is that the devices connected to the R7000 will all be trying to pull external IPs and there won't be a firewall since no router. That would be bad for security and also Telus usually limits the number of external IPs on a residential account to 2.

If you want the devices in your house to be able to communicate with each other, you need a router before the APs. The config I had was Modem > T3200M > (LAN4) > Router. All my personal devices ran off the router which was running default settings as a router and not an AP. The Optik boxes were directly connected to the T3200. I had no issues on my personal devices in that configuration, even with gaming.

[gigabituser1234]

Hey thanks for the reply! Bear with me here as it might get confusing haha. When it was buttoned up my setup took the original Eth cable that was connected to port one of the ONT which ran through the walls and linked up with the Ethernet port inside behind the TV and connected that to the router instead. After I added the R7000 router it was more or less like so:

Wall Ran Eth Cable -- Switch -- LAN1 of R7000

and from LAN2 of the R7000 it goes like so:

LAN2 of R7000 -- Port 1 of ONT 

D-Link side of things of network is OK. Connected devices can communicate with each other and are able to use my PiHole that I set up, but the R7000 is pulling a 66.xxx ip address with a 74.xxx gateway so it can't.

Now that I'm writing this up you'll probably be more confused by what I said. If that's the case I can take photos of what it was setup as and then upload them here 🙂

Thanks again for your help.

[Nighthawk]

The original connection from the ONT > Ethernet > T3200 had the ethernet in WAN port on the T3200.

You can't use a PiHole because your R7000 is not functioning as a router. Never connect a LAN port to a direct connection to the ONT. No device will be on the same network, since there isn't one with the exception of the Dlink. Dlink sounds like it's acting like a router and not a plain WAP unless you have it connected to a LAN port on the T3200.

The only way you can likely get the R7000 to use the PiHole is if the R7000 is set up specifically as a router and not an AP. You should have the ONT first. Then the switch. Then the ethernet from the switch connected to the WAN port on your R7000 and reset it back to working as a router, not an AP. Connect the Dlink to that then.

The alternate way is have the R7000 (WAN) connected to one of the LAN ports on the T3200 and use the R7000 as an AP that way.

[gigabituser1234]

I tried the alternate way but no dice it seems. Just nuked the internet completely and nothing worked at all. Sorry I'm not very network savvy so I might have been doing it wrong again but it went like this:

ONT Port 1 -- WAN of R7000 -- LAN1 of R7000 going to LAN4 of T3200 through the wall run

The default gateway of the T3200M would load, tell me internet was disconnected, but I was able to see the R7000 on the network connections list as 192.168.1.1. However trying to access the gateway of the R7000 led to a timeout.

[Nighthawk]

You cannot connect LAN ports to each other between routers. It will mess things up. If you have the R7000 first, the Optik TV boxes are not likely to work.

Recommended setup:

ONT Port 1 -- WAN of T3200M --- LAN4 connected to WAN on R7000

If the R7000 has an IP of 192.168.1.1, that will definitely cause an IP conflict. The T3200M uses the same subnet (192.168.1.x). You are better off putting the R7000 behind the T3200M and change the subnet on it to something different like 192.168.10.x. so it won't conflict. You may have to disconnect it from the T3200M in order to reconfigure it.

The only other thing you could do is:

ONT --> Switch --> WAN on T3200
          |
          +------> WAN on R7000

[xray]

I don't think this will work:

ONT --> Switch --> WAN on T3200
          |
          +------> WAN on R7000

TELUS DHCP server will only provide 1 IP address via the ONT so the first router to make the DHCP request will get one and the second request will be ignored while the first one is still active.

[NFtoBC]

@xray 

   I understood, but have not tested, that Telus provides 2 IP addresses to residential customers. If so, the ONT > Switch > 2 Routers should work.

[xray]

@NFtoBC I was not aware of that TELUS provides 2 IP addresses. Is it documented anywhere on the TELUS site? It must be for fiber customers only. Unfortunately fiber isn't available in my area so I have no way of testing it myself.

Even if the R7000 and T3200M were able to get IP addresses from the DHCP server it won't allow LAN communication between the 2 routers. This may or may not be important depending on what devices are on each. If it's just Optik boxes on the T3200M then it should be okay.

ONT --> Switch --> WAN on T3200
          |
          +------> WAN on R7000

[gigabituser1234]

I'll give that setup a shot. From my understanding, wouldn't this make two separate networks in the house since I'm connecting to WAN on both devices?

If I wanted to mesh the Wi-Fi networks by setting the same SSIDs and passwords would this cause a conflict or no? I just don't want everyone upstairs to have to log off and jump into a different network when they are in the basement for example.

[xray]

You are correct, that would give you separate networks which I'm guessing you don't want.

If your goal is to increase WiFi coverage then go with what @Nighthawk  recommended in a previous post and configure the R700 for Access Point mode. That will give you 1 network with 2 separate SSID's.

ONT Port 1 -- WAN of T3200M --- LAN4 connected to WAN on R7000

A better alternative is to use the TELUS Boost WiFi instead of the R7000 in the above configuration which will give you a mesh network with 1 SSID.

https://www.telus.com/en/ab/mobility/accessories/product/telus-boost-wi-fi-starter-pack

[gigabituser1234 · Accepted solution]

I ended up just replacing the T3200M entirely with the R7000 instead. Wi-Fi speeds upstairs are improved in the dead-spots before, but still could be alot better. I'll probably end up using the mesh network like you mentioned. Either that or do a couple cable drops in the house to improve the connection upstairs.

Either way thanks to everyone for your guys input, it definitely helped push me in the right direction!

Cheers.

[xray]

Check your Optik service to make sure it's still working properly with the R7000. It needs multicast turned on.

I have a R7000 sitting on the shelf. It was decommissioned because the Netgear firmware was terrible. If you are running an alternative firmware like Merlin then it should be better.

[gigabituser1234]

I have IGMP proxying enabled which allows Optik to work perfectly. I'll look into alternative firmware though if I run into  any problems in the future.

[Korg]

How did your setup go? ONT directly to the R7000? Or ONT to switch to R7000?

[gigabituser1234]

Is LAN to LAN for routers not a thing? I'm doing it right now from LAN3 of the T3200M to LAN1 on the D-Link which is also a router but I've switched the DHCP server off and assigned it a static IP. It communicates fine with the T3200M and my PiHole server. 

The only reason I had the R7000 in the garage to begin with was because whoever wired the house when it was built did one Ethernet run only in the house which terminated behind the TV on the main floor. The only way to get the recommended setup would be to wire the switch to a LAN port on the T3200M and just drag the cable across the floor which I don't really want to do.

[xray]

You can use the AP's and swich interchangably for Devices A, B and C in the diagram below.

Make sure the routers are set up properly for AP mode (set a static IP outside the T3200M DHCP range and DHCP turned off). Refer to the manufacturer's instructions as they might be a bit diffferent for each one.

ONT <───> [WAN]─T3200M
                  ├─[LAN 1] <───> Optik A
                  ├─[LAN 2] <───> Optik B
                  ├─[LAN 3] <───> Optik C
                  └─[LAN 4] <───> [LAN 1]─Device A
                                            ├─[LAN 2] <───> [LAN 1]─Device B
                                            └─[LAN 3] <───> [LAN 1]─Device C