Two Routers Solution?

After reading many articles on the Internet this is what I finally
think might be my solution so I am passing this along so others can do
this.

Please comment if you have other pertinent thoughts i.e. corrections
but please give a good reason. Most on-line articles give no reason
for doing what they suggest. I probably cannot give a good reason
either but it sort of make sense to me but I do still have unanswered
questions (see ??? below).

I will be connecting to my home LAN:
via Cat5e
Win XP PC
Win 7 PC
NAS

via WiFi (because there is NO Cat5e anywhere near them and I do not
have power line adapters)
Win 7 PC
Win XP
WiFi Security Cams

All of this was working before I went from ATT DSL using the Amped to
ATT Uverse for upload speed improvement for Security Cams. ATT Uverse
speed is significantly faster and what I need.

1) Main - ATT ARRIS Model NVG589 PN 587234-004-00
This is where internet and phone connect.
2) Adding - Amped R20000G router.
Locate at other end of house to provide WiFi where ATT WiFi is too
weak.

Note: the ATT WiFi is only 400 milliwatts while the Amped has much more
power out and Amped has 2.4GHz and 5Ghz.

ATT will be the main unit.
Internet can be connected to ATT during this.
Connect a PC via Cat5 to the ATT switch port (pick any one of four)
Access ATT webpage and.
(A)Record SSID (write it down)
(B)DCHP on - ATT will hand out IP addresses
(C)Set IP range: 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.100
(D)Leave access IP at 192.168.1.254 -
where I log in to this router.
Save settings (only should have to change (C) ).
??? why would I need any larger range? I probably will never have more
than 10 devices: PCs, security cams, NAS

Turn off ATT - pull power connector

Turn on Amped
Connect Amped switch port (not WAN, or "modem" port) via Cat5 to an
isolated PC (PC has WiFi turned off; using a laptop with a WiFi
switch))

Amped setup:
(1)Change SSID to the same as the ATT
???(Why? if I use a different SSID then I can pick one on a
particular PC; does that not work? My security cams use WPS Initially
but on my old system they seemed to track during power cycles.)

(2)DCHP turn off. - let the ATT assign all IP addresses on the LAN

(3)Set access IP to one outside of ATT range: e.g. 192.168.1.1
???(I think that this means that to log in again I would use this
address rather than the previous one of 192.168.3.1)

(4)Set IP range 192.168.1.102 to 192.168.1.200
i.e. leave above 200 for possible fixed IP devices.
???(I do not understand this since DCHP is off! The only thing
that would seem to matter would be setting the Amped IP base address to
as 192.168.1.1 that is outside the ATT address range. ???)

Connect the Amped via Cat5 from its switch port (not WAN or "modem"
port) to a switch port on the ATT. Or do the same using power line
adapters.

Turn on ATT and let it settle.
Turn on Amped.

Hopefully this will all work unless the ??? stuff needs adjustment.

================================================== ====================
OT but may be of interest since a LAN Cat5 or power line adapter
connected second WiFi router seems to be a much better way to go than
an access point device.
I have an access point unit but have been told that it halves the speed
and when I tried it many months ago it did not properly interconnect
all devices on the LAN most likely since I did not know how to set that
up. Most likely IP address stupidity on my part. Then it failed
totally and I got a warranty replacement unit that is still in the box
and will probably stay there.

--

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On Wed, 09 Sep 2015 14:04:15 -0700, OldGuy wrote:

After reading many articles on the Internet this is what I finally
think might be my solution so I am passing this along so others can do
this.

Please comment if you have other pertinent thoughts i.e. corrections
but please give a good reason. Most on-line articles give no reason
for doing what they suggest. I probably cannot give a good reason
either but it sort of make sense to me but I do still have unanswered
questions (see ??? below).

I will be connecting to my home LAN:
via Cat5e
Win XP PC
Win 7 PC
NAS

via WiFi (because there is NO Cat5e anywhere near them and I do not
have power line adapters)
Win 7 PC
Win XP
WiFi Security Cams

All of this was working before I went from ATT DSL using the Amped to
ATT Uverse for upload speed improvement for Security Cams. ATT Uverse
speed is significantly faster and what I need.

1) Main - ATT ARRIS Model NVG589 PN 587234-004-00
This is where internet and phone connect.
2) Adding - Amped R20000G router.
Locate at other end of house to provide WiFi where ATT WiFi is too
weak.

Note: the ATT WiFi is only 400 milliwatts while the Amped has much more
power out and Amped has 2.4GHz and 5Ghz.

ATT will be the main unit.
Internet can be connected to ATT during this.
Connect a PC via Cat5 to the ATT switch port (pick any one of four)
Access ATT webpage and.
(A)Record SSID (write it down)
(B)DCHP on - ATT will hand out IP addresses
(C)Set IP range: 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.100
(D)Leave access IP at 192.168.1.254 -
where I log in to this router.
Save settings (only should have to change (C) ).

So far, so good.


??? why would I need any larger range? I probably will never have more
than 10 devices: PCs, security cams, NAS

You always want the DHCP scope to be larger than the number of devices that
you plan to connect. If a device is rebooted, for example, it will request
an IP address during boot, but its prior DHCP lease may not yet be expired
in the router, so a single device can be (temporarily) burning up 2 DHCP
leases, even though it's only using one of them. If a device requests a DHCP
lease (IP address via DHCP) and all leases have been spoken for, the request
will be denied and the device will instead auto-configure itself with an
APIPA address in the range of 169.254.x.x. As a result, that device will be
unable to see or be seen by any other LAN resources.


Turn off ATT - pull power connector

Turn on Amped
Connect Amped switch port (not WAN, or "modem" port) via Cat5 to an
isolated PC (PC has WiFi turned off; using a laptop with a WiFi
switch))

Amped setup:
(1)Change SSID to the same as the ATT
???(Why? if I use a different SSID then I can pick one on a
particular PC; does that not work?

Yes, you can optionally use the same SSID, but you'll certainly want to use
a different channel.

Pros/Cons:

Same SSID - in some limited cases, seamless roaming between the two access
points is possible, although in practice this rarely works as well as you'd
expect.

Different SSID - you lose all possibility of seamless roaming, but you gain
the capability to definitively select which access point you want to connect
to.


My security cams use WPS Initially
but on my old system they seemed to track during power cycles.)

See if the cams have embedded web servers. Many do, allowing you to
associate them with the desired SSID manually. Then you can turn WPS off.


(2)DCHP turn off. - let the ATT assign all IP addresses on the LAN

(3)Set access IP to one outside of ATT range: e.g. 192.168.1.1
???(I think that this means that to log in again I would use this
address rather than the previous one of 192.168.3.1)

Correct, and when you change this IP address be prepared to lose your
network connection to the Amped router. Summary: when you change the "access
IP" to 192.168.1.1 and hit 'Update', you'll lose your network connection to
the device, but just reestablish the connection by browsing to the new
address that you just configured.


(4)Set IP range 192.168.1.102 to 192.168.1.200
i.e. leave above 200 for possible fixed IP devices.
???(I do not understand this since DCHP is off! The only thing
that would seem to matter would be setting the Amped IP base address to
as 192.168.1.1 that is outside the ATT address range. ???)

Correct. If DHCP is disabled on this device, then the DHCP scope (address
range) is irrelevant.


Connect the Amped via Cat5 from its switch port (not WAN or "modem"
port) to a switch port on the ATT. Or do the same using power line
adapters.

Turn on ATT and let it settle.
Turn on Amped.

Hopefully this will all work unless the ??? stuff needs adjustment.

If you follow what you've outlined above, all of your networked devices will
be on a single subnet, which is usually exactly what you want. Your subnet
will be 192.168.1.0/24, with "24" (also written as 255.255.255.0) being the
netmask. Be sure that the ATT router is using that netmask. Every other
device, since they're using DHCP, will inherit the proper netmask from the
ATT router.

Your IP plan will be as follows:
192.168.1.0 - refers to the entire subnet; not configured on any device
192.168.1.1 - access IP on the Amped router
192.168.1.2-192.168.1.100 - DHCP scope
192.168.1.101-192.168.1.253 - unassigned/available
192.168.1.254 - access OP on the ATT router
192.168.1.255 - broadcast IP; not configured on any device

That accounts for all of the IP addresses on your chosen subnet. All devices
that use DHCP will get an address from the DHCP scope. Any devices that
you'd like to manually configure must use an address from the unassigned
range so that the ATT router doesn't accidentally assign an address via DHCP
that's already been assigned manually. In other words, when the ATT router
receives a DHCP request, it assigns an IP address that it has not yet
assigned, but it doesn't do any kind of checks to see if you might have
manually assigned it, so a collision is possible. Therefore, do your part
and only manually assign addresses that are NOT in the DHCP scope.


================================================= =====================
OT but may be of interest since a LAN Cat5 or power line adapter
connected second WiFi router seems to be a much better way to go than
an access point device.
I have an access point unit but have been told that it halves the speed
and when I tried it many months ago it did not properly interconnect
all devices on the LAN most likely since I did not know how to set that
up. Most likely IP address stupidity on my part. Then it failed
totally and I got a warranty replacement unit that is still in the box
and will probably stay there.

What you're describing there is a "range extender", also known as a
repeater. Such devices should only be used as a last resort, primarily
because, as you've noted, they reduce the wireless throughput by more than
half.

--

Char Jackson