Airport help, please! I'm desperate.

[Cursor]

If anybody could give me a hand with this problem, it would be greatly appreciated!

My setup is as follows: Cable internet coming into house and connecting to cable modem, cable modem hooking up to Ooma (VOIP for telephone service) device, Ooma device hooking into Airport (newer "N" Router) WAN port. I have an iMac hooked up to one of the LAN ports on the Airport. I have a PC laptop and AppleTV wirelessly networked in. The Airport "connection sharing" button is setup to be in "Bridge" mode, which is what it asked to do, under the Airport Utility settings.

My problem is that my wireless internet signal drops out, then reconnects every few minutes, and I'm not sure why. I have had this setup for about a month now, and all worked fine up until about a week ago. My hard-wired iMac seems to work fine, and I can even stream movies to my AppleTV fine, but the problem seems to be accessing the Internet through my wireless network. Everything is choppy.

My cable modem reset itself about a week ago, and I had to call Comcast to get them to fix the problem, which they did in a few minutes. They also stated that my modem was never registered with them the proper way, so they did that also.

When I called Ooma, to see if that was the problem, they told me it was an Internet problem. When I called Comcast, they told me it was a router problem.

Can anybody help me out? Is it really a bad airport that is screwing things up? If you have questions, let me know. Thansk a lot in advance.

 

[mkrishnan]

There are some things I don't understand at all about your setup. The Ooma device basically provides a single pass-through IP address, right? That is, either it bridges the cable modem to the Airport or it creates a subnet and puts the Airport on it (the way you would tell is by whether the Airport thinks its WAN address is a public internet address or a private intranet address).

This is all correct so far, right?

Why would the Airport be in bridging mode? How could the Airport bridge to three different devices (the wired one and the wireless ones) at the same time? Bridging means that the Airport would give the downstream device the IP address of the upstream router without creating a subnet. You can only do that if you only have one device connected to the LAN side of the Airport.

So this would be my first comment -- I'm pretty sure the router should not be bridging.

 

[Cursor]

There are some things I don't understand at all about your setup. The Ooma device basically provides a single pass-through IP address, right? That is, either it bridges the cable modem to the Airport or it creates a subnet and puts the Airport on it (the way you would tell is by whether the Airport thinks its WAN address is a public internet address or a private intranet address).

This is all correct so far, right?

Why would the Airport be in bridging mode? How could the Airport bridge to three different devices (the wired one and the wireless ones) at the same time? Bridging means that the Airport would give the downstream device the IP address of the upstream router without creating a subnet. You can only do that if you only have one device connected to the LAN side of the Airport.

So this would be my first comment -- I'm pretty sure the router should not be bridging.

Well, when I take it out of Bridge mode, it flashes yellow, and asks to be put into Bridge mode. See the attached photo.

 

[mkrishnan]

Well, that answers my question about what the Ooma provides to the Airport.

I would click the ignore button in the dialog you get, to tell it to ignore the double NAT situation. Just go to the Airport information (I'm actually not even 100% sure you need to do this, but it makes things less confusing) and make sure that the NAT numbering scheme on the Airport doesn't match the one the Ooma uses.

That is, if the Ooma gave the Airport a WAN address like 10.0.1.x, then don't let the Airport use this numbering scheme on its LAN -- make it use 192.168.x.x or something else. And vice versa.

 

[Cursor]

Well, that answers my question about what the Ooma provides to the Airport.

I would click the ignore button in the dialog you get, to tell it to ignore the double NAT situation. Just go to the Airport information (I'm actually not even 100% sure you need to do this, but it makes things less confusing) and make sure that the NAT numbering scheme on the Airport doesn't match the one the Ooma uses.

That is, if the Ooma gave the Airport a WAN address like 10.0.1.x, then don't let the Airport use this numbering scheme on its LAN -- make it use 192.168.x.x or something else. And vice versa.

Sorry to seem clueless, but this is a little over my head. How do I find out the Ooma WAN address? And how do I change the numbering scheme on the airport? Will this affect how the laptop and AppleTV connect to the network, or will they just connect to it like before?

 

[gwihannom]

You say your current setting was working fine, but shouldn't this be the order?

Cable modem <- Airport <- Ooma and iMac

Meaning, Ooma and iMac are considered ethernet devices to Airport Extreme or Express that you have.

Airport should go first, since it's the router.
Then add your ethernet devices.

I don't have Ooma, I have Vonage.
Are they pretty much the same thing,
that they are VOIP telephone service requiring internet to operate?

Then try this:

1. Cable modem ethernet out to Airport ethernet in.
2. From the ethernet ports on Airport to iMac and Ooma.
3. From Ooma to your landline telephone or telephone jack.

With this setting, you don't deal with "bridge mode" "WAN settings"
Just a simple DHCP setting that it comes with.

Try and see if it works.

 

[Cursor]

Alright. Thanks for everybody's help. After tinkering around a little bit, I followed your directions and put the Ooma device after my cable modem and Airport Extreme. I am still having strange internet drop offs on my wirelessly connected hardware, though. Any more advice?

I would think that if my Airport was bad, it wouldn't be able to stream music and movies to my AppleTV. The only thing that is affected is accessing the web.

 

[gwihannom]

How fast is your internet speed suppose to be?
Check with speedtests and see if you're suppose to get your current speed.
Compare it with your previous router.

What is your network type? N? G? B? Mixed?
Security settings? WPA, WEP, WPA2? Personal, Enterprise?
All of that factor in.

Make sure no other users around are using your network.

 

[Cursor]

How fast is your internet speed suppose to be?
Check with speedtests and see if you're suppose to get your current speed.
Compare it with your previous router.

What is your network type? N? G? B? Mixed?
Security settings? WPA, WEP, WPA2? Personal, Enterprise?
All of that factor in.

Make sure no other users around are using your network.

I only have the one router-Airport Extreme. Network is mixed, G and N. WPA security, and no outsiders are connected. I've had my network in place for a couple of years, and never had any problems until Comcast registered my modem. I also plugged my modem directly into my iMac and that seems to be working. So I guess it's a problem with my Airport? It just doesn't make sense to my that it can stream movies to the AppleTV, but not be able to provide stable internet connections to the networked computers.

 

[gwihannom]

It is rather odd.
You seem to have an ideal or optimal settings now, but still same issues...
Can you think of any possible interference nearby? Like a metal or electronic object or something?

Comcast registering your modem...
Not Comcast, but with Verizon DSL, I remember that I had to setup the modem and there was an option of "disconnect if no usage for 5 minutes" or something and a scroll down option with "never disconnect"
MAYBE something like that with yours, but again, I'm completely shooting in the dark at the moment. I'm currently using Cable (got tired of DSL speed), so I can't help you anymore.

You probably have reset Airport Extreme to factory settings many times, but if the problem persists, I guess it's AE at the problem.
Do you have any other routers that you can replace AE just to see the performance?

 

[Cursor]

No, I don't have any other routers around. I guess I could talk to an Apple Genius at the local Apple Store about this problem. Would I need an appointment to do that? Also does the Apple store allow for returns-like if I buy another Airport and discover that this is not a router problem, could I return a newly purchased Airport, if I open it and try it out?

 

[mkrishnan]

If the dropouts are not happening on the wired Mac (which seems to be the case), then you might also try changing the broadcast channel of the airport in case RF interference is the culprit.

In any event, though, the Airport still shouldn't be bridging in this configuration...

 

[Cursor]

If the dropouts are not happening on the wired Mac (which seems to be the case), then you might also try changing the broadcast channel of the airport in case RF interference is the culprit.

In any event, though, the Airport still shouldn't be bridging in this configuration...

Thanks for all the help. I took my Airport out of bridge mode. I also made an appointment to talk to an Apple Genius and have him analyze the Airport. Thanks again!

 

[j2yu]

Did anyone solve this problem?

I just bought an ooma and I have airport express. I have come across the same (exact!) problem. I was wondering if anyone came up with a solution...

 

[naid]

If wired works but wireless doesn't, try downgrading your Airport Extreme's firmware to 7.3.2.