Networking with Airport and FIOS

[wyckoff]

My setup is:

FIOS cable modem is in the home office (wireless turned off) and airport extreme attached to FIOS modem via ethernet. This was the original setup and worked fine through most of the house.

Added an airport express station in the kitchen to stream music from laptop to stereo. Generally fine, but periodic problem with wifi dropping to laptop (from Pandora/Internet).

Now the problems start:

Bought an Apple TV but TV room has very poor signal, so ATV could not reliably talk to computers. First tried adding another Airport Express in that room (didn't work), and ended up using Netgear powerline adapter. Apple TV now works, but want to have better wifi signal in that room and Airport express only works if also connected to powerline adapter. Every time I hook this up, however, the WIFI connection between the laptop and the Airport network in the kitchen drops.

Tried fixing this by hooking up a MoCa adapter in the kitchen to plug airport express into (kitchen is on a separate power panel than the other rooms, so powerline does not work). Hooking up the Airport express to the MoCa adapter makes the kitchen Express unable to talk to the network, and also somehow prevents the laptop from finding any of the other airport devices.

Hope this is clear enough. My guess is that Airport and FIOS MoCa are conflicting, but not being experienced at this, I have no clue how best to address.

Thanks.

 

[xraydoc]

There's actually several rather complete threads about this on here. I suggest doing a search rather than attempting to repeat everything here. But bottom line is VZW's router is likely conflicting. There's a few options, from having VZW disable it and add Ethernet to the ODN (best in my opinion but may screw up FiOS DVRs if you use it for TV, too) or putting your Airport devices in bridge mode.

 

[Outrigger]

There's actually several rather complete threads about this on here. I suggest doing a search rather than attempting to repeat everything here. But bottom line is VZW's router is likely conflicting. There's a few options, from having VZW disable it and add Ethernet to the ODN (best in my opinion but may screw up FiOS DVRs if you use it for TV, too) or putting your Airport devices in bridge mode.

I believe its ONT (Optical Network Terminal). I absolutely hate the fios router, but its a must if you have TV like I do since its needed for VOD, channel guide...and such. Search around the internet and you'll find several solutions. I put the fios router behind my personal router, thus just making it a bridge with wifi turned off. So now, the only thing the fios router does is provide info for the TV. Everything else is through my personal router/switch.

 

[wyckoff]

Thanks for the replies. I did a hard reset on everything last night and started from scratch. Confirmed Airport Extreme is in bridge mode, and the Express connected to the powerline is now working without creating any conflicts.

The Express I want to connect to the MoCa is still not cooperating - when I plug it into the converter it gets hung up and can't get a green light. I confirmed the MoCa converter works when plugged directly into the laptop, so need to re-check the setup again on that last unit and figure out what I've overlooked.

Unfortunately I can't go with ethernet out of the ONT because I need the TV functionality and also because coax is the only cable running between the ONT and home office where the modem is.