Uverse and Apple Extreme question

[class77]

My vacation house has UVerse and is getting 28 Mbps coming into the 2Wire unit but only getting 8-12 on wifi. I know that the 2Wire has only a G wifi router, so I think I can do much better by hooking up a spare 5th gen. Airport Extreme unit up to furnish the wifi there. I have hooked up a current generation AE to a Surfboard modem on Comcast at my home, so I've done this before. I know just enough to make me dangerous, but not enough to be certain I'm not screwing this stuff all up.

The vacation house has been running for 1 year with just the UVerse wifi working and I've hooked up various wireless switches/remotes/Nest/etc to the current Uverse settings. I'd like to set up the AE so that it causes as little disruption/resetting of services as possible and just boosts the wifi signal. I have wireless UVerse boxes in the bedrooms, but as I understand it, these will not be affected by turning off the wireless in the Gateway.

Can someone advise me as to what the best/easiest way to go about it and the settings that I should change to make it possible on both units. Is there a way to use the 2Wire password on the AE or will I need to set up everything on the AE(password/network name/etc) from scratch? What about the firewall for both units? Thanks in advance.

 

[MCAsan]

On my Uverse modem I log in turn off its wifi network. I then created a wifi network with my first AE unit. Once that was done I extended it with a second AE at the other end of the house. Works just fine.

BTW, wifi will never be as fast or reliable at GB ethernet.

 

[Menel]

Same. The 2Wire is a little more complex than the Surfboard modem. The 2Wire box is modem + crap ass router in one. You need to disable the later part.

Plug in Airport. Let it get listed in the 2Wire software interface.
Turn off 2Wire WIFI, set DMCPlus and point it toward the Airport.

Let Airport be the main gateway and DHCP server. You can set the Airport to have the same SSID and WPA2 key so that those devices will not connect to it seemlessly.

 

[class77]

Same. The 2Wire is a little more complex than the Surfboard modem. The 2Wire box is modem + crap ass router in one. You need to disable the later part.

Plug in Airport. Let it get listed in the 2Wire software interface.
Turn off 2Wire WIFI, set DMCPlus and point it toward the Airport.

Let Airport be the main gateway and DHCP server. You can set the Airport to have the same SSID and WPA2 key so that those devices will not connect to it seemlessly.

I afraid you are shorthanding this over my head. I understand that the 2 Wire is a modem plus wifi and I need to turn off the wifi. Questions:

1)Plug a LAN port on the 2Wire into the WAN on the AE with ethernet first and then unplug it or keep it plugged in??
2)Turn off the Wifi(I get that), but what is the DMCPlus and point it toward the airport mean??
3)If I let the AE be the main gateway and DHCP server, won't that disrupt all the settings on all the things I've set up wirelessly for the last year? Couldn't I just let the 2Wire do it and maintain most of the wireless setups?

 

[mic j]

I have had a 2Wire (Uverse DSL) setup for a long time (years). I have never turned the wifi off on the 2Wire and have had no problems. Theoretically, you are reducing the chance of interference by turning the 2Wire wifi off. But in reality (and making sure the AE uses a different g channel), I think the interference potential is small. Like I said, never had a problem that I have been able to trace back to having a 2nd g band in the house. Also, can't turn your neighbors wifi bands off right. The 2Wire is just like picking up someone else's wifi.

I do agree that if you feel comfortable making the 2Wire changes, it does make for a "cleaner" wifi environment, best practice sort of thing.

 

[class77]

I have had a 2Wire (Uverse DSL) setup for a long time (years). I have never turned the wifi off on the 2Wire and have had no problems. Theoretically, you are reducing the chance of interference by turning the 2Wire wifi off. But in reality (and making sure the AE uses a different g channel), I think the interference potential is small. Like I said, never had a problem that I have been able to trace back to having a 2nd g band in the house. Also, can't turn your neighbors wifi bands off right. The 2Wire is just like picking up someone else's wifi.

I do agree that if you feel comfortable making the 2Wire changes, it does make for a "cleaner" wifi environment, best practice sort of thing.

The Airport Extreme I have is a dual band N wireless router, not a G. That's why I thought I might get improved output over the built-in Uverse G wireless. I don't know if this will have an effect or not on what you said.

 

[mic j]

The Airport Extreme I have is a dual band N wireless router, not a G. That's why I thought I might get improved output over the built-in Uverse G wireless. I don't know if this will have an effect or not on what you said.

No, it has no effect. You'll probably be using N almost exclusively (either 2.4 or 5GHz band depending on how close you are to your AE. That is one of the reasons I think disabling the wifi on the 2Wire, may be best practice but having it on will not impact your AE. I am not a wifi guru like some that post here, so I will not try and pretend to be one, but I have a basic understand and am mostly trying to make the point that I have been using the same setup you are proposing (with the 2Wire wifi not turned off) and have not experienced any issue by using the configuration.

 

[Menel]

The Airport Extreme I have is a dual band N wireless router, not a G. That's why I thought I might get improved output over the built-in Uverse G wireless. I don't know if this will have an effect or not on what you said.

Correct. The 2WIRE G is at 2.4ghz and can cause interference with the AE N 2.4ghz band. Best to disable the 2WIRE.

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I afraid you are shorthanding this over my head. I understand that the 2 Wire is a modem plus wifi and I need to turn off the wifi. Questions:

1)Plug a LAN port on the 2Wire into the WAN on the AE with ethernet first and then unplug it or keep it plugged in??
2)Turn off the Wifi(I get that), but what is the DMCPlus and point it toward the airport mean??
3)If I let the AE be the main gateway and DHCP server, won't that disrupt all the settings on all the things I've set up wirelessly for the last year? Couldn't I just let the 2Wire do it and maintain most of the wireless setups?

Sorry.

1. keep plugged in.
But unplug all other devices. After this, the AE will be the ONLY device into the 2WIRE. You are turning it into a modem. Everything else you want behind the AE.

2. You need to find DMZPlus (Z not C)in the 2WIRE menu options.

3. Set the AE to the same SSID and WPA code as the 2WIRE. When you turn the 2WIRE off. all those devices will switch to the AE. They are only looking for SSID, and trying the WPA2 code they have. They don't know the basestation changed.

If you weren't using WPA2... then you'll have issues. You must be using WPA2 to use full speed N.

 

[Altemose]

I have always used IP Passthrough or DMZ mode with the AirPort in DHCP & NAT mode with U-Verse customers.