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Forum Discussion
ATT Uverse
I am an ATT Uverse user and interested in the Orbi product. Has anyone set up the Orbi on the ATT Uverse system? Uverse system has the modem/router in one device. I'm not a network guy so do not unde...
Howdy! Yes, Orbi works great with Uverse! I have Uverse TV and Gigapower internet. Yesterday afternoon, I purchased Eero and Orbi. I'm very much a networking nerd, so I was quite excited to compare these two new routers, head to head. I'll spare the details but I'm keeping the Orbi and returning the Eero. Two Orbi devices beat out three Eero devices in my ~3600 sqft, two-story house.
Now, to your issue. You can run the Orbi in Router or AP mode. If you want to do like I did and leave your set top boxes (uverse boxes) and wireless TV attanae plugged into the AT&T provided router (mine is an NVG599), then you'll want to login to the AT&T router and click on Firewall, then change the AT&T router to run in "Passthrough" mode. If/when you hook the Orbi up, you can chance the Passthrough device to "DHCP - Static" and choose the Orbi from the dropdown of connected devices. This will ensure that the Orbi receives the public IP address instead of other devices connected to your AT&T router. Here's a great article on how to do that: https://www.att.com/gen/general?pid=23697. You'll want to make sure you also turn off both the 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz wireless radios on the AT&T device. You don't want to add to the noise.
Once you do this, powercycle the NVG599 (or whatever it is you have), and give it a few minutes. You should now be able to login to the Orbi firmare and see that you have a public IP address (instead of the internally assigned 192.168.x.x) and the Orbi will be assigning internal IP's to any connected devices. It appears that Orbi prefers 10.0.0.1 as a default if the device it's connects to is serving up a 192.168.x.x. Either way, you're in good shape!
Your tvs should run like normal. ONLY DOWNSIDE TO THIS CONFIGURATION is that your TV's will be on a different subnet than any device connected to the Orbi. As such, you won't be able to use mobile apps in your house to change your TV channels. A workaround, albeit inconvenient, is to turn back on the 2.4GHz radio on your AT&T device and change the SSID to something like "YourExistingNetworkName_TV" - the "_TV" is the important part. This network will be fully capable of serving up internet. So, if you want to use a mobile app to control your TV's, you can switch networks. The only other option to get it all on the same subnet involves much more advanced configuration of the router. Frankly, the stock firmware on the Orbi doesn't even have what you need. Down the road, if they make a version of WW-DRT or Tomato (or the like) that will run on the Orbit, you can think about attempting it :)
Cheers,
NLC
Great response. Note, you can even use the NVG599's Wi-Fi to provide a guest network. This should tide you over until Netgear adds guest network capabilities to the Orbi.
Thanks! And yes, that did cross my mind earlier as I was going through the Orbi config and noted the lack of a guest network. I'm assuming this is simply a software issue and isn't a hardware matter, right?
If I were to guess, then yes I believe this is a software issue. I'll bet that they haven't implemented guest isolation across the base and satellite(s).
