D6300 & fibre

[Bobbyvon]

Hi,

I have the D6300 modem/router which I’ve been very happy with (the occasional need to reboot aside). However I have just upgraded my internet to fibre with Plusnet, and have received their own router through the post and I understand that the D6300 isn’t compatible with fibre directly. Given that I like my existing router and that all my devices are configured for it, I thought about trying to keep the existing router in play by using the new router as a modem only, connecting the Netgear one to it via a cable, and then continuing to use it purely as a WiFi access point. My questions that I was hoping someone could help with are:

1) by hooking up two devices like this, am I compromising the performance speed of the internet connection? Maybe the wired connection slows things down or something?

2) I’ve had a go at connecting the two together, but I can’t for the life of me get the Netgear router to detect the internet connection (I’m connecting the cable to the “Internet” port). Would anyone have a step by step guide to how I need to set up the Netgear router? I can’t see anything wrong in the router settings page but I’m not an expert by any means...

thanks so so much in advance.

[antinode]

> [...] Plusnet, and have received their own router [...]

   Not a very detailed description of anything.  What, exactly, feeds
this (unspecified) "their own router"?  Is it an optical fiber, or an
Ethernet cable which comes from some other gizmo, or what?

> [...] I understand that the D6300 isn't compatible with fibre
> directly.

   How, exactly, did you reach this "understanding"?  Visit
http://netgear.com/support , put in your model number, and look for
Documentation.  Get the User Manual.  Look for "fiber".

> [...] I thought about trying to keep the existing router in play by
> using the new router as a modem only, [...]

   Knowing nothing about "the new router", I can't say much about its
configuration options.  If you want to configure the D6300 as a wireless
access point, then look in its User Manual for "Use the Modem Router as
a Wireless Access Point".  But, depending on what "the new router"
is/does, you might want simply to use the D6300 as a router, instead of
"the new router".

> 1) by hooking up two devices like this, am I compromising the
> performance speed of the internet connection? [...]

   Adding another gizmo to the chain is unlikely to add speed.  Whether
you can see a difference may best be determined by experiment.

> 2) I've had a go at connecting the two together, but I can't for the
> life of me get the Netgear router to detect the internet connection (I'm
> connecting the cable to the "Internet" port). Would anyone have a step
> by step guide to how I need to set up the Netgear router? [...]

   Have you looked at the appropriate section of the D6300 User Manual?

> [...] I can't see anything wrong in the router settings page but I'm
> not an expert by any means...

   You're ahead of me.  With my weak psychic powers, I can't see
anything, right or wrong, in your router settings page.

[Bobbyvon]

As I said, I’m not an expert in this at all. But I’ll try and add some colour:

The router provided is a VDSL2 router, provided by my ISP. The fibre cabling to the house is FTTC I think.

My “understanding” is based on looking in the manual (which I have done already) and not seeing the term VDSL, and also generally searching online (I’ve been trying to figure this out for days).

As mentioned the Netgear router isn’t compatible with my fibre connection directly, hence I can’t just use it on its own. I tried following the manual but it wasn’t particularly easy to follow, and I wasn’t sure I was even following the right bit of it.

I never thought that having two devices would add speed. I read in another post that it may reduce it - something to do with the speed capabilities of the wired connection between the two devices - but wanted to confirm whether this was true or not.

As above, I’ve looked at the manual.

I wasn’t asking anyone to be a psychic. I sort of hoped that by asking a community of people who have significantly more expertise in this perhaps there would be someone who had either gone through something similar to this before, or who knew of an obvious setting that needed to be changed. I have never changed any of the router settings up until this point, so I would assume that they all in their default setting. If there’s particular settings that are relevant then I can provide their status.

[antinode]

> The router provided is a VDSL2 router, provided by my ISP.

   Not exactly a maker and model which could be a search target, is it?
Does "VDSL2" mean that you plug a phone cable into it?

> My "understanding" is based on looking in the manual [...]

   Which "the manual"?  Can't see that from here, either.

> As mentioned the Netgear router isn't compatible with my fibre
> connection directly, hence I can't just use it on its own.

   Ok.  the D6300 is an ADSL2+ modem, so not VDSL2.

> I tried following the manual [...]

   At least you can see it.

> I never thought that having two devices would add speed. I read in
> another post that it may reduce it - something to do with the speed
> capabilities of the wired connection between the two devices - but
> wanted to confirm whether this was true or not.

   Which "another post"?  All the Ethernet ports on the D6300 are
gigabit, so they're unlikely to be a bottleneck compared with a VDSL
link.  Knowing all that I do about the other device, I can't say what it
might add or subtract.

> As above, I've looked at the manual.

   It must be great to be able to do that.

> I wasn't asking anyone to be a psychic. [...]

   You had me fooled.  So far, the useful information which you've
supplied begins and ends with "VDSL2".  (Mentioning unspecified forum
postings and unidentified/invisible manuals is not especially helpful.)

> [...] perhaps there would be someone who had either gone through
> something similar to this before, [...]

   Tough to determine, with approximately no information about what
"this" actually is.

> [...] I have never changed any of the router settings up until this
> point, [...]

   Presumably, someone, long ago, configured the D6300 to do something,
and, whatever that was, it won't be doing that now, so some kind of
configuration will now be required to make it useful in its new
environment.

   If your ISP connection involves VDSL, then the modem part of the
D6300 is useless to you.  Cascading multiple routers can cause multiple
problems, so it would probably be best if you used only one router.
That gives you two major configuration options: ISP VDSL2 modem(only)
plus D6300-as-router, or ISP VDSL2 modem+router plus D6300-as-WAP.  

   I don't know if the (unspecified) ISP VDSL2 modem+router can be
configured as modem-only, and, if it's already working as a router, then
it may be simplest to leave it as is, and configure the D6300 as a WAP.
If you can run a wire from the ISP VDSL2 modem+router to the
D6300-as-WAP, then you may be able to improve your wireless coverage
over what you could get from either device as the only WAP.  As cited
above, the D6300 User Manual explains how to do that.

[michaelkenward]

---

@Bobbyvon wrote:

Hi,

I have the D6300 modem/router which I’ve been very happy with (the occasional need to reboot aside). However I have just upgraded my internet to fibre with Plusnet, and have received their own router through the post and I understand that the D6300 isn’t compatible with fibre directly. 

---

Plusnet (aka BT) supplies a version of the BT Homehub. (Same thing, different colour.)

The Homehub is crippled in that it does not allow you to put it into bridge (or modem only) mode.

This means that you are pretty well limited to using the D6300 as a wireless access point (AP). Anything else could create chaos on your network.

There is a manual for the D6300 somewhere at the end of this link:

>>> D6300 | Product | Support | NETGEAR <<<

See page 99.

[Bobbyvon]

Thanks a lot for your help!

That seems to have worked - Internet seems to be up and running now. Slightly bizarrely though once I followed all the steps I was kicked out of the router settings page and now I can’t acces it anymore (via WiFi at least). I need to wait for a laptop with an Ethernet port before I can test whether it works with a cable, but it’s a slightly odd side effect nevertheless...

[antinode]

> That seems to have worked [...]

   _What_ seems to have worked?

> [...] once I followed all the steps I was kicked out of the router
> settings page and now I can't acces it anymore (via WiFi at least).

   Which "the steps"?  

   "can't" is not a useful problem description.  It does not say what
you did.  It does not say what happened when you did it.  As usual,
showing actual actions with their actual results (error messages, LED
indicators, ...) can be more helpful than vague descriptions or
interpretations.

   If you configured the D6300 as a WAP, then ...

> [...] I need to wait for a laptop with an Ethernet port before I can
> test whether it works with a cable, [...]

   Shouldn't matter.  Everything should be on one, big (extended) LAN,
whether wired or wireless.

   The "[www.]routerlogin.net" names make sense only to a DNS server on
a Netgear router, and you're not using a Netgear router as a DNS server
(because a D6300-as-WAP doesn't run a DNS server), so you can forget

all about using those names to reach the D6300-as-WAP.  You'll need to use

its IP address, instead.

   A D6300-as-WAP will have a different-from-usual LAN IP address.
When you set this mode, I'd guess that you were asked to decide how the
D6300-as-WAP was to get its (new) LAN IP address, and were given a
choice between "Get dynamically from existing router" and "Enable fixed
IP settings on this device (not recommended)".

   If you had chosen ""Enable fixed IP settings on this device (not
recommended)", then you should know which address you gave it, and you
might now be able to reach it at that address.  (There are complications
to that scheme, too, which is why Netgear says "(not recommended)".)

   Presumably, you chose "Get dynamically from existing router".  That
was fine, and it prevented you from manually selecting bad parameter
values, but it does mean that only the (unspecified) ISP VDSL2
modem+router knows which address it gave to the D6300-as-WAP.  And that
could change from time to time.

   Knowing nothing about your (unspecified) ISP VDSL2 modem+router makes
it hard to give specific advice, but I'd guess that somewhere in the
user interface on that device, there's some kind of report on what
Netgear calls "Attached Devices".  It might be under a name like "DHCP
clients".  That's where you should be able to find the IP address which
was issued to your D6300-as-WAP, and that address in a web browser
should get you to the web server on the D6300-as-WAP.

   Once you find it, you might look around in the ISP VDSL2 modem+router
interface for a way to assign the D6300 a fixed ("reserved") address
(again, something to do with its DHCP server).  Choose something
memorable.  With that done, you would always know which IP address to
use to talk to the D6300-as-WAP.

[michaelkenward]

---

@Bobbyvon wrote:

Slightly bizarrely though once I followed all the steps I was kicked out of the router settings page and now I can’t acces it anymore (via WiFi at least).

---

Turning an old modem into an access point, or a router, will change the way that you get into the controls.

You need to find the IP address that whatever now acts as the router has allocated to the D6300.

If you followed my suggestion and turned the D6300 into an access point, then the dreaded Homehub can tell you what address it has given to the AP.

For some reason, BT, and perhaps Plusnet, gives its routers the address 192.168.1.254.

Feed that into the browser and you should get into the thing and check the addresses of attached devices.