I've been using an AT&T Microcell for a few years already, most recently with a Netgear R7000 Nighthawk as the router, and an Actiontec PK5000 DSL modem/router in bridge mode. (Service was Centurylink, either ADSL or ADSL2+ not sure).
Microcell -> Netgear R7000 -> Actiontec PK5000 in transparent bridge mode
This past week, Centurylink upgraded my internet speed and apparently put me on a VDSL (or VDSL2) circuit, and they sent me a new modem, a Zyxel C1000Z. I need to use the new modem because my old modems are not compatible w/ VDSL.
I have not been able to get the Microcell to activate using the same exact configuration except for the modem/gateway equipment:
Microcell -> Netgear R7000 -> Zyxel C1000Z in transparent bridge mode.
I spent hours with this issue. Everything else that I have works fine (other devices that set up DDNS or UPnP ports to the outside world, etc) , except for the Microcell. I went and physically added port forwarding to the R7000 on the Microcell ports that are necessary (123 UDP, 443 TCP, 500 UDP, 4500 UDP). No luck.
In an attempt to troubleshoot, I set this up and it works: microcell -> Zyxel C1000Z in modem/gateway mode, but that's not what I want.
I have temporarily established this setup, but again it's not what I was hoping for and since all of this used to work before with the older modem/DSL combo:
microcell and all my devices -> Netgear R700 in AP mode -> Zyxel C1000Z as the gateway/router
(I didn't have to do any explicit port forwarding).
BTW, all of the scenarios listed above were connected as Modem LAN port to Router WAN port.
For reasons that I don't want to get into, I want to use the Netgear R7000 to do all my network processing, and just use the modem/gateway for DSL (i.e. bridged).
Does anyone have a similar configuration and did you get it to work? Any other ideas?
Also, what processing power do I lose by having the R7000 in AP mode? Will all the local traffic be managed by the modem, for example if I am using the R7000 DLNA server?
Thanks in advance.