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Aspirant
Posts: 12
Registered: ‎2014-05-27

Centurylink VDSL, Zyxel C1000Z, and Netgear R7000 Nighthawk

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.
Luminary
Posts: 89,285
Registered: ‎2009-01-27

Re: Centurylink VDSL, Zyxel C1000Z, and Netgear R7000 Nighthawk

I have not been able to get the Microcell to activate


You are not trying to reactivate the Microcell (3hrs setup) correct? Just meaning to say using as before correct?

Once activate the Microcell with ATT then should work with it. I had Prosecure router that will not setup Microcell for initial activation but using Prosafe router (backup) did and once 3hrs setup was finished I was able to use Prosecure router and had not issues.

I would not think changing the DSL modem should cause the issues when you put new one in bridge mode. Apparently you also proved that Microcell do work when using DSL modem/gateway ( router mode).
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June Mizoguchi-
Aspirant
Posts: 12
Registered: ‎2014-05-27

Re: Centurylink VDSL, Zyxel C1000Z, and Netgear R7000 Nighthawk

Thanks for your reply, but it doesn't work.

The first thing I did was literally replace the old modem/router w/ the new modem/router (after I had set it to bridge mode independently on a laptop). Microcell's 3g light didn't stop blinking green even overnight.

So after many hours of trying many things, I deactivated and reactivated the microcell. Still couldn't get it to work.

The only things that work so far are:
1) Microcell directly to modem/gateway
2) or Microcell to R700 in AP mode to modem/gateway in bridge mode.

There is some issue with this combination of devices, and I can't get it to work the way I want to, which is my R700 handling all network processing.
Luminary
Posts: 89,285
Registered: ‎2009-01-27

Re: Centurylink VDSL, Zyxel C1000Z, and Netgear R7000 Nighthawk

I would think about from the time you setup R7000 if you changes firmware .

If you do that may some cause of it.

You can try install wireshark and see what you see in the traffic behind the DSL and R700 and see

That is what I did back then..
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June Mizoguchi-
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