jsarich's Posts

jsarich · ‎01-04-2012

nsayer, The Mifi is used also for times when the iPad2 (wifi only) is on the move, in the car, etc. Yes, you can accomplish many of the same things on your phone, but with the Mifi, why not u...

nsayer, The Mifi is used also for times when the iPad2 (wifi only) is on the move, in the car, etc. Yes, you can accomplish many of the same things on your phone, but with the Mifi, why not use it and still have the same bill. So the USB version would not work in that case. But I like the idea. John, Because you are running 2 different subnets, and your router is using the Internet port to connect the 2 subnets together, do you have to configure manual routing tables on the clients connected to the pepwave repeater in order to have them talk to clients on the Linksys? Or do you just not need to route that way? In any case, for all of you others out there reading, perhaps if you need the functionality and portability of the MiFi, and you want to have home connectivity for more than 5 devices, then perhaps you need only John's "Pepwave surf mini" device to wirelessly connect to the MiFi, then provide both wired and wireless routable access to multiple devices within your home. I was not aware of a repeater that could provide routing capabilities, but I guess his does. We personally already had a purpose built home wifi network, so My "how to" was aimed at people retrofitting their existing home network, through the used of an wireless->wired bridge. many ways to skin a cat, so good luck!

jsarich · ‎01-04-2012

nsayer, I totally hear what you are saying. But in this case, the house it is installed in doesn't have other broadband options outside of the terrible hughesNet satellite service. The Veriz...

nsayer, I totally hear what you are saying. But in this case, the house it is installed in doesn't have other broadband options outside of the terrible hughesNet satellite service. The Verizon MiFi is providing 20x faster performance than that at a cheaper rate, so it is the best tool for this job.

jsarich · ‎01-04-2012

I just thought of one other way your environment would work with both devices providing DHCP addresses for the same subnet. If you assign addresses 1-100 on one DHCP enabled device, and 101-200 ...

I just thought of one other way your environment would work with both devices providing DHCP addresses for the same subnet. If you assign addresses 1-100 on one DHCP enabled device, and 101-200 on the other enabled device. However, this still makes your repeater a router, and your router serving as a DHCP server enabled access point/switch.

jsarich · ‎01-04-2012

Hmm. Interesting and confusing. Perhaps my understanding of what a repeater is capable of is out of date. Have you actually done this? Which device (router or repeater) is serving as DHCP...

Hmm. Interesting and confusing. Perhaps my understanding of what a repeater is capable of is out of date. Have you actually done this? Which device (router or repeater) is serving as DHCP server in your example? The repeater shouldn't have the capability to accept an IP address wirelessly from one network, and then broadcast DHCP of a completely different network/subnet, and route between them...otherwise it would be called a router. The repeater you describe sounds an awful lot like a router performing bridge, access point AND router duties. Also, if that is the case, then the router in your example is not necessary...you would need only a wireless access point with switching capabilities. In my example, there is only 1 subnet, 1 DHCP server for the whole house, and 1 SSID for all clients to connect to so that they can roam between floors. In your example, it sounds like it could go 1 of 2 ways: 1) You have a Subnet for clients on the repeater network, and a different Subnet for clients on the router network. - This would make communication from the clients on the Repeater network to the Router network difficult since their default gateway would be to go out to the Internet. Unless of course you create static routes in all those clients. 2) You have 1 subnet from the repeater and aren't using the router as a router at all, and instead you make it a Wireless/Wired Access point switch. - This would again negate my understanding of what a repeater is capable of. - In my example, the 2nd router is only performing Wired/Wireless Access point access as well...I should have clarified that. We just already owned the router. Please explain what device is providing what service and how they are connected to one another.

jsarich · ‎01-04-2012

Thanks for the reply John. I do have a follow-up question though: In your example of using the wireless repeater, assuming it is on a different floor than the main router, how are the clients...

Thanks for the reply John. I do have a follow-up question though: In your example of using the wireless repeater, assuming it is on a different floor than the main router, how are the clients connecting to the network on that floor? If I am not mistaken, the repeater is rebroadcasting the Verizon WiFi signal to that floor, which does accomplish allowing those clients to connect to the internet, but only up to 5 simultaneously. Then, the clients connected to the routers wifi on the other floor, would be connected to a different Wifi network which also lifts the 5 client limitation, while taking up only 1 client spot on the Verizon device. So correct me if I am wrong, but in your setup, there would be 2 wifi networks, and a soft limitation of 4 devices on the repeater floor. I could have done this, but I wanted NO clients to connect directly to the Verizon device, and instead use the house network which lifts the 5 client limitation. Also, we already had the 2 routers in the home, so the only thing missing was the capability of converting the wireless broadcast of the Verizon device to a wired input on the existing network. The bridge was the perfect solution in my case. But as I said in the post earlier, you may accomplish the same task using different equipment. Thanks for providing another view.

jsarich · ‎01-03-2012

Hello there! I recently set my mom up with one of these guys and ran into the problem of having more than 5 devices that need to connect to the Internet and/or each other. I couldn't find a...

Hello there! I recently set my mom up with one of these guys and ran into the problem of having more than 5 devices that need to connect to the Internet and/or each other. I couldn't find any resources online that described how this can be done, or even if it is allowed. So I figured I would finally contribute to the Online community and share my success with all of you! As a disclaimer: I am not Verizon/Linksys/etc technical support and provide the following information freely and without warranty. The instructions below are specific to my configuration, and while yours WILL work using the same general principles, the exact steps required to make it work may be different. In other words, YMMV Good Luck! First off, my environment doesn't equal your environment, and what I will describe below is one of the more complex scenarios. You can disregard any extra routers if you only use 1. Here is the environment I had to work with: A large 2 story home with a basement area as well. The wifi signal does not travel well from floor to floor, so we had to have 1 wireless router per floor. We DID have the luxury of using home wiring to to phsycally connect both routers together, if you don't have that luxury, I might suggest using a "Powerline" adapter to help wire your two routers together. Some devices required wired connectivity on both floors as well, so wireless repeaters would not be sufficient. We purchased 2 routers to accomplish the following task. Brand of router should not matter. If your home is a 1 story, or have adequate coverage from a single router, you can disregard the 2nd (SLAVE) router instructions (4-5) below. First off, what you will need to make this work: One or more Wireless Routers (we used Linksys Wireless-G or Wireless-N 4-port routers) *EDIT: You need only 1 router, and if an additional access point is needed, purchase an Access Point or repeater with wired/wireless capabilities* Verizon JetPack 4510L MiFI device One Wireless Bridge (we used Linksys WET610 1-port Entertainment Bridge) Next, lets setup the wireless/wired home network to connect all devices with one another: 1) Choose one router to be the MASTER, and the other to simply be your SLAVE/repeater for the other floor. 2) Before physically connecting the MASTER and SLAVE routers together perform the following: 3) On the MASTER router: - Change the router IP address to 192.168.10.1 - The 10 is random, and you can make it whatever you want (as long as it isn't "1"), just remember it and keep it consistent. - Configure DHCP (usually on by default) but change the subnet from 192.168.1.x to 192.168.10.x. - The reason for changing the DHCP subnet is because your 4510L device uses DHCP as well, and it is configured to use 192.168.1.x - They can't be the same or it won't work - Configure your wireless SSID and security (preferably WPA2) 4) On the SLAVE router *EDIT: or repeater or access point*: - Change the router IP address something outside the DHCP range 1-100, but on the same subnet as the master router (ie. 192.168.10.101) - Disable DHCP on the router, as all address assignment is going to come from the MASTER - You may want to tape over the WAN port as well to remind yourself that it will not be used - Configure your wireless SSID and security to match that of the MASTER router - This will make it easier for your clients to use both access points and move throughout your home without having an issue 5) Connect both routers together with Ethernet (either direct cable, home ethernet wiring, powerline adapter, etc) - You want to connect both routers using one of the built in network ports (1-4) There, now you have both floors of your home setup to accept either wired or wireless clients who will be assigned 192.168.10.x IP addresses. However, they will not have access to the Internet...yet! The MiFi device by default has a long SSID, and the password to connect is on a label on the bottom of it. Power it on in the room next to a computer (probably a windows computer), and view your wireless networks to connect to from the desktop. You will probably see the wireless network name you just created on the routers and the "Verizon ..." MiFi name. Simply make a note of the EXACT SSID being broadcasted by the MiFi device. If you changed the default WiFi password before attempting this, make a note of that new password as well. Next, lets use the key to making this thing work...the Wireless Bridge. The wireless bridge first needs to be physically connected to either router on ports 1-4. The bridge will get an IP address assigned to it and you will need to find that address out so that you can access it from a web browser. The easiest way to find that out is to connect to the MASTER routers web-based administration page (http://192.168.10.1), click on Status menu->Local network, and then click the "DHCP client table" button. You will find the bridge name and IP address there. Keep that administration window open. Next, connect your web browser with the bridges IP address so that you can manually configure it to access the MiFi device. The bridge will ask if you want auto or manual configuration, and you want manual. When prompted for the SSID and security type, type in the SSID of the MiFi device EXACTLY as you wrote it down. Next, under security, change the type to WPA2-Personal, and type in the password to access the Verizon MiFi device (either on the sticker under it, or whatever you previously changed it to). Once you complete that setup, the status page should tell you that the bridge is connected and have an IP address (192.168.1.x) assigned to it. Once that is done, you can close your web browser to the wireless bridge. Disconnect the bridge from the routers network ports and now connect it to the MASTER routers WAN port. Next, return to the MASTER routers web-based administration page (http://192.168.10.1), click on the Status menu and view the WAN IP information. If everything was connected correctly: MiFi wirelessly -> Wireless Bridge wired -> Master router WAN port (then optionally wired from port 1) -> Slave router port 1 Then, you should see the WAN IP address of 192.168.1.x assigned to your MASTER router. If you do see that, then congratulations, open a web browser from any of your wired/wireless clients connected to your home network, and you should be able to access the Internet! You will be able to support as many clients as your Routers will allow you to directly connect (104 if I am not mistaken)...Yay! I hope my experience helps you all in achieving the same results! Troubleshooting: If you do not see a WAN IP address, you might want to power off the MASTER router, the Wireless Bridge and MiFi device. Then in the following order power up each one, one at a time, giving the unit time to fully configure and connect to their respective networks: First MiFi, then the Bridge, then the MASTER router. After the Master router is fully powered on, test a webpage again from any client connected to your new home network and it should work. If it _still_ doesn't work, I would recheck the steps listed above to see if anything was missed. Particularly, making sure you changed the router IP and DHCP subnet of the MASTER router to something other than 192.168.1.x. Good Luck!

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jsarich's Posts