[SOLVED] Fibre to cabinet router with access points / switch

[recort2]

My provider (talktalk) is kindly migrating me from broadband to Fibre (Fibre to cabinet /existing copper phone line to router);
I understand that I need to use a VDSL router for this to work, but I have a system of 3 older Netgear DG834 (1 as ADSL router and 2 as accesspoints) which I need to keep / or replace to use the various equipment around the house; they have now given me an Huawai HG635 -
Q: can I somehow configure this to work with my old accesspoints i.e. plugging the old router into the wan port or the like? (I don't mind losing some performance)
Q2: failing this, what is the simplest way for me to recreate this system with new gear, i.e. what is the best cheapest way of achieveing this? (I need the 4 Lan ports on a least one of the access points to connect various bits around the house..)

any help greatly apreciated, I really haven't got a clue...

 

[SamirD]

So how did you connect your netgears to the broadband? It should be as simple as moving the wire from the broadband to the Huawai. A network map would be useful.

 

[recort2]

All the routers are identical ADSL models; 1 is plugged into the phone line and in wireless repeater with clients association mode; 2 & 3 have dhcp disabled, identical SSID and pswd, security etc and work as Wireless repeaters for 1; my problem is I now need a VDSL router for the fibre signal but the huawei 635 doesn’t support WDS. How can I solve this?

 

[SamirD]

It's actually pretty simple--you know how you set one of your DG834 units to be the router and the others to be access points? Well, now you have 3x access points because you can't use your DG834 as your router. So set the last one to access point and connect all the access points to the lan ports on the huawai. That should give you the same wifi network you're used to.

 

[recort2]

Thanks although I’m not sure I got it completely; I was under the impression my WDS worked because all all components were WDS compatible; are you saying I just forget about the Huawai‘s Wireless capabilities and can connect router 1 (192.168.01)into huawei lan to keep my old SSID etc.?
If yes, that’s what I was hoping but i am not sure about settings. Do I disable DHCP on the huawei or will this need to be the ,new’ 192.168.0.1 (Sorry if that’s a stupid question..)

 

[bill001g]

You have to be very careful about your terminology.

A access point connects to the main router via a ethernet cable and does not use WDS.
A repeater connects to the main router via wifi and uses WDS to solve the mac address issues.

If you are not using a ethernet cable to connect your remote "routers" then you must have WDS support.

WDS is not actually part of the official wifi standard unless they added it recently. Over time the vendors have all implemented it the same way so it finally works between brands. Since it is not official many devices to do not support it. Since it is considered a security exposure many devices have it disabled by default or require other configuration options.

Now some actual repeaters have a mode where they can run without WDS. This is even more non standard stuff and has different names. Some call it universal repeater. The major restriction is you have 2 different networks but this is the only way to get it to work. The key problem WDS is used to get past is that the wifi encryption keys between the remote router and main router use the MAC addresses as part of these keys. This prevents the MAC address of your PC from passing over the connection.

 

[recort2]

ok thank you very much for the explanation and sorry for my ignorance to what must seem obvious to you😉
i attach a diagram of my setup ...network map - from that, I can see that 3 could actually go as the telly has a wireless receiver leaving me with the task of replacing 1 & 2;
2 needs to be connected wirelessly (cant have a cable) and have ideally 4 ethernet ports.
do you know which piece of equipment can do that and do I need to buy two or can i use something with the huawai as 1?

thank you

 

[bill001g]

So option 1 is to place another router in front of huawei that supports WDS.
option 2 would be to replace both remote routers with a actual repeater that can function without WDS. I think tplink runs what is called universal repeater. Note doing this device off the different repeaters will not be able to talk.
option 3 and my recommended.
Buy a pair of powerline units and also a third identical unit. You want units that say av1000 or av2000 these are the newer technology. You would then plug one into huawei and one into your netgear routers. You are going to run these as AP.
This is likely the cheapest and has the simplest setup.

Now option 4 if you can coax cable in all the rooms. You can use 3 moca devices. The method is the same as the powerline units but moca is much faster. A very popular brand is gocoax and it can get full gigabit speeds.

 

[SamirD]

Thanks although I’m not sure I got it completely; I was under the impression my WDS worked because all all components were WDS compatible; are you saying I just forget about the Huawai‘s Wireless capabilities and can connect router 1 (192.168.01)into huawei lan to keep my old SSID etc.?
If yes, that’s what I was hoping but i am not sure about settings. Do I disable DHCP on the huawei or will this need to be the ,new’ 192.168.0.1 (Sorry if that’s a stupid question..)

I'm not sure about WDS because I never mess with it. But I do know that if you have all of your access points WDS and don't use the Huawai's wireless capabilities then you will basically have what you want.

You're close, but still not getting what I'm saying. Forget about the one DG834 that is your router for the time being. Connect the other DG834s to the Huawai lan ports--this will get you the WDS that you're looking for.

Once that is working, take your last DG834 that you were using as your router and make it an access point like the other DG834s and connect it the same as the other DG834s--you now have 3 access points and a router vs your old setup of 2 access points and a router.

Better?

Actually, scratch the above. I looked at the network diagram you posted and the easiest thing will be to take your DG834 that you are using as a router and make it an identical access point and WDS bridge like the other two, bridging to the other two as before. Then you can connect the DS834 lan port to the Huawai lan port and everything should work as it did before.

And I would strongly consider bill001g's suggestions for using powerline adapters. These will more than likely be a HUGE speed increase over the current WDS system and be easier to configure and maintain. You can also just keep the access points exactly where they are, but hardwire them to the powerlines. All you would have to do is turn off the WDS and everything would 'just work' as that's the beauty of powerline--literally plug and play in 5 minutes (or it won't work at all).