Setting Up Meraki AP on Comcast/Xfinity Home Network

[pranaman]

I do on-call technical support for a company in San Francisco. Yesterday I went to a customer's house, and wifi is not working. They have Comcast Internet. It used to work a few weeks ago. It's kind of a weird setup. Also, this is an airbnb setup - 3 young ladies are staying there, and the owner is out of the country.

Equipment:
Motorola Surfrider Wired (not wireless) SB6121 Modem
Netgear FS105 switch
2 Meraki MR16 Access Points (APs)
2 Meraki PoEs

One Meraki AP and PoE is near the modem and switch. Another Meraki AP and PoE down the hall.

After a few back and forths with Comcast and Meraki, a Meraki rep started to set it up, I got to a wireless configuration page and entered IP address, netmask, default gateway, DNS server info. The rep said the modem was in Pass Through Mode, but, it needed to be in NAT mode, and we need to get static IPs to assign to the devices.

I go back Monday, in 4 days, and want to be on my A-Game, as my boss, a young lady, will be with me. My concern is that I read to get static IPs, one must have a business account.

Anyone know if this is the case? Aside from bringing another router, anything else I should prepare for?

Thank you.

 

[Ralston18]

As a Comcast business customer - yes you can have a static IP and that would be assigned by Comcast.

That IP address would be associated with the Modem/Router.

Internally, the network's address range would be in the public IP address ranges reserved for private home networks. 192.168.1.1 or 10.0.0.1 for example.

Within the home network the router has a specific range of default IP addresses that it can dynamically assign to authorized connectiing devices via DHCP. Everytime the device connects it may receive a different internal IP address.

However some IP addresses can be reserved for specific devices such as printers, AP's, and so forth. Those IP's are normally set outside of the available range of DHCP IP addresses and reserved for a specific device using the devices MAC.

So what you need prepare for is what devices need dynamic IP addresses (via DHCP) and what devices need static IPs. Plus what those IPs are going to be and how you will assign them to the devices involved.

Best place to start is with the User Manuals/Guides for the modem, the router, and the APs. Draw a network diagram and map out the addressing scheme you plan to use. Look for tutorials and online examples with respect to setting up APs. This forum has a good tutorial.

 

[tman1]

The SB6121 is just a modem, no router, so there is currently no NAT.

 

[pranaman]

This one was a bit difficult. The Meraki MR16 needed a static IP address, and either a router to assign, or Comcast to assign.

There was no router, only a switch.

The other way was to change the service from residential to business plan to get static IPs.

However, the owner was out of town, I could not contact him, so I had to leave. I wonder how it was working beforehand, as the tenants told me it had been.

 

[tman1]

Why was it difficult? I posted 9 days ago that you didn't have a router there.