DHCP or PPPOE?

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Level 1

15 points

DHCP or PPPOE?

One year later, my airport extreme is still in the box, since flashing amber is my only experience. I know it can work since it was configured without any problem at the Genius Bar. The only thing I can think of now is that my Verizon DSL is 'PPPOE' not DHCP. I have no idea what this means and have searched Verizon website without success. Any help is appreciated.

Greg

MacBook Pro/IMac/Iphone, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Jan 20, 2008 9:04 AM

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Answer 1

Henry B.

Level 9

78,731 points

Jan 20, 2008 9:35 AM in response to xrad2

If your Mac is currently cabled to DSL modem provided by Verizon and you now want to use the Airport Base Station, the Airport Utility will walk you through the process of setting up the Base Station so that it uses the PPPoE connection protocol required by Verizon.

If you want to know how to manually set up your Base Station for PPPoE, start reading at page 25 of the manual "Designing Airport Networks" found at:

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/DesigningAirPort_Networks_Using_AirPortUtility.pdf

What the manual doesn't tell you is that - after you have finished configuring the Base Station and saved settings to it - you should pull power to your DSL modem and the Base Station for a few minutes. Then plug the modem into power and wait a minute, then plug the base station into power.

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Answer 2

xrad2 Author

Level 1

15 points

Jan 20, 2008 9:40 AM in response to Henry B.

Thanks very much!
My entire home network is seamlessly connected to my Verizon DSL through an older Airport without a glitch. Its been since trying to replace that with the Extreme that I can get no connection to 'internet'..all other lights are 'green' in my troubleshooter. Someone has suggested this might be a problem of DHCP release by the modem...but after a 10 min power down, no change. I do not want to manually set this up...I took it to the Mac store where it worked IMMEDIATELY with no manual setup.

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Answer 3

Henry B.

Level 9

78,731 points

Jan 20, 2008 9:56 AM in response to xrad2

As long as PPPoE is set up properly on the new base station, there is no reason it shouldn't work.

Yes, getting Verizon's system to "release" its connection to your old base station so that it will connect to your new base station is a key part of the setup. Usually, just having Verizon's modem powered down for a few minutes is all that is necessary. If this doesn't seem to be sufficient (it always was for me when I used Verizon's service) then be patient and leave it unplugged overnight.

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Answer 4

xrad2 Author

Level 1

15 points

Jan 20, 2008 10:08 AM in response to Henry B.

I believe I need the 'proper PPPoE' settings from Verizon?

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Answer 5

Henry B.

Level 9

78,731 points

Jan 20, 2008 11:00 AM in response to xrad2

All you need is your Verizon account user name and password. There are no other settings required aside from enabling PPPoE.

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Answer 6

Jan 26, 2008 5:41 PM in response to xrad2

I had similar problems with a new Airport Extreme and Speedstream 5360 modem on AT&T DSL. Flashing amber light and message "no IP address". Airport Utility would lock up at the security page.
It worked just fine at my son's home with his DSL Modem as it did at my vacation home with that DSL modem. Something is different in this modem that locks up the automatic setup.

I did finally use manual setup using the directions posted here configuring all my security and PPPoE settings which worked!!

Thanks much! I had been so frustrated after hours trying to get this working. 🙂

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