AirPort Extreme with AT&T Uverse

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Level 3

600 points

AirPort Extreme with AT&T Uverse

I have a wired home network with AT&T Uverse using the wired network along with my other wired computers. I also have a wifi router for my iPhone, iPad, and laptops. When using the wifi router connecting a LAN port to a wired switch I experience a severe packet storm from the Uverse multicast traffic. To resolve I can move the wired connection from the wifi router LAN port and put it in the WAN port so the router drops the multicast traffic, which frees my wireless bandwidth. The problem with this is the WAN port also prevents me from being able to use my Apple Remote app to connect to my Apple TV or sync my iPhone apps with my desktop (Splash ID).

Will the AirPort Extreme allow bonjour traffic to pass through the WAN interface so my Apple devices and products can talk to each other?

Custom Build, Windows 7

Posted on Jan 31, 2011 8:54 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 31, 2011 9:12 AM in response to harv55

Will the AirPort Extreme allow bonjour traffic to pass through the WAN interface so my Apple devices and products can talk to each other?

If you are using the AT&T Uverse router as your main device, you need to configure the AirPort Extreme and any other routers in Bridge Mode. This allows The Uverse to assign DHCP and NAT for the entire network.

If you do not place the other devices in Bridge Mode, you will have multiple devices all trying to handle DHCP and NAT. You only want one device on the network setup to handle these services to avoid conflicts.

AirPort Utility - Manual Setup
Click the Internet icon
Connection Sharing = Off (Bridge Mode)

When the device is in Bridge Mode, all ports are equal and behave as LAN ports.

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Answer 2

harv55 Author

Level 3

600 points

Jan 31, 2011 9:32 AM in response to Bob Timmons

Thanks for the quick reply. I "turned off" DHCP on the Uverse RG by creating an address pool and assigning it to a MAC on a disabled NIC (ATT pushed a firmware update to RG's the removed the "disable DHCP" option).

I have a Win2K8 Domain server with DNS and DHCP that handles the entire network. I have also disabled the Uverese RG wifi service.

My RG goes to a Gb switch that then goes to each room in the house. The Set-Top Boxes are connected from the room ports, most of which have additional Gb switches to accommodate gaming systems and other computers with wired connections.

Up to here, I'm golden.

The issues start when I introduce wireless. If I use my recently-returned Cisco M20 Valet wireless N router I observe two things:

1. When I connect LAN port from Wifi to LAN port of home switch---I get a packet storm that consumes 100% of my wireless bandwidth and none of my wireless devices can connect when Uverse is in operation (watching TV/recording). --If no Uverse traffic is going on I can get on the wireless and do things like connect my iPhone to my apple TV via the remote app.

2: If I connect the home switch to the wifi WAN port, the packet storm goes away completely, but I cannot connect to my apple TV from my iPhone or any other wireless device.

My Home LAN is 10.10.10.0/24
My Wifi devices are 192.168.1.0/24 (when WAN port is used--otherwise DHCP is disabled when using LAN ports only)

I am hoping the AirPort Extreme is capable of either filtering multicast from the wireless traffic or allowing me to use my iPhone to control my Apple TV when my iPhone is on the wireless subnet (192.168.1.0/24) and my apple TV is connected to my wired 10.10.10.0/24 network via the WAN port.

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Answer 3

harv55 Author

Level 3

600 points

Feb 2, 2011 2:44 PM in response to harv55

I put my apple tv on wireless and connected my secondary nic to the airport LAN port. I set my primary Internet connection with a metric of one and connection to airport with a metric of 2. All is now well.

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Answer 4

jmpstl

Level 1

0 points

Dec 4, 2011 3:51 PM in response to harv55

Another happy customer here. Thank you! I have been struggling to get my Airport Extreme and TimeCapsule to work again as simple bridges since U-Verse was installed two days ago and killed them. I've read hundreds of posts and tried dozens of things over many hours. This fixed it. If Google would just bless this with a promotion to "I Feel Lucky" status, we could save whole person-years of other people's wasted time wrestling with this.

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Answer 5

jmpstl

Level 1

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Dec 4, 2011 3:56 PM in response to jmpstl

I put this under the wrong post and don't see how to delete it. Sorry for causing confusion.

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