Setup airport and time capsule with uverse

Question

Setup airport and time capsule with uverse

I have ATT Uverse as my wifi provider and have issues with coverage on the far end of my house. Finally got tired of it and ordered an AirPort Extreme. I also have a time capsule (4th gen) that I want to use as a repeater as well.

What specifically need is to know the process for setting up the AE with uverse and then adding the TC as a repeater.

My understanding is that I hook up my MacBook with an Ethernet cable and either go to 192.168.1.254 or gateway.2wire.net to access the uverse 2Wire router menu. From here, I can select "disable wireless."

Once this is done, I can hook the AE to the 2Wire with a cable and then run the setup program. Is this correct?

Now I need to know how to add my TC to the network as a repeater or extender. Can I access the TC and rerun the setup?

Any help here would be appreciated.

Jeff

AirPort Extreme -OTHER, iOS 7.0.2

Posted on Sep 30, 2013 5:24 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Tesserax

Level 10

148,303 points

Sep 30, 2013 6:18 PM in response to Jeffrey Watts

You pretty much have the basics. Since you will be disabling wireless on the Uverse router but not its basic routing functions (NAT & DHCP), you will want to reconfigure the AirPort Extreme base station as a bridge otherwise you will have a "Double NAT" condition which you will want to avoid.

The basic setup steps are as follows:

Be sure all of the networking hardware is powered-off before connecting any devices.
Perform a "factory default" reset on both the Extreme and the Time Capsule. After they have been reset, remove them both from power.
Connect an Ethernet cable between an available LAN port on the Uverse router to the WAN (circle-of-dots) port on the Extreme.
Temporarily connect an Ethernet cable between one of the available LAN ports on the Extreme to the WAN port on the TC.
Finally temporatily connect your MacBook to one of the available LAN ports of the Extreme using a third Ethernet cable.
Power-up the modem; wait at least 15 minutes to allow it to initialize.
Power-up the Extreme; wait at least 5 minutes to allow it to initialze. Note: The Extreme's status light may continue to flash amber at this stage of the setup. That's ok for now.
Leave the TC powered-off for now.
Power-up our MacBook. Verify that it is configured so that it has an active Ethernet connection to the Extreme.
Run the AirPort Utility. You will want to use the utility now to reconfigure the Extreme as a bridge.
AirPort Utility > Select the Extreme > Edit > Network tab > Router Mode: Off (Bridge Mode) > Update
Allow the Extreme to restart.
Power-up the TC; wait at least 5 minutes for it to initialize.
Click on the AirPort icon on the OS X menu bar on your MacBook. On the drop-down menu note that your Mac has recognized that a new base station is available. Select it and the AirPort Utility will start up if it hasn't already.
Go though the automated steps to configure the TC to extend the Extreme.
Once everything is configured and verified working, you can disconnect both the TC and the MacBook from the Extreme. You can then take the TC to the desired location and power it back up.

For reference, please check out this Apple Support article.

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Answer 2

Sep 30, 2013 6:48 PM in response to Tesserax

Wow! This is great and I greatly appreciate it. I should have the AE in a few days and will probably set it up later this week. I will post back with the outcome but expect it to go smoothly now!

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Answer 3

Oct 6, 2013 5:50 PM in response to Tesserax

Got the AirPort Extreme and set up my wifi. Only real issue was when I tried to turn off the 2Wire router wireless, I could not get the password to work. Finally had to call ATT and found out that the password was not the wifi password but the gateway password. This is on a label on the front of the home gateway box. Once I had that and the router wireless turned off, I followed your instructions and everything went smoothly.

Interestingly, I decided to use the same SSID and pass code as my ATTRouter so that I would not have to reset up the wifi on every device. No issues on my MacBook pros, iPads, and iPhones. My Bose sound link airplay speakers would not hook up and I had to rerun the setup program. Not a Hugh issue but a bit strange.

Thanks again for all the help and the very clear instructions.

Jeff

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Answer 4

Tesserax

Level 10

148,303 points

Oct 6, 2013 6:20 PM in response to Jeffrey Watts

You're very welcome! I'm glad you got it worked out ...

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Answer 5

aham23

Level 1

10 points

Nov 1, 2013 7:07 AM in response to Tesserax

I am looking at a simillar set up, but wondering if it matters what order the AEBS and TC are in? Meaning, can I have the TC be the primary and the AEBS extend the network?

One of these will be in the basement, where there is more dust and potential for harm (not much) and I feel safer having the TC (backups) in the main office.

Also, with the extend network is it extending the WiFi too or creating a new WiFi signal?

I have; ATT DSL 2Wire1000sw Modem/Router, 2013 iMac (coming today!) TC (refurbished 4th generation), & dont have the AEBS yet.

I just need additional wired internet connections and better WiFi coverage in the basement and figured this was an all Apple way to do it? Networking can be hard. 🙂

Much thanks.

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Answer 6

Nov 1, 2013 4:17 PM in response to aham23

I believe that you can set up the TC as primary and extend with the AE. However the AE is an AC dual band router which is less sensitive to interference and faster than your TC so I would tend to set it up with the AE as primary and the TC as the extender. Someone more knowledgable may be able to give you better advice.

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Answer 7

Dec 7, 2013 11:26 AM in response to Tesserax

Thanks -- I was pulling my hair out over this one and Apple documentation insufficient -- even the Airport Support article that you linked to. Finally got both AE and TC working with your explanation. I can't believe how much faster everything is and I can now backup everything to 3TB TC.

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Answer 8

Dec 8, 2013 4:54 AM in response to Dynamic Aloha

Glad this helped. The original setup instructions provided by Tesserac were excellent. One of the great things about the current AE is that it is dual band. I have my airplay speakers hooked up on the 5 MHz band and it really helped in preventing interference and moving load on my system.

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Answer 9

Tadoug

Level 1

4 points

Dec 28, 2013 9:39 AM in response to Jeffrey Watts

I wish to add to this thread for those attempting to connect to a hotspot(ie cell phone wireless hub). Most of the basics are explained above, except the current version of the software does not let you join an existing network which in this case is the hotspot. This may not be the best way to solve this, but this is what worked for me.

Here are the devices I had at my disposal:

1)Airport Time Capsule 2TB 2)Airport Express Model "n", Verizon Wireless MiFi hotspot

a)First I joined the airport express to the mifi hotspot, I used the join network feature for that device

b)Second, I created a new network with the Airport Time Capsule, when you get to the part that it asks you to physically plug in the WAN cable to the unit. I plugged a cable(Ethernet cable) from the Airport Express into the WAN port on the back of the Airport Time Capsule.

c)Third, follow the installer to the end, and click done.

d)Fourth, in the airport utility, click on the Airport Time Capsule(icon), then click edit. Using the tabs at the top, go to network, and change the router mode to bridge or off. Wait a few minutes for this to complete, when I say minutes it takes from 5 to 10 minutes so be patient.

When you are done, the airport utility will show the globe at the top, 6 dots going to the airport express, then a line from the airport express to the Airport Time Capsule. Each device will have a green dot beside them indicating they are working correctly, and that the internet is on.

It seems really dumb that you have to plug a cable from one device to another to configure this correctly, but after about 10 hours of trial and error, and lots of hard resets it was the only thing that worked.

I Hope this may help someone else in their quest, since apple's documentation is nothing sort of lackluster at best.

Cheers,

Doug

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Answer 10

Sep 13, 2014 4:18 PM in response to Tesserax

I have a large home

My Uverse wireless is off

AE connected to it w Ethernet cable to the main modem, but never did a Bridge set up, but works great.

TC and AExpress connected as extenders. AE location not the best.

Move the AE to a cable box Ethernet outlet to be a more central location, worked perfect for awhile then stopped.

Reconnected to main modem and everything was fine.

Would changing the AE to a bridge connection correct this conflict or other suggestions

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