Belkin Pre-N -- How do I connect two routers in series?

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 25, 2006 Posts: 4

I have read what I can find about the Belkin Pre-N MIMO network router, and gather that most people cannot get it to work reliably without consistent choppy sound. (Me too.) The best workaround I saw was to turn off the Firewall feature... which I'd rather avoid.

I have a Belkin 54g router, and now a new Pre-N MIMO router (thanks Best Buy sale!) The Pre-N router resulted in choppy sounds... let's just say I tried 100 things, reviewing the posts in this forum, and it isn't going to work best I can tell.

Now what I want to know is if someone knows how to hook two routers together. Here's what I want to do if possible:

Cable modem --> 54g router -----> Vonage PAP2
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .||
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .||
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .V
. . . . . . . . . . . . .Pre-N MIMO router ---> [in-house wireless connections]

I just can't seem to get it to work. Should I make the 2nd router (the Pre-N) an "Access Point"? Wouldn't that let everyone in the neighboorhood get access to my wireless network?

Thanks for any help or any pointers. This collection of keywords doesn't seem to go through Google very well without getting off-topic.

Posts: 27 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Aug 18, 2006 Posts: 27

the Pre-N MIMO router should work on this setup...the Vonage as well..but yes you have to turn off the firewall on the belkin...if you dont like to turn of the fire wall on belkin, just assign Vonage to DMZ (Demilitarized Zone)..assign a static IP on Vonage and put it on DMZ on the Belkin to unblock port 21,69 and 2400... if you dont like to put Vonage on DMZ, you can just open those port on belkin

Posts: 253 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: May 23, 2006 Posts: 253

yes right.!!!

because firewalls can block the signals.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 17, 2006 Posts: 5

keep your setup the way it is cable modem -> 54g -> Vonage
disable the wireless on the 54g from the 54g (anyport 1-4) plug in the Wireless N into a open port (1-4) do not plug it into the wan or you will have two networks running and it takes more work to get them all working correctly. By plugging into slot 1-4 you will be able to keep the dhcp running on the 54G and it will put out that DHCP handshake on the N wireless signal

Posts: 142 · Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 9:03 pm Post subject:

Not slots but ports; just thought I'd correct you.

Wireless Pre-N router doesn't have anything to do with sounds.

What router's supposed to provide is QoS. QoS stands for Quality of Service. It helps give priority to VoIP/gaming traffic, which takes priority over any other traffic like FTP, HTTP, file downloads, etc.

Choppy audio means that your router doesn't prioritize Voip traffic unless (notice the key word "unless") you properly setup your QoS settings in your router to give port 1 for your Voip phone adapter their first priority.

Plus, if you assign a DMZ for your Voip phone adapter, you bypass firewall for that Voip adapter. You just need to setup a satatic IP Address in range of 192.168.x.1 to 192.168.x.254 (where 192.168.x is a Network ID for your router and the range of 1-254 is a Host ID for your connected devices like computers, printers, network-attached storage devices, etc.) for your Voip phone adapter.

To put it in color for IP Address:
[color:red]192.168.0.[color:blue]1 is as follows:
[color:red]192.168.0. is [color:red]Network ID
[color:blue]1 is [color:blue]Host ID.

So if you have 54g and Pre-N router's IP address assigned to 192.168.1.x (assuming 192.168.0.1 is for 54g and 192.168.0.2 is for Pre-N router), you will experience DHCP conflicts. So you will need to configure your Pre-N router with an IP address of 192.168.1.1 as an example and leave 192.168.0.1 as an IP address for your 54g router.

This is a good solution if you have seventeen of 16-port routers where sixteen of 16-port routers are connected to a single 16-port router and each router will have an IP address as follows (assuming the private IP address is 10.x.x.x):

Main router: 10.0.0.1
Router 1: 10.0.1.1
Router 2: 10.0.2.1
Router 3: 10.0.3.1
Router 4: 10.0.4.1
...
Router 13: 10.0.13.1
Router 14: 10.0.14.1
Router 15: 10.0.15.1
Router 16: 10.0.16.1

Well I know this is for corperate and enterprise but I'm just giving you an ideal of how there can be DHCP conflicts if you don't configure your router properly.

Here's my question: Why do you have a Pre-N router if you have a Wireless 54g router? I will wait until the 802.11n gets standardized around 2008. I understand if you're an early adopter but if you're going to be buying devices with wireless-N support around 2008, either your Pre-N manufacturer will have to provide firmware or you will have to buy a new wireless-N router when 802.11n gets standardized.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 25, 2006 Posts: 4

Thanks for the replies -- I've waited until I felt I like I had a reasonable set of things to try before working on it again. Hard to get everything in sync!

Basically I have two laptops and a desktop. One laptop had built-in wireless B, and was thus bringing everyone down to B level. Best Buy had a sale, the Pre-N router and the Pre-N notebook card for $50, so I bought it thinking it's almost the cost of a wireless G card, and I get a router. The Pre-N router is MIMO, meaning it can handle multiple lines of traffic, and if we ever had wireless B around it wouldn't drag us all down.

2008?? I usually can't wait until *tomorrow* to go get something! Smile

What you said about DMZ'ing the Voip sounds good. If it works, I can use *only* the Pre-N router and not worry at all about the 54g router.

It's been a real pain to deal with both routers. They're both Belkin and have the same factory configuration, so they instantly conflict. I have to plug into to each by landline (dusty old technology) to go to the web config tool, and it hasn't been working as consistently as you'd think it would. Their web config tool isn't the richest with features. It has a QoS setting, but only a checkbox, no way to tell it which entry gets priority. I wonder how it figures that out?

I'll post back my results -- thanks again for the suggestions so far!

Posts: 142 · Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 11:12 pm Post subject:

Pre-N is also the same as Draft-N; thus, IEEE 802.11n standard has een delayed until 2008.

Read up on standards/ratifications for 802.11n.

Posts: 533 · Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:22 am Post subject:

Just a tip, you do not need to put the Vonage adapter (ATA) in a DMZ, nothing will be blocked.

1. Connect the ATA to an open LAN port on the 54G.
2. Disable wireless on the 54G.
3. Make sure the Belkin's LAN subnet is different from the 54G's LAN subnet. For example, if they are both 192.168.1.0/24 (255.255.255.0), just make one of them 192.168.2.0/24 (255.255.255.0).
4. Connect the Belkin's WAN port to an open LAN port on the 54G.
5. Disable firewall on the Belkin.

You're done.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 25, 2006 Posts: 4

I tried up until this latest suggestion.

Basically the problem is that the Belkin interprets Vonage use as a UDP Flood, and no amount of DMZ'ing changes that problem. So the DMZ didn't help. Ditto with port forwarding, no help. The security log confirmed DoS UDP Flood attacks during Vonage phone calls.

Disabling the Belkin firewall helped, since no UDP Flood detection is going on after disabling it. However, for the moment, I have the Belkin attached to the cable modem, and no firewall. *gasp* I do have a software firewall, but still feel like it's locking the screen door and not bolt-locking the front door. I was going to troubleshoot the 2 routers together, but my wife was getting impatient. Smile

For the two routers, do I have to worry about disabling NAT on the 2nd router (the Belkin)?

If the Vonage ATA is on the 54G, why am I worrying about disabling the firewall on the Belkin wireless? The Vonage works fine on the 54G with no changes.

Posts: 533 · Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 1:44 pm Post subject:

jmw86069 wrote:

I tried up until this latest suggestion.

Basically the problem is that the Belkin interprets Vonage use as a UDP Flood, and no amount of DMZ'ing changes that problem. So the DMZ didn't help. Ditto with port forwarding, no help. The security log confirmed DoS UDP Flood attacks during Vonage phone calls.

Disabling the Belkin firewall helped, since no UDP Flood detection is going on after disabling it. However, for the moment, I have the Belkin attached to the cable modem, and no firewall. *gasp* I do have a software firewall, but still feel like it's locking the screen door and not bolt-locking the front door. I was going to troubleshoot the 2 routers together, but my wife was getting impatient. Smile

For the two routers, do I have to worry about disabling NAT on the 2nd router (the Belkin)?

If the Vonage ATA is on the 54G, why am I worrying about disabling the firewall on the Belkin wireless? The Vonage works fine on the 54G with no changes.

If you connect things the way I said, you don't need the firewall on the Belkin because you already have one on the 54G, which is your connection to the Internet.

If you disable NAT on the Belkin, you'll need to make sure you add a static route for the Belkin's LAN subnet in the 54G pointing to the WAN IP address of the Belkin. If you do this, consider giving the Belkin's WAN interface a static IP address.