Setting up eero Pro mesh Wifi with an AT&T U-Verse PACE router/modem
The Wifi in our small house has been dismal. At first I thought it was the Wifi router’s band steering feature that was the cause. I disabled it and split our network again into a 2.4GHz and a 5GHz segment. The improvement was marginal, as measured about the number of connectivity complaints in the family. In addition, the Wifi range was quite limited preventing me from attending a video conferencing from my hammock.
This weekend, I updated our network to a new eero Pro mesh wifi network, consisting of a small white “hub”, hardwired to my router/modem combo, and a beacon. I can always add more beacons in the future it I wanted to extend my network.
The setup process of the eero system was a breeze. It is however curious that there is no web-interface. Everything is done through a smart phone application. Tough luck if you have a computer and swear by that flip phone. Within minutes, my Wifi network was upgraded.
- Disable existing Wifi in my router.
- Follow the few steps in the eero application to get the eero hub configured. I used the same 2.4GHz SSID, so I didn’t need to reprogram any of the hard to set up devices, such as the Ring doorbell.
The configuration of the AT&T U-verse router/modem was less smooth. There are two options to make both routers play well with each other: bridge mode and IP passthrough. The article Setting up eero with AT&T U-verse describes both.
If you are going to take this step, generally, we recommend reaching out to U-verse support.
Since I also had 4 devices connected to the PACE modem via Ethernet, I called AT&T U-verse support, while crossing my fingers. My previous experience hasn’t been stellar.
When I had to spell “passthrough” a few times to the AT&T support agent, I knew I was in for an adventure. I described a few times what I wanted to do - something I assumed was a common configuration question. I was then offered a for-fee service to help it set up, either for a one time fee or a subscription fee.
Abort abort abort.
Plan B was simple: the eero Pro has two ethernet ports. One is used to connect to the router/modem. I moved all ethernet devices over: most of them also had a wireless interface. I only kept my NAS on the ethernet.
Without a need for the PACE router ports, I now only had to bypass it and found these instructions:
2Wire/Pace Gateways: The passthrough mode for 2Wire/gateways in referred to as DMZplus mode. The device that you would like to be placed in DMZplus must be connected directly to the gateway and configured to obtain an IP address through DHCP.
- Open a browser on a computer that is directly connected to the RG.
- In the address bar, enter http://192.168.1.254.
- In the GUI select Settings, then Firewall, and then Applications, Pinholes, and DMZ.
- Under Select a Computer, click the device name or IP address of the device you wish to put in DMZplus mode.
- Select the Allow all Applications(DMZplus mode) radio button.
- Select Save.
That’s all folks. Without the A&T U-verse support detour, this was all a simple set up.
Tomorrow will be the real test of the new network when we start three concurrent Zoom meetings. I already enabled the eero Labs feature: optimize for video conferencing.