IP Addresses and My Stelera Wireless Connection

[gigemzach]

Okay my ISP is Stelera Wireless. They use HSPA+ to deliver the connection to a combo wifi router/modem. I have stopped using the built in wifi router and purchased an apple airport extreme to use as a bridge. Tech support at Stelera said for this setup to work I needed to disable the dhcp in the apple router as the Stelera one handles this.?? So now my problem is the router seems to hand out a limited number of ip addresses that allow me to connect to the internet and the rest are 169.254.???.???. So my question is is there anything that I can do? Is anyone familiar as to how Stelera works etc.?

Thanks.

 

[steve2112]

I don't know anything about Stelera, but you are right that it isn't handing out addresses. The 169.254...addresses are private IP addresses that Windows and OSX will hand out when they can't get a DHCP address. What I would do (and what I do on my network) is allow the Airport Extreme to get its address from the router, say a 192.168.1.x address. Then, change the default DHCP range on the Airport Extreme to something like 192.168.10.1-254. This will create a basic point-to-point connection between the router and AEBS with only two addresses in its network. The AEBS will still hand out DHCP addresses to anything behind it, just in a different range.

 

[gigemzach]

I don't know anything about Stelera, but you are right that it isn't handing out addresses. The 169.254...addresses are private IP addresses that Windows and OSX will hand out when they can't get a DHCP address. What I would do (and what I do on my network) is allow the Airport Extreme to get its address from the router, say a 192.168.1.x address. Then, change the default DHCP range on the Airport Extreme to something like 192.168.10.1-254. This will create a basic point-to-point connection between the router and AEBS with only two addresses in its network. The AEBS will still hand out DHCP addresses to anything behind it, just in a different range.

Okay well I'm a little confused... sorry... So would the Stelera router still be the one handing out IP addresses or would the apple one be the one handing out the addresses?

Thanks again for responding!!

 

[gigemzach]

I don't know anything about Stelera, but you are right that it isn't handing out addresses. The 169.254...addresses are private IP addresses that Windows and OSX will hand out when they can't get a DHCP address. What I would do (and what I do on my network) is allow the Airport Extreme to get its address from the router, say a 192.168.1.x address. Then, change the default DHCP range on the Airport Extreme to something like 192.168.10.1-254. This will create a basic point-to-point connection between the router and AEBS with only two addresses in its network. The AEBS will still hand out DHCP addresses to anything behind it, just in a different range.

Also how exactly would I do this?

Thanks so much!!!!

 

[steve2112]

Okay well I'm a little confused... sorry... So would the Stelera router still be the one handing out IP addresses or would the apple one be the one handing out the addresses?

Thanks again for responding!!

Basically, the Stelera modem would only be handing addresses out to the Airport, which would be its own address.

A note: Not only do I know nothing about Stelera, but I have also never configured an Airport Extreme Base Station, so these instructions may not work. I did this after having problems with bridge mode. Basically, on my Linksys for example, there is a setting in the config where I can control which range of addresses is uses in DHCP (192.168.1.x or 192.168.10.x, for example), how many addresses it will hand out, etc. There, I changed it from 192.168.1.x to 192.168.10.1-.50.

So, the Linksys goes to the cable modem, requests an addresses, and is assigned 192.168.1.2. That is the Linksys router's address. The Linksys router and my cable modem are the only two devices in that address range. I then went to this address to get to the router's admin page. From there, I changed the Linksys config to use the range 192.168.10.1 as its DHCP range. I use the Linksys to handle wireless and wired connections, and anything plugged into the Linksys or connected via wireless will get a 192.168.10.x address.

 

[gigemzach]

Basically, the Stelera modem would only be handing addresses out to the Airport, which would be its own address.

A note: Not only do I know nothing about Stelera, but I have also never configured an Airport Extreme Base Station, so these instructions may not work. I did this after having problems with bridge mode. Basically, on my Linksys for example, there is a setting in the config where I can control which range of addresses is uses in DHCP (192.168.1.x or 192.168.10.x, for example), how many addresses it will hand out, etc. There, I changed it from 192.168.1.x to 192.168.10.1-.50.

So, the Linksys goes to the cable modem, requests an addresses, and is assigned 192.168.1.2. That is the Linksys router's address. The Linksys router and my cable modem are the only two devices in that address range. I then went to this address to get to the router's admin page. From there, I changed the Linksys config to use the range 192.168.10.1 as its DHCP range. I use the Linksys to handle wireless and wired connections, and anything plugged into the Linksys or connected via wireless will get a 192.168.10.x address.

Thanks for the lengthy response. I tried changing the settings for the apple router to hand out addresses and it said that I shouldn't do this since the other router has dhcp enabled but I continued anyways. So I get exactly what you're saying and it makes perfect sense to me but the stupid Stelera router won't let me I don't think.... And I don't have access to the Stelera router. The only people allowed are stelera's tech support. I would have left this company a long time ago but I live in a small town and this is all we have available... Is there something I'm missing??

 

[steve2112]

Thanks for the lengthy response. I tried changing the settings for the apple router to hand out addresses and it said that I shouldn't do this since the other router has dhcp enabled but I continued anyways. So I get exactly what you're saying and it makes perfect sense to me but the stupid Stelera router won't let me I don't think.... And I don't have access to the Stelera router. The only people allowed are stelera's tech support. I would have left this company a long time ago but I live in a small town and this is all we have available... Is there something I'm missing??

No, you probably aren't missing anything. Some companies do lock down their equipment so that you can't do anything on them. I initially missed the part where you said this was a router from them, not just a modem which is probably the problem. Theoretically, it shouldn't care about what is behind it, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

When you put the AEBS in bridge mode, can you get on the internet at all through it?

 

[gigemzach]

No, you probably aren't missing anything. Some companies do lock down their equipment so that you can't do anything on them. I initially missed the part where you said this was a router from them, not just a modem which is probably the problem. Theoretically, it shouldn't care about what is behind it, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

When you put the AEBS in bridge mode, can you get on the internet at all through it?

No problem. Yes when I put the router in bridge mode the connection works fine with speeds ranging from 4-9 Mbps (which btw I think is pretty good for a wireless connection). The problem I have is when it is in bridge mode and the Stelera router is handing out the ip addresses it can't hand out more than like 4 with an Internet connection and I need a way around that because even my printer needs a usable ip (it's one of the new ePrint ones). I just can't come up with any ways around it so I turned to the people here. And btw thanks for all your help! You have been one of the most helpful people ever on here!!