G3100 as an Extender
AnyScrnNameWork
Enthusiast - Level 2

Hello Forum World!

I recently upgraded to Gigibit, purchased the Verizon router and extender.  All working well, except I still have some weak and dead spots in/around my home.  I was able to get my hands on a G3100 router from someone that no longer needed it.  

QUESTION: how can I make this an extender?  Is it as simple as plugging it into the Router via an Ethernet cable, just like the Verizon Extender, and letting the Router configure it as an extender?

Appreciate any info.  Is this approach even possible?  Thank you!

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Re: G3100 as an Extender
Cang_Household
Community Leader
Community Leader

Hello AnyScrnNameWork, please follow the newly released G1100 Bridging Guide, which can be found here https://forums.verizon.com/t5/G1100-Bridging-Guide/bd-p/g1100-bridging-guide . I know this is technically made for G1100, but G3100 is analogous to G1100 and therefore their bridging steps should be virtually the same.

 

You can uplink the spare G3100 with a coaxial cable to the existing MoCA network, I believe. Please let us know if you need further assistance.

Re: G3100 as an Extender
AnyScrnNameWork
Enthusiast - Level 2

Thank you Cang_Household for the suggestion.  I will give this a try and report back.

Re: G3100 as an Extender
AnyScrnNameWork
Enthusiast - Level 2

Hello Cang_Household, as you could imagine, updating the G3100 router settings per the interactive guide was straight forward.  However, given the G3100 has a WAN and 4 yellow LAN ports, I wasn't sure which one to connect the Ethernet cable to (didn't have a coax cable around at that moment.  The Verizon extender instructions simply stated to plug the Ehternet cable into a yellow port on the extender, so I simply did that with the G3100 which was updated per the interactive guide instructions.  Now for something strange.

(1) the G3100 converted only allows wifi connections when hardwired into the main router

(2) my Verizon Extender, the one I already had running on the network, picked up the converted G3100 Wifi SSID.  Now, even with the converted G3100 unplugged, turned off, it still connects to the main router, but has the converted G3110 SSID!

Ran out of time playing with it this evening.  Any ideas?  Will give it another go tomorrow. 

Thank you! 


Kind regards

Re: G3100 as an Extender
AnyScrnNameWork
Enthusiast - Level 2

Quick update: this morning I had lost all Internet.  The Verizon Extender took on the name of the converted G3100 router, of which I took offline due to the previous mentioned issue.  Then when I tried to reset the Verizon Extender, it changed the SSID of the main G3100 router!  So, at that point every device lost Internet.  

I ended up resetting the main G3100 router, updating the SSID to my network devices preferred Wifi setup, then re-established the Verizon Extender with it.  All is back to normal.

But, I am still needing to understand, sort out, how to make the spare G3100 router an extender without it taking over my network!  Going to keep trying this week, but if anyone has idea, it is greatly appreciated.

Kind regards

Re: G3100 as an Extender
Cang_Household
Community Leader
Community Leader

Have you disabled Self-Organizing Network on every Verizon router/extender? If not, please disable this feature as it is not designed to mix and match routers with extenders.

This could be an inherent issue though. The older Fios Network Extenders Gen 2 still copies SSID information from G1100 regardless whether the SON is enabled or not.

I hope this helps.