Google Nest wifi and Plusnet router/modem

leigh120585

Hi all,

not sure if anyone can help here? I was looking at the Nest wifi as a mesh system and also utiles the access point as a google home speaker upstairs which is one of the reasons to purchase. Iwas hoping it would help with the poor WIFI signal upstairs.

Would this give me issues with my current Plusnet modem?

I have been doing a bit of research and noted a concern with double Nat and not being able to put the router/modem into bridge mode so it can work with the Nest WIFI.

I'm concerned that in this configuration it ould cause internet dropouts.

If anyone is willing to give me some advice it would be much appreciated

Thanks

Leigh

mickevh

Let's define some of the terminology:

Wi-Fi is facilitated by Access Points (AP's) - whether they are "mesh" capable or not.
ISP link is terminated into a "modem."
Routers are used to join networks together.
Firewall's are (kind of) routers with security features built in.
NAT (in SOHO) is mostly used to deal with IP addressing shortages allowing multple device in your network to share a single public Internet IP address.

Most SOHO "get-you-on-the-Internet" omni-boxes contained simple versions of all of these things in one box. In big corporate networks all of these can, and often are, separate devices, though there's plenty of combo's too.

A SOHO network needs to have a router at it's "edge" joining your network to the rest of the world via your ISP. You can add as many additional switches and Wi-Fi AP's as you like downstream of this in your internal network.

The chain of functionality needs to be  ISP~~~modem---NAT/firewall/router---everything else, whatever equipment you use to achieve this. In SOHO devices, modem/NAT/firewall/router is often combined into a single device, sometime with a separate external modem and the omni-box is "just" NAT/firewall/router.

You cannot turn a typical SOHO "router" into modem just by "saying so" - the device must have a specific modem mode in its UI, so check your manual to see if it offers such. Many do not.

Technically, it is possible to have multiple routers and NAT's ("dual NAT") one behind another (the Internet is made of millions of them) but for an inexperienced SOHO user, especially if you are a gamer and/or want to use uPNP, it is probably best to avoid it and have a single NAT/firewall/router at the edge of your network joining your network to your ISP.

I don't know your Nest system, but typically you would want to either:

A) Leave the Plusnet router as your modem/NAT/firewall/router but turn off it's Wi-Fi and use the Nest system to do all your Wi-Fi. But that mean the Nest needs to be capable of running "Wi-Fi only" and not doing any NAT/firewall/routing. Again, check it's manual - it might call this "bridge" mode or something similar.

B) Turn the PlusNet into a modem only and let the first Nest be your NAT/firewall/router, but that requires PlusNet to be "modem only" capable, which it may not be and the Nest to be NAT/firewall/router capable and need to be cables in a "certain kind of way."

C) Run both PlusNet and Nest as NAT/firewall/routers one behind the other, but that gets into all sorts of fun and games with IP addressing, dual NAT, cabling order and so on so I'd avoid it unless you absolutely have to.

Assuming your PlusNet has been working fine as modem/NAT/firewall/router thus far, I would much prefer to "leave it alone" and use option A if I could. Essentially, you are then leaving the extant system as it is, and "just" adding additional Wi-Fi capabilities to your current internal network.

Additionally, you could if you wanted to leave the PlusNet Wi-Fi active, but it won't "play so nice" with the Nest system and give you all the benefits of mesh links, single admin function, smoother roaming, automatic channel mapping, etc. (assuming your Nest avails such features.)

You can always post back here at AVF with any further question, - a lot of the "old lags" in this particular corner of AVF have a lot of experience of data networking between us and you re very likely to get a sympathetic response from someone.