Extending BT Smart Hub with another Router

[GreenSpaceMan0X]

Hello Experts,

Became a BT Customer recently, and in the process of setting up a small working office.

I want to connect a router - ZTE H298A - to extend out of BT Smart Hub, and need some support to make it work. 

Once fired up,

• Connected ZTE router WAN port (red) - to one of the BT Smart hub LAN port (yellow) 
• the ZTE router shows all green lights - i.e. broadband , 2.4 and 5.2 (and power etc) 
• I can see the WiFi come up on my laptop (both 2.4 and 5.2), and can successfully connect from my laptop.
• I am able to connect to the ZTE Router - with its admin URL - i.e. http://192.168.1.1/ 
• After doing some reading on BT community forums, where it was recommended to use another CIDR block, I have now changed the router block to - 172.168.1.0 - 172.168.1.16 - enough for now to test. The admin panel now comes properly at http://172.168.1.1/
• So far so good

Problem: Once connected to this WiFI network, *** Internet doesnt work ***

I reconnect back to BT, and internet works fine.

My BT Details  (as copied from BT Hub Manager @ http://192.168.1.254

• Router : BT Smart Hub 2 

• Connection type: External (FTTX) 

• Broadband package: Full Fibre 500

On the BT hub manager

• I can see the ZTE device connected to the port 
• Tried changing the IP of the device, to the 172 range above which it seems to allow to edit, but never actually changes - being DHCP  + Authoritative DHCP enabled (under IPV4 configuration). Didnt want to change this setting without knowing more. 

>> I called up BT tech support and they said, it should work, and had no specific suggestions.

Any advice on anything that I could try to get this to work please?

Thanks 

@GSM

[licquorice]

Did you set the gateway address on the ZTE to 192.158.1.254?

[countrypaul]

Connecting the WAN port of your router to a LAN port on the BTHub probably will not work. The WAN port will probably be using PPPoE but the BTHub won't.

You may want to connect LAN port to LAN port, disable DHCP on one of the two, and put the static address of your router into the non-DHCP range on the BTHub (so 192.168.1.1 for example).

[licquorice]

Absolutely no reason not to connect LAN to WAN. The ZTE WAN port either needs a static address outside of the DHCP range of the hub or set to DHCP rather than PPPoE.

[GreenSpaceMan0X]

@licquorice 

It seems to have auto-configured itself with the right gateway.

The current "Ethernet Connection Status" reads as below (have copied pasted the table below, separated columns by pipe ) -

-------------------------

Connection Name  | WAN-DHCP-CONNECTION

Type | IP

IP Version | IPv4/v6

NAT | On

IP Address | 192.168.1.180/255.255.255.0

DNS | 192.168.1.254/0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0

IPv4 Gateway | 192.168.1.254

Remaining Lease | 20 h 51 min 42 s

IPv4 Connection Status | Connected

-------------------------

Also, the IP Address Above (192.168.1.180) - is the IP as seen on the BT Smart hub. 

[WSH · Accepted solution]

Not clear what you are trying to achieve here, when you say “extend”.  If you just mean so you can use the BT to connect Digital Voice then:

I suspect your problem is the address range you’ve used.  (Where did you get that from?  172.168 is not even a private range…anyway, moving on).   I’d use 192.168.0.x (255.255.255.0) for the ZTE instead.  BT on defaults.  BT hub LAN port to ZTE WAN port, as you said.  ZTE WAN port static IP of 192.168.1.1, gateway 192.168.1.254, DNS 192.168.1.254 (or whatever you usually use for DNS).  On the BT make 192.168.1.1 a DMZ host.  Make sure the DHCP on the ZTE is also giving out 192.168.0.x

If you are merely using the ZTE was a wireless access point then turn off everything in the ZTE except the wireless and connect LAN to LAN.  Use 192.168.1.1 as a static address for the ZTE.

[GreenSpaceMan0X]

@WSH 

Thank you, I was trying out many things, so just changed 192 to 172 ... didn't look at the right IPs / conventions and all. 

Point noted. Let me change these, while I am doing it, will do it right. 

My requirement is to be able to connect a LAN ethernet cable out of this ZTE and connect to a Server via Ethernet cable (and  not just as wireless access point). 

Will come back. 

[licquorice]

LAN to LAN and ZTE as a wireless access point will also allow you to use its ethernet ports.

[WSH]

If you’re using it as a switch **bleep** wireless access point then Liquorice is right.

I suspect your earlier problem, in part, was the use of 172.168.  That’s not a private address range and the router might be blocking it going through the WAN port as a result.  While NAT means you could theoretically use any address as internal, not using the correct private range is considered bad practice in case NAT screws up.  If you do want to use a class B private it’s the 172.16 to 172.31 range with a /12 mask but that seems unnecessarily complex for a home LAN.

[WSH]

Oh, apparently the correct use “switch come wireless access point” is blocked as the illiterati think it’s rude.

Just to add, make sure the DHCP in the ZTE is disabled.  If not configured as a spilt scope, that will argue with the BT Hub DHCP and things will come to a halt.