Do I need the Telus router?

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Nov 2nd, 2020 1:39 pm

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Nov 1st, 2020 2:29 pm

Kaitlyn [OP]: Deal Guru; May 6, 2005; 10995 posts; 1165 upvotes; Squamish

Nov 1st, 2020 2:29 pm

Do I need the Telus router?

I have telus fibre internet, and as attached they installed the fibre modem in the wire box in my garage. The router was installed in my living room.

I want ethernet in my whole home, but have tried:
- The other ports on that nokia modem - no go
- Plugging a switch into Port 1 and using that as the hub - no go
- Moving router into the garage and using IT as the hub, switch connected + ports everywhere else (haven't tested EVERY port in the rooms but seems to work)

Is the Telus router doing something special/authenticating the signal on top of just providing switch/wifi connectivity?

I wouldn't mind NOT using it, but if I have to use it I think I'd have to keep it down there which is mostly annoying because it's so fat it doesn't fit in the panel box closed.

Hopefully that was easy enough to follow. Is there a different setup that could work, alternative to using the Telus router?

The one thing I didn't try yet was Modem->Switch->Telus router (in original location at end of wired room) because I don't think the telus router could provide feedback to all the other ports on the switch that would be in the basement connected to all the other rooms..?

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8 replies

Nov 1st, 2020 5:13 pm

Cucumference: Deal Addict; Aug 19, 2018; 1421 posts; 1560 upvotes

Nov 1st, 2020 5:13 pm

No, you do not need to use their router. Your "modem" in this case is the fibre drop. You can hook that modem directly to your own router. It does not do anything special. You just plug directly into the ONT (that is the box that converts the fibre optic signal to ethernet) or use the bridged port 1 on the Telus router.

Keep in mine most consumer routers have a problem routing 1Gbps of traffic. Make sure the router you use is actually better before changing it. Otherwise there is no point.

+1

Nov 1st, 2020 7:40 pm

Kaitlyn [OP]: Deal Guru; May 6, 2005; 10995 posts; 1165 upvotes; Squamish

Nov 1st, 2020 7:40 pm

Cucumference wrote: ↑ No, you do not need to use their router. Your "modem" in this case is the fibre drop. You can hook that modem directly to your own router. It does not do anything special. You just plug directly into the ONT (that is the box that converts the fibre optic signal to ethernet) or use the bridged port 1 on the Telus router.

Keep in mine most consumer routers have a problem routing 1Gbps of traffic. Make sure the router you use is actually better before changing it. Otherwise there is no point.

How come when I take the router out of the equation, and just plug the the cable that was the router's LAN port into my switch, no go?

Nov 1st, 2020 8:22 pm

Scote64: Deal Addict; Jan 21, 2018; 4725 posts; 4797 upvotes; Vancouver

Nov 1st, 2020 8:22 pm

Kaitlyn wrote: ↑ How come when I take the router out of the equation, and just plug the the cable that was the router's LAN port into my switch, no go?

Presumably you mean the cable that was in the the Telus router's WAN port, not LAN port.

If you are plugging the ethernet cable from the ONT directly into a switch, then you have no router in the loop, and any device attached to the switch will be trying to get a WAN IP address directly from Telus. Presumably you are only authorized to have one WAN IP address by default, so only the first device would succeed. And even if the others got IP addresses, they wouldn't be on the same LAN and couldn't talk to each other. Point is, you need a router to provide a LAN if you are going to use more than one device, either yours or the Telus router.

You haven't said what "no go" means in the context of plugging your router into the ONT cable. Is your router set to get a WAN IP address by DHCP? If so, is it getting a WAN IP address from Telus?

+1

Nov 1st, 2020 10:13 pm

Kaitlyn [OP]: Deal Guru; May 6, 2005; 10995 posts; 1165 upvotes; Squamish

Nov 1st, 2020 10:13 pm

Scote64 wrote: ↑ Presumably you mean the cable that was in the the Telus router's WAN port, not LAN port.

If you are plugging the ethernet cable from the ONT directly into a switch, then you have no router in the loop, and any device attached to the switch will be trying to get a WAN IP address directly from Telus. Presumably you are only authorized to have one WAN IP address by default, so only the first device would succeed. And even if the others got IP addresses, they wouldn't be on the same LAN and couldn't talk to each other. Point is, you need a router to provide a LAN if you are going to use more than one device, either yours or the Telus router.

You haven't said what "no go" means in the context of plugging your router into the ONT cable. Is your router set to get a WAN IP address by DHCP? If so, is it getting a WAN IP address from Telus?

Gotcha - okay so that's why I need the router behind the modem - something to represent my public IP beyond my internal network.

Annoyingly the telus router doesn't fit in the smart box - is there another type of router/device designed to be performant and basic? I'd even rather NOT have any wifi (antennas!) functionality on it. Then I'll plug my own wifi router into the one on my main floor, which serves my towhome on all floors well.

I guess I mainly want that router behind the modem to 1) Fit in the box closed and 2) Be able to NOT be the bottleneck for any network traffic - on 300mbps up/down and gigabit internal network, and plan (hope!) to maximize that internal network speed for photo+video transfers between devices.

Nov 1st, 2020 10:34 pm

Raident: Sr. Member; May 13, 2014; 593 posts; 253 upvotes; Vancouver

Nov 1st, 2020 10:34 pm

As Scote64 explained, any router (but not a switch) will work.

That said, I'm not clear on whether the device that you tried but which did not work was a router or a switch, as you use both terms and there's no pictures or name/model of said device.

+1

Nov 2nd, 2020 11:38 am

Cucumference: Deal Addict; Aug 19, 2018; 1421 posts; 1560 upvotes

Nov 2nd, 2020 11:38 am

Kaitlyn wrote: ↑ Gotcha - okay so that's why I need the router behind the modem - something to represent my public IP beyond my internal network.

Annoyingly the telus router doesn't fit in the smart box - is there another type of router/device designed to be performant and basic? I'd even rather NOT have any wifi (antennas!) functionality on it. Then I'll plug my own wifi router into the one on my main floor, which serves my towhome on all floors well.

I guess I mainly want that router behind the modem to 1) Fit in the box closed and 2) Be able to NOT be the bottleneck for any network traffic - on 300mbps up/down and gigabit internal network, and plan (hope!) to maximize that internal network speed for photo+video transfers between devices.

You might need two.

Any router that you put in this box will be very isolated for the townhouse. And it appears that you don't want it hanging outside the box. Which means wifi is going to be iffy.

A lot of routers will fit in the box, but I'm not sure what you actually want in this case.

Nov 2nd, 2020 12:51 pm

Kaitlyn [OP]: Deal Guru; May 6, 2005; 10995 posts; 1165 upvotes; Squamish

Nov 2nd, 2020 12:51 pm

Cucumference wrote: ↑ You might need two.

Any router that you put in this box will be very isolated for the townhouse. And it appears that you don't want it hanging outside the box. Which means wifi is going to be iffy.

A lot of routers will fit in the box, but I'm not sure what you actually want in this case.

Yeah it's fine to need two I guess. And for this one in the garage to not have wifi.

So are non-wifi (apart from turning wifi off) routers even still a thing? I guess the one I put in the garage will actually be handling the most internal network bandwidth, so want it to be fully capable of handling all the network traffic, not just some cheapo router that happens to fit

I've just heard some routers start to fail with too much traffic or too many connections - not sure if that's on wifi or what though

And then for the second router I can look into separately, it'll be handling the phones basically.

Nov 2nd, 2020 1:39 pm

craftsman: Deal Expert; Jan 27, 2006; 17247 posts; 10015 upvotes; Vancouver, BC

Nov 2nd, 2020 1:39 pm

Kaitlyn wrote: ↑ Yeah it's fine to need two I guess. And for this one in the garage to not have wifi.

So are non-wifi (apart from turning wifi off) routers even still a thing? I guess the one I put in the garage will actually be handling the most internal network bandwidth, so want it to be fully capable of handling all the network traffic, not just some cheapo router that happens to fit

I've just heard some routers start to fail with too much traffic or too many connections - not sure if that's on wifi or what though

And then for the second router I can look into separately, it'll be handling the phones basically.

Lower end/older/poorly designed routers have been failing with too many connections for years. Many of the issues happen with the OEM firmware which wasn't robust enough to handle the load; hence, the creation of 3rd party firmwares like Tomato for many older routers.

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Do I *need* the Telus router?

Do I need the Telus router?