When you activate an ADSL or VDSL service at home or in the office, you may need to use your ISP’s modem/router. It is not always a suitable device because it does not guarantee good speed or excellent Wi-Fi coverage.
At this point, if you want to improve your internet connection, you’ll have two alternatives. Giving up using the operator’s device and buying a better one is sometimes a winning choice because you can choose the device that meets your requirements.
However, there may be problems with operator assistance. Sometimes the technician does not intervene on devices from another manufacturer.
The alternative is to purchase a router (not a modem) and cascade it to the modem/router provided to you by the operator. In this case, you will only need to configure the cascading link correctly.
Read: How To Limit Other Users’ Access To Home Wi-Fi
Scroll down to read the guide!
How To Cascade A Router: A General Guide
In doing so, you will have the advantage of storing the operator’s modem and not incurring intervention waste from the service. Not only that, but with the new router, you will have a connection with more excellent performance and in step with the times.
There are two ways to cascade a router:
- LAN–LAN method: Creates a network that becomes the physical extension of the one managed by the first router. This is the simplest and most basic configuration, suitable for most situations.
- LAN-WAN method: In this case, the old router will have only one client connected, the new router. The new network will be independent of the old one, of which it will only make use of internet access. It is an exemplary configuration if the operator’s router is old.
Net of other differences, with a LAN–LAN connection, the two routers will be on the same IP segment as the local network. Instead, the LAN-WAN connection will cause the two routers to use two different IP segments.
Read: How to create a guest Wi-Fi network
Cascading with LAN-LAN method
The first thing to do on the old router is to disconnect all devices and restart the router. Then, you will have to connect the new router to your PC and access the web interface through the browser: you can do this by typing “HTTP://” followed by the numeric address of the router. You can find it on the installation guide or the packaging.
You must change the IP address of the new router by changing the fourth byte and assigning it to the same network as the old router. For example, if the IP of the latter is 192.168.1.1, the new one will have 192,168.1.2 as IP. In some cases, the old router has 192,168.0.1: in this case, you can assign 192,168.0.2 to the new one as in the other case.
Also, make sure that both the router’s gateway and DNS point to the IP address of the carrier’s modem/router. In addition, you will need to disable the new NAT, Firewall, and DHCP router. The Subnet Mask (or subnet mask) should be left unchanged.
Remember: You can do these things through the device management interface you can access through your browser.
Read: How to use your router as a Wi-Fi repeater.
Depending on the router you’re setting up, you may find an entry that says “Access Point only (AP)”: if there is, you can enable it.
It’s finally time to connect the two routers.
Locates the LAN (Ethernet) port on both the new and old routers. At this point, connect the Ethernet cable to both. Neither the DSL port of the old router nor the WAN (Internet) port of the new router will be required.
This way, you can now connect the various devices by cable or via Wi-Fi to the new router or the old one regardless. Only the IP address will change, which will be 192.168.1.X or 192.168.0.X as appropriate.
For this reason, devices connected to one router or another will be able to communicate with each other precisely because they will be part of the same network.
Cascading with LAN-WAN Method
If cascading a router with the LAN–LAN method is equivalent to making the new router an access point to the old one, things change with the LAN-WAN method.
The first steps are identical: you’ll need to disconnect all devices from the operator’s modem/router and restart it. Then, you will need to connect the new router to your PC and then enter the web interface.
At this point, you can change the IP address of the router. Depending on the case, you will need to change the third byte of the IP. For example, if the address is 192.168.1.1, it should be changed to 192.168.2.1 to be configuration.
Unlike the LAN–LAN method, this time, DHCP, NAT, and Firewall should be left active to address the devices you will connect later appropriately. As for the Subnet Mask, after changing the IP of the new router, you can set it to 255.255.255.0.
It also leaves the “DHCP AutoConnect” feature active if there is an automatic connection via WAN. And again, the new router is now ready to be connected to the operator’s modem/router with an Ethernet cable.
One head of the cable must be connected to a LAN (Ethernet) port of the old router, while the other cable will go to the WAN (Internet) port of the new router. Now, you can connect all devices, which will have IP address 192.168.2.X.
As I told you a little more about, the old modem will only have one client connected. For this reason, devices connected to the new router will not be able to communicate with the modem/router provided to you by the operator.
Port Forwarding: Open ports on the router
With THE LAN-WAN configuration, there may only be a problem with forwarding the correct ports to your PC.
Especially for Torrent, eMule, or video game multiplayer, the ports’ opening of the ports will have to be carried out on the old router and the new one. The latter must correctly point to the modem/router connected to the network.
You could bypass this potential obstacle by enabling IP passthrough on the old router if expected by the operator. In this way, it will be made “transparent,” and the task of forwarding the ports will be left only to the router you purchased.
Read: How to increase the Wi-fi signal?
Conclusions
In this post, I tried to show you the main steps to be able to cascade two routers and thus improve your internet connection.
This is a series of reasonable steps for any router because they use the management interface to set the correct parameters. Consider that there may be differences between routers. However, these are details.
If anything you missed, don’t hesitate to contact me via comments to this post: I will try to help. Here is a detailed video that might help-
To check you internet speed you can visit here.
