Setting up guest network on t-mobile highspeed home internet

A true Guest network is on a DMZ meaning there is no connection between your network and the guest network. This would be for security purposes here is how we use a true guest network. Example my wife has a party a bunch of random people are coming over. They always want to hook up to wifi so we have a true guest network that they can use. They have access to the internet but no access to any of our devices on our private network. Kinda think of it as two totally separate routers like you and your neighbor. This is a true guest network again not that any of them are hackers but just good measure why should I even be sharing my main wifi password with them.

Businesses use this for customers so that customers are separated from for example the cash registers.

So what you are doing is giving yourself a sort of guest network it does have a seperate password if you want but there is communication between the networks unlike a true guest network.

Just so you totally understand say you have your main SSID called Main and now you setup another one called Guest and even give it a different password. Now you connect a laptop to Main and another laptop to Guest. From a network POV both of those laptops can see each other and communicate to each other. If this was a true guest network there would be completely no communication at all in any way.

But for your purpose it should work just fine.

007BondMI6 wrote:

 

MisterK wrote:

Interesting hijack of my reply to an earlier similar question. This is my network config. 

 

True it's yours, but not intentional as I just needed a quick pic to help out a fellow poster. Next time I will put a credit.

 

 

No problem. I hope it helps mez. And I appreciate that you will post a credit in the future, but saying something like "another user made this comment in another post" is sufficient.

mez wrote:

007BondMI6 wrote:

mez wrote:

Thank you for the explanations. So when we created two networks on our combined modem/router device previously, they weren't really separate then either because they were still on the same device? We had one network set up on 2.4GHz and one on 5GHz. And it doesn't appear as though our Linksys AC1900 combined modem/router wants to function just as a router. It seemed to work fine connected to the T-mobile home internet to create an internet signal for our computers but our smart devices didn't seem to recognize that there was an internet connection with it (and so didn't work). That was why I was wondering if a standalone, ordinary router would work. Basically, our goal is not to leave our network vulnerable because of our smart light bulbs :). And we also aren't keen on giving random guests our password.

 

Note if your old router is like most the guest network is probably a real guest network.

Some routers have a setting to allow or not communications.

 

So same device can have separate networks depends on the model.

 

So you don't say what your smart devices are but some don't play nice with the Tmobile gateway.

 

Sort of the reason that Live TV like from Hulu does not work. These services require a fixed IP so they know where you are. Example some live programs are restricted to a specific geographical area. So there needs to be a fixed IP that ID's you so they know you are in this authorized area. The way Tmobile assigned the gateway an IP this is not really possible. As far as I know they are working on this…

 

Then there is DDNS where devices like IP cameras when you are accessing from outside your home need a fixed IP for your specific home. This would be so that when you make the request to view your homes camera it knows where to send the request. Again this is not the case here so this tends to be problematic.

 

So Smart Bulbs should work on your local network but you may see issues from the app if accessing from outside the network.

The other issue with your Smartbulbs is the double NAT created by your router behind the Tmobile gateway. There is no port fwd on the Tmobile gateway so there is no way to route traffic from the T Mobile gateway to your Linksys.

This would not be an issue for your computers just devices or programs that need specific ports.

You may have to put the smart devices on the Tmobile hub to avoid the double NAT issue.

 

 

 

 

Thanks so much - this was all very helpful. We have a whole array of gadgets -- cameras, irrigation, smart bulbs. We're going to try using the router with the access point setting on -- is that a way around the double nat problem? Will getting a mesh system help/change anything? Do they function differently with how they work with IP addresses? Or should we just give up and put the IoT devices directly on the T-mobile system and then use the router for our phones and laptops? From what you said it sounds like T-mobile is working on some of these issues and we can be patient. I've tried googling all of this but can't seem to find clear answers. Or maybe I just don't know enough about how all of this works behind the scenes to understand what I'm reading! Anyway, thank you for your help!

You can try the access point setting see if that improves things it may.

I think if you have a home size that the T Mobile gateway has enough wifi range you should try to use just that to keep things simple and get things up and running.

I would wait on the mesh unless you need the range as eventually there will be mess units that can be added in the future. But again if you need it today then yea you may have to or just locate your old router in good spot to help cover the rest of the house.

I think you should do some testing of one device at a time. Example I think you said you have issues with the smart devices on the original old router now. So can you try moving one to the T Mobile gateway and see if that's better.

I think the idea is to keep it as simple as needed to get the operation you need.

So trying one device type at a time to find the best placement should work best.

mez wrote:

An update: We bought a Linksys AX1500 and it seems to be working great. Regular routers didn't seem to work -- we tried both our old one and a new one without success. The mesh seems to somehow make the difference. We set up a guest network, and so far so good on getting all the IoT gadgets on it. As always a key thing is to have the gadget on the same network as the phone used to set them up. Follow-up questions: Can we/should we delete the SSIDs/2 networks on the T-mobile high-speed device, leaving it to function just as a modem? Are there pros/cons to doing that? And is there a way to change the user name of the t-mobile admin page? I see where I can change the password but can't see where to change the "admin" user name to something else. Thanks again for all the help!

Great that things are moving in the right direction.

I think you are stuck with admin just change the PW.

Up to you on the Tmobile SSID's if it's far enough away (several feet) from your Linksys you can leave just make sure you have a good PW. The move wifi you have the more noise but again if you are not having issues sometimes better off to leave things alone.

Thanks, Mez. Very helpful!

Hi - I'm new to Tmobile Internet, and found this string - my SSID configurations (6 - 12) include an option for Guest Mode, but it seems to be disabled.  Is this something in the works that will provide a true guest network? 

Sure you can, sort of. There are 10 available SSIDs. Pick one of them not used and name it Guest (or whatever) and gave it a unique password.

Thank you...I saw that but wasn't exactly sure how to do it so I didn't mess things up. What do you mean "sort of"?

I think I skipped your second question “next question is whether we can set up a normal router (vs a mesh) and accomplish that (like we did previously with our former coaxial cable internet provider).”

If you are asking can you plug in your old router the answer is yes. Now again a caveat you will be double natted and this may or may not cause you an issue depending on what you are using on your network. Nothing bad will happen from plugging in your old router to one if the ethernet port and giving it a try.

Thank you for the explanations. So when we created two networks on our combined modem/router device previously, they weren't really separate then either because they were still on the same device? We had one network set up on 2.4GHz and one on 5GHz. And it doesn't appear as though our Linksys AC1900 combined modem/router wants to function just as a router. It seemed to work fine connected to the T-mobile home internet to create an internet signal for our computers but our smart devices didn't seem to recognize that there was an internet connection with it (and so didn't work). That was why I was wondering if a standalone, ordinary router would work. Basically, our goal is not to leave our network vulnerable because of our smart light bulbs :). And we also aren't keen on giving random guests our password.