Phased home network upgrade

[stevenv]

I'm thinking about upgrading the wifi coverage at home with a new Asus AC dual band router. Currently using a pretty old TP Link ADSL wifi router in conjunction with a separate gigabit switch (for faster cabled connections). Staying away from buying a new ADSL wifi router with all the other features I want out of an upgrade because of the fiber roll out currently happening i.e. future proofing.

My idea is to disable wifi on the old ADSL router and connect the new Asus wifi router to ADSL router so that I get ADSL with the wifi improvements. When fiber becomes available, I'd ditch the ADSL router and put whatever fiber hardware I need in its place. So in the short term, I would be effectively only using the ADSL component of the old router.

Current:
Telkom --> (RJ11 port) ADSL router (LAN port) --> gigabit switch

Phase 1 (ADSL):
Telkom --> (RJ11 port) ADSL router (LAN port) --> (WAN port) new wifi router (LAN port) --> gigabit switch

Phase 2 (fiber):
Fiber --> (WAN port) new wifi router (LAN port) -->gigabit switch

It seems that the Asus router supports quite a few different configurations for the WAN port but I imagine that I would put the ADSL credentials into the old router since it is acting as the modem and then configure the WAN on the Asus to statically connect to the old router.

Read a few articles that sort of explain if this is possible although not sure if it's exactly the same. Curious if anyone here has successfully implemented something like this?

 

[NeoAcheron]

Most of these routers behave the same, routing traffic from the WAN to the LAN using NAT. I have an old TP link WiFi router on my Fibre switch to distribute WiFi, I used it previously on ADSL with a cheap D-Link single LAN port modem.

I'm sure the Asus AC router will have similar features (if not better than) my 4 year old TP Link. Best to look up the manual and check though.

What you'd want to do with your DSL modem though, is check that it supports DSL Bridge mode. If you do that, the new wifi router can control the PPP connection to the ISP, making managing the connection simpler. Once the fibre is installed, you can set the WiFi router to get an IP from the fibre using DHCP.

 

[stevenv]

Thanks! Found that the TP Link has "WAN Service Type" with options PPPoE, IP over Ethernet and Bridging. Of course always used the first option but could try Bridging which seems to not require ISP authentication settings.

 

[infscrtyrisk]

Considering home ADSL router manufacturers' reluctance to release firmware upgrades, bridging is about all that it is good for. Personally, I wouldn't trust the ASUS unit with the PPPOE connection either, although its arguably a more modern unit, potentially less bugs.
What would work well is a Raspberry Pi doing the PPPOE terminating (and some perimeter firewalling), or if you have an old PC, get Sophos UTM (or any of the open-source firewalls) to do it. That way you are sure that your vulnerable perimeter is not at the mercy of a cheap Chinese appliance, particularly at OSI layer 3 - 7.

 

[AntennaMan]

Why not spend a bit more and get a Mikrotik or Ubiquiti. They are incredibly powerful with excellent support.

My home setup as of yesterday:

Fibre -> TP-Link WR840N (wifi disabled) -> Mikrotik RB2011 -> Ubiquiti Unifi AP

The TP-link was supplied by the ISP, so as soon as everything is properly setup, I'll dump it in favour of just using the Mikrotik.
The Ubiquiti is a lot easier to setup though, as it has a nice web gui. Maybe pair the Unifi AP with one of the Ubiquiti Gigabit routers?