Adding router to home network

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mattymoomoo

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Jan 30, 2016
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Hi everyone and thanks in advance for your time and help.

Please bear with me here. Although I consider myself reasonably computer literate I have virtually no knowledge of newtworking and have spent the last few days studying modems, routers, switches, bridging, etc.

I want to add a router to my home network as the ISP supplied modem/router only has one LAN port and I want to wire up a NAS and a couple of smart TVs. I´m confident enough to be able to do the physical set-up but am still confused about configuring it all. Am I correct in thinking I should do the following:

New router…
Go to control panel and add an SSID name (will this replace the existing name?)
Add new password for WPA security (again, will this replace the existing password?)

Old router…
In control panel turn off wifi and disable DHCP.

Cross fingers.

Or am I further out of my depth than I thought!?
 
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That is strange that it only has 1 lan port especially if it has wireless. Most times when a device only has a single lan port it is actual a modem....but modems do not have wifi.

The simplest option if you are ok with the wifi is to buy a small $20 switch and in effect add more lan ports.

I am assuming you are going to leave the old router in place. In that case you plan is ok but do not disable the DHCP. You new router will need it to get a address from the main router. Router behind router can causes issue because of the double nat, the most common complaints are related to game consoles that use UPnP. Your everyday web surfing and most other things are not affected by the double nat.
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yeticorn

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Jul 21, 2015
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ISP's generally have a list of supported modems/routers, so lets assume you've purchased an "approved" piece of gear.

SSID is simply the name of the network as it's broadcast. It will replace the old SSID if your gear does not have multicasting (some consumer grade routers have this so you can have a guest network). The password you set for any given network will replace the old one. I would also recommend changing the password for the router login itself.

You shouldn't have to do anything to the old router other than unplugging it...
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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That is strange that it only has 1 lan port especially if it has wireless. Most times when a device only has a single lan port it is actual a modem....but modems do not have wifi.

The simplest option if you are ok with the wifi is to buy a small $20 switch and in effect add more lan ports.

I am assuming you are going to leave the old router in place. In that case you plan is ok but do not disable the DHCP. You new router will need it to get a address from the main router. Router behind router can causes issue because of the double nat, the most common complaints are related to game consoles that use UPnP. Your everyday web surfing and most other things are not affected by the double nat.
 
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mattymoomoo

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Jan 30, 2016
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Thanks guys. The old router is a Cisco DPC2420 if you´re interested. It only supports Wireless N so I think I´ll be better off with a newer one rather than a switch.

Something else I forgot to mention...Should the old router be put in bridge mode?
 
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