My shaw cable guy was correct 5 years ago

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud
1

The Problem

My router/modem from Shaw and recently my changeover to Telus router/modem has always been set up to handle all my ethernet cable needs and a single ethernet cable goes from the router to a switch that connects to all my ethernet connections within my house including one that goes to my Apple Airport Extreme that handles all my Wifi needs. The WIFI on my shaw/telus modem/router is turned off because my base Airport extreme is setup much like a mesh wifi to other standalone Airport Extreme and Airport Express strewn all around the apartment. This setup has been like this for a long long time.

The Effect

A lifetime ago my shaw cable internet kept having outages and I blamed Telus for pulling on my shaw cable wires while they were installing their fibre just so I would change over to Telus from Shaw. I would have weekly outages that would go down for a few hours and then come back up. When I called Shaw they would always say that I’m the first to complain and that they show no outages in my area.

I was always elusive in explaining how my network was set up as my network has always worked and nobody could tell me that it wasn’t suppose to work that way. So when I told my shaw guy that I had a Apple Airport Extreme setup to act as my Wifi server separate from my my Shaw cable modem/router he told me that is probably where my problem lies and I told him that “look mister, my setup has worked for years and you are wrong.”. Nevertheless I kept having outages, so I finally gave in and switched to Telus.

Under Telus I had no problems at all. No outages… except when I pulled my MacBook off its all-in-one USB hub/HDMI that connected to my HDMI 4k HDR TV and ethernet cable. I attributed the outage as my hub holding on to my mac id and duplicating my mac id giving me a network lock due to ip clash, or so I thought. The reason that I blamed my MacBook hub was that I pulled my MacBook off one hub and plugged the MacBook into the other hub (two different monitors), the whole local network would lock; no internet, no wifi.

So I bought a new hub that seem to solve the problem… until recently…

Once again, pulling the MacBook off the hub, locked my whole home network to the point where my internet was lost and my wifi signal seemed to be disable and my iPhone switches to LTE.

Then it dawned on me that with my Airport Extremes handling my wifi, when my MacBook is pulled from its hub/dock, it loses its ethernet connection and must solely rely on its wifi connection.

The Wifi Router address is 192.168.0.32 using DHCP and the main Telus Router wired address is 192.168.0.1, the DNS address is also 192.168.0.1.

Pulling the MacBook from its hub loses it connection to 192.168.0.1 so all routing has to travel through 192.168.0.32 instead and that is where the problem lies now and the whole local network hangs because of the routing to 192.168.0.1; the whole network doesn’t know how to get there because all communications is now only through 192.168.0.32.

The fix

So I pulled ALL my Airport Extremes off the network and enabled Wifi on my Telus Modem/router.

Luckily my Airport Express allows me to connect to a wifi signal without the need of an Airport Extreme Base and thus my alarm and Lutron hub can connect through an 100Mbps ethernet cable to my wifi wirelessly

With just the Telus modem acting as both the ethernet and wifi router, the problem is now resolved. Pulling the MacBook off the hub now immediately switches to the Wifi connection of the modem and built-in DNS within the Telus Modem resolves the routing.

There are no more MacBook name climbing like “MacBook Main 12” and “MacBook Main 13” “Macbook Main 14”, where every now and then my MacBook name gets changed because of duplication on the network. It probably happens when my wifi DHCP gets renewed and my ethernet ip doesn’t.

The Shaw Cable Guy was right

about my setup being the problem 5 years ago. He said that separating the Wifi from the modem will cause problems. The correct way is to bridge your modem to your Wifi router so it can handle both the ethernet and wifi connections and you do this by turning your modem into a bridged modem, passing all the responsibility of the modem/router to your replacement router. I didn’t want to do that because I did not believe the Airport Extreme was good enough to act as the router between my local network and the Wan.

If I had only listened at that time it would have saved me a lot of headache including the switch from Shaw to Telus, four brand new usb hubs with HDMI, and a multitude of new cat 6 cables.

New future problems

Mesh Wifi is similar to what I had where one Airport Extreme is connected to the modem via a lan cable then communicates to the other Airport Extreme via Wifi. I can place several Airport extreme around the house where-ever I needed a stronger wifi signal. Mesh wifi is identical in operation as my Airport Extremes.

I don’t have a mesh network but having a built in mesh network with your modem/router would probably be a safe bet. However those that are buying the mesh wifi network separately from your modem/router may need to pay attention to how it integrates with your ethernet setup.

In addition there are a lot of AC gaming Wifi routers that claims to give you super fast AC wifi speeds and if you have a simple gaming setup where you only have on Gaming PC connected to your Super Wifi AC router, then there is no problem but be careful when you have both an ethernet cable and wifi connected.

What does this have to do with your My Cloud?

Everything and nothing. The Everything is of course the networking and how you have your local network setup. The nothing is that if you have simple network where you plug your My Cloud into the Modem/router and you access your My Cloud via Wifi and nothing else, there is no problem.

If you are like me with a multitude of routers connected together, you might want to listen to your Shaw Cable guy and switch your modem/router to bridge mode and let your new mesh wifi or new gaming AC WIFI router do its job by itself. If you want to use your old routers as a switch, be careful with your DNS and DHCPs because having two routers is like having two cooks in your house.

The My Cloud is a simple device that connects to the network via one single lan cable and if you cannot find your My Cloud, it is a network problem and not the My Cloud at all.

1 Like
2

Recently I upgraded my Telus fibre 300mbps to gigabit and I did a internet speed test and to my surprise I got only 200mbps download and 600mbps upload so I called Telus to ask “what gives”

It turns out that I had to download an app that measures my internet speed directly to a Telus Server which does give me 900mbps on both download and upload.

In other words my gigabit speed is only guaranteed to the local server and not to the whole world wide internet. I won’t complain too much because even 200mbps to the internet is fast enough for browsing and it also gives me another 2 years of $80/month internet.

Now the reason that I am answering my own post is the topic of WIFI extenders came up within my conversations with Telus. Telus already told me that if I don’t see gigabit speeds on my new service that I should call Telus Tech support. I thought that was a little bit strange that they would tell me to call tech support about not getting gigabit speeds and sure enough I didn’t get gigabit speeds; apparently Telus already knew it.

When I did call Telus Tech support I got a sales pitch on the reasons why I am not getting gigabit speeds and one of the sales pitch was about WIFI extenders and how Telus can sell you the basic extender for $120 and a two pair extender for $240. ALL THIS HAS Nothing to do with gigabit internet speeds because we all know (in this forum) that WIFI speeds are in the neighborhood of 150mbs.

So of course I do need to replace my aging Apple Airport extremes because I did end up using them together with my modem wifi turned on. For some reason the 5ghz AC Wifi from my Telus Modem has trouble communicating to my Oculus Quest 2 for NAS movie watching or anything like connecting my Oculus Quest 2 to my PC Steam for playing Alyx. So I just added my Airport Extreme as a new wifi on my switch and voila… it plays Alyx at full speed without glitches.

Ok so I asked Telus on how they were using their Wifi Extenders and it turned out to be exactly the same method that I’m using with my Airport Extremes. You would think that getting a Telus fibre optic Modem that you would get exact brand name matches to the Modem for extending your Wifi like the same brand name for a mesh Wifi system in your house, but no…

Telus is selling you a different Wifi extender that connects to your modem via one of the ethernet plugs and the first part is the base unit… then you plug the wifi extender to an outlet of where you want to extend the wifi signal. I think this pair works in the same way as the Apple Airport where one airport communicates to the other airport. Extra extenders you have and communicates to the base extender and yes you can plug in ethernet cords to the extenders for things like home security hubs that has an ethernet connection like my lutron hub that only uses ethernet and not wifi. Same with my home alarm system that costed me $80 but requires an ethernet connection to the internet. If I connected both the alarm and lutron hub to my local network on the switch, it slows my whole home ethernet connection down to 100mbs that is normally a gigabit speed local network. Connecting these two slow devices to an extender is the only way to make them work.

So now we know what Telus is selling us… and I ask how do you make this work… and they told me to use a different SID name… so as you wander away from the central area where you have the strongest WIFI signal… to upstairs, you switch “MANUALLY” on your iPad to the new extender 5ghz SID name.

and I thought that for $240 you should get cellular type wifi where as you wander upstairs, you automatically switch to the extender wifi with the same SID name. NOPE…

At my house after re-installing my Apple Airport with the same WIFI SID name I do have problems as to which of my 2.4 or 5ghz wifi that my devices connects to but now that I understand the potential problems I am not worry. I should use a different SID name for my Apple Airports just like the big boys do for $240. That is the answer, use different SID names.

Oh and about that lockup on the Mac just make sure that your wifi connection is connected to the WIFI on the modem, the same modem that supplies the ethernet connection thus no lock up since they both share the same DNS server and DHCP IP routing.

Adding another router and Wifi extensions should have a different SID name.

Also if you are asking what has all this to do with My Clouds, well the problem has always been laptops, MacBooks connected to the My Clouds via Wifi and how slow it is and how you won’t buy another My Cloud just because of the slow Wifi Speeds; which has nothing to do with the My Cloud since they are connected to the local network via ethernet. If you are going “huh?”, then don’t mind me…

3

Very interesting writeup. Duh, been so long since I’ve been here, does your conclusion paragraph mean that the MyCloud has a WiFi radio built in? (I can see why it would) OR is the flow Phone->WiFiRouter->MyCloud ?

(you might get more interesting feedback if you post this at D S L R e p o r t s . youKnowWhat :wink:

Cheers

4

No WiFi radio on the My Cloud… and yes it is Phone=>WiFiRouter=>Mycloud

My concluding statement is just the fact that everyone from day one of the My Clouds has always complained about how slow the My Cloud is when in fact it is usually the slow wifi is to blame. Most of the posts from a decade ago were that they were so fed up with the access speed that they are returning the unit promptly.

Since we access the My Cloud through our WiFi Devices iPads, iPhones, laptops such as streaming movies from our “My Clouds” all access is through the Wifi, through the router and back through the ethernet cable, the whole route should be connected properly including adding extenders or AC Wifi router to the mix using another SID name.

No idea what D S L R e p o r t s is but I only post up once a year here now where all my findings have been posted much like an old hangout.

Cheers too…