SETUP Details

Technical Stuff for those brave souls who want to set up connections to servers themselves:

Table 1 SETUP Details

Default setup for new installations: 

We install a combination radio/antenna where it can receive a radio signal from one of our access points - usually in the attic or on your roof.  A cat5 cable is run from that radio to a Power-over-ethernet  Injector (POE). The POE feeds power to the radio over the same cat5 cable that carries the signal. We then connect the POE to your PC or your router if you have one.

The static IP address we assign to you is given to the radio, which acts like a normal home router and provides DHCP and NAT to you.  The radio assigns a private address to your router/PC if your device is set up to ask for an address. The address usually assigned is:

IP:  192.168.2.2       Subnet Mask:  255.255.255.0    Gateway: 192.168.2.1

The radio provides a firewall for your network. You can connect out to anything, but the outside world cannot reach in.  This works just like a normal Netgear or Linksys (or other brand) router.  If you need to run a service, or have a port forwarded, we can do that pretty easily.  But you have to let us know. We can forward some or all ports from the static IP address to you 192.168.2.2 address.  This has worked for everyone to date not running commercial servers.

Older Installations:   Our older radios acted as bridges, not routers. In those installations we would assign the static IP address to your router instead.  The gateway address for your router would be the access point you connected to remotely.  With the bridged solution, if your router was reset, you would lose your internet connection. 

Notes on differences: 

The average router reset half-life was about 5 months.  We could walk most customers through logging onto their router and re-entering the proper data, but it usually took over 30 minutes.  As our customer base grew, we could no longer afford the time spend fixing problems usually caused by the customer when they pressed the reset button. Our option was to either start charging for that time, or switch to a routed solution with automatic IP assignment to the router.

 If you need the actual public, static IP address assigned to your router let us know before installation. We have a limited supply of alternative new radios that will act in bridge mode.  But we may charge a service call if we have to come back out long after installation to switch.