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I have AT&T U-Verse internet service. I have their 2WIRE-manufactured wireless residential gateway (RG). It's an older one, with only 802.11g support.

I have lots of devices, both wired and wireless:

  • U-Verse DVR
  • Wireless U-Verse receiver
  • 2x Blu-Ray player
  • 2x Denon receivers
  • Gen3 AppleTV
  • Roku 3
  • 2x Kindle
  • 2x iPhone
  • iPad
  • Nest thermostat
  • Dropcam
  • iMac
  • Macbook Pro
  • Mac Mini
  • Amazon Dash Button

That's 19 devices. In addition, lots of parents and friends devices are configured to join our wifi network when they visit. >20 devices connected is normal in my house, and I only expect this number to increase going forward.

The 2WIRE gateway does not handle that many clients gracefully. I believe it to be a shortcoming of its NAT implementation. It doesn't seem to be an issue with the wireless; many of these devices are wired and all are affected by the problem.

To address this, I bought an Apple Airport Extreme (the most recent model with 802.11ac support). This brought MUCH greater range and speed for my wireless devices, which was part of my goals.

Initially, I configured it in bridge mode, but the 2WIRE's NAT shortcomings still apply in that scenario, so I quickly changed it to a double-NATted configuration.

There are a handful of reasons this is no good:

  • some devices (e.g Dash button) don't work when double-NATted.
  • the U-Verse DVR and receiver need to be connected directly to the RG in order to work correctly, but this prevents devices on the inner network (like my iPhone) from seeing them, so the U-Verse app cannot be used for things like playback control.
  • the Nest and Dropcam frequently lose their connections to the Airport Extreme. I'm not sure if this is related or resolvable, but I'd be happiest with a solution that resolves this.

So, my question is: Is there a way I could configure things that would let all of my devices connect to a single logical network and resolve all of my issues?

I would prefer not to buy additional hardware, but I'm not against it if it can get me a perfect solution.

Clarification: There's some additional context in the comments below. I think what I'm looking to accomplish would be best served by having the Airport Extreme handle NAT and DHCP, with the U-Verse residential gateway being a member of the AE's internal network, and the AE's DHCP reports the RG's internal IP as the gateway. I'm not sure whether AE can do that, nor whether RG can work that way, but I think I can figure out how to try. Will report back!

JakeRobb
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  • You understand you could have likely for free or for the same price as the router upgraded the gateway to a more recent model right? The solution seems simple. Connect the devices that works fine behind a double NAT configuration to the Apple router, everything else, can connect to the gateway. – Ramhound May 11 '16 at 16:55
  • I've not heard good things about handling high device counts from the newer U-Verse residential gateways. Airport Extreme claims to handle 50 devices and has worked perfectly with ~20.

    The setup you described is basically what I have now, with wifi disabled on the RG and only wired devices connected to it. In this setup, my iPhone can't talk to my DVR, and my Dash Button doesn't work at all. I want better.

     – JakeRobb May 11 '16 at 17:10
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    If it's as you say, a problem with the NAT implementation in the RG, then the problem is integral to AT&T's proprietary U-Verse gateway (RG)--and you're stuck with it because AT&T has set up their service so that there's no way to use any other device but what they provide. If there was a way to reconfigure your RG in Bridge mode (and last I knew there wasn't), it would allow you to set up a more robust router behind it. So... it sounds like you're already doing the best thing you can. – Wes Larson May 11 '16 at 19:16
  • I've been thinking about this more, and the solution I feel like would be best wouldn't use bridge mode on the RG. The RG would be connected to one of the AE's LAN ports -- just another member of the LAN, but configured with a static internal IP, not using an AE-assigned DHCP IP. And then AE's DHCP would serve the RG's internal IP as the gateway IP.

    Does that make sense?

     – JakeRobb May 11 '16 at 19:32
  • @JakeRobb how many set top boxes are you using roughly at present / plan to add? – Bryan 'BJ' Hoffpauir Jr. Feb 01 '17 at 11:43
  • If you're talking about uVerse boxes specifically, I have one primary DVR box and one auxiliary. I could see adding a third one day. If you're talking about all kinds, I currently have four (AppleTV, Roku, uVerse, and BluRay player) on the primary TV and three (same minus the Roku) on the secondary). – JakeRobb Feb 01 '17 at 12:08

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