Changing router but keeping mesh wifi

IslaView · 29 Oct 2022 at 08:09

I've got 5x Tenda Nova (2x MW6 and 3x MW3) in my house. I'm about to change Internet providers, so will be getting a new router. The problem is that I may be offshore when the new router arrives.

Am I right in thinking that my current mesh network can just be plugged in to the new router and work straight away, or would I need to reset and start again? Not sure the family will cope with only the supplied router for WiFi as we struggle for signal in some parts of the house without the mesh network.

b0rn2sk8 · 29 Oct 2022 at 08:36

It depends how you have it configured at the moment

Presumably the tenda system is only serving as WiFi access points then yes. They’ll want to turn the WiFi off on the new ISP router if they can. Not a deal breaker, just not ideal.

If it’s doing anything else such as DHCP then probably not and some configuration will be needed.

IslaView · 29 Oct 2022 at 08:51

I've set it up so we can wander round the house without losing any signal, hopping from one node to the next. Nothing more than that really, so I'm assuming by your reply it should be straight plug and play.

I'm not massively techy, but my wife is even less so. I'll need to write her a step by step instruction for swapping it over if I do end up being away

b0rn2sk8 · 29 Oct 2022 at 09:14

like I said, it depends

Your typical ISP box is actually 3 pieces of equipment in one. It’s a modem, a router and a WiFi access point (for FTTP don’t don’t need the modem, for FTTC you do).

In simple terms, the modem function takes the signal from the phone line and turns it into something you can use. The router assigns addressed to all your equipment and routes the relevant network traffic to it. The WiFi access point does the wireless bit.

Some ISPs allow you to disable various functionality, others don’t. Out of the box it will be a router and a WiFi access point. Don’t worry about the modem part, it will sort that out itself.

If I remember correctly, the Tenda system can also act as a router and WiFi access point (the main node that plugs into your ISP equipment).

If you have your tenda system set up to just be WiFi access points then it should just plug and play.

If you put your existing ISP router into a modem only mode and the Tenda system is taking on the function as a router, configuration is required on either the tenda or the ISP equipment. You don’t want 2 routers on the same network as it can cause problems. I’d just have the tenda as WiFi only and leave the rest to the ISP equipment.

Either way you’ll want to disable the WiFi on the ISP router so it doesn’t cause interference.

sandys · 29 Oct 2022 at 12:40

With my mesh gear it just required unplugging old from wan port and plugging in new, leave it a minute or so and house network would be served by new gear, the problem would be things like wifi on new gear being enabled, it is not ideal but they will still likely work fine.

The only other problem I had with mesh was with Sky Q, if I removed my router because of an outage to plug in my 5g router the mesh would no longer pickup on the WAN port as Sky took over the network as the mesh gear would accept any port as WAN and decided the Q box was the gateway. In this scenario, I had to unplug sky ethernet, plug in new router let if sort itself out anf plug sky back in.