Afternoon everyone, I hope someone can help. I am trying to get access to my modem, which is on WAN1 of my 2920 router, but cannot find a way to access it. The internet works, that's all fine, so the modem is up and working and I can access all the admin UI of the 2920 fine, but I cannot see how to access the UI of the modem from here.

My current setup is (all wired connections):
Windows 10 PC -> Gigabit unmanaged switch -> Port 1 of 2920 -> WAN1 of 2920 -> 1st Ethernet port of Plusnet Home One Router -> Dsl wall socket

When using the Plustnet Router/Modem before introducing the 2920, it's UI was on 192.168.1.254. I've tried this address and got nothing, as I expected (was worth a shot though). How do I assign an IP address in my current DHCP to route me through to the modem's UI on the WAN1 port?

Sorry if this is a really dumb question, I have tried googling and looking through results here, but I'm not an IT professional and doing my best to pick this up as I go.

Any help greatly appreciated, many thanks!

TheGoody wrote:
I am trying to get access to my modem, which is on WAN1 of my 2920 router, but cannot find a way to access it.

When using the Plustnet Router/Modem before introducing the 2920, it's UI was on 192.168.1.254.

You haven't said what address range you're using for the 2920's LAN. I'm guessing it's the default 192.168.1.0/24 ?

In which case, the first issue is that the PC doesn't even know it needs to talk to the Router ... it just uses ARP on the LAN, and says "Where are you 192.168.1.254?" ... but nothing will answer. If this is the case, it could be overcome with a static route on the PC, but it will make life easier, if either the 2920 or the Plusnet modem are moved to another network.

Just ensuring that the two devices are on different subnets, will not in itself solve the problem. Say the Plusnet Modem is now 192.168.2.1 - the 2920 will think it has to send traffic to the Default Gateway (defined by Plusnet) to reach it, which is still wrong. (Some Cable modems (which use a fixed IP address of 192.168.100.1), will intercept this traffic - but I think they're the only ones)

There are three basic ways around this (let's assume main lan is 192.168.1.0/24 and Modem GUI is on 192.168.2.0/24)

• Define an address on the 192.168.2.0/24 network for the 2920 to use on its WAN port and set this up to be a "WAN IP Alias". Then using Routing Policy, define a route to the Plusnet Modem, via this address.


• Use a extra device, between the 2920 and the Plusnet modem - see here: http://www.dslreports.com/faq/14772


• Use Draytek's VLAN-tags-on-the-WAN method, described here: https://www.draytek.com/support/knowledge-base/5212

I've visited this subject before :wink: http://forum.draytek.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=21631

Hi hornbyp, thanks for the detailed response. I had found your thread and read through that already actually, but I'm still not so hot on the jargon so it was a bit confusing (only just worked out what /24 means!)

The 2920 is on 192.168.1.0/24 as you say but I'm not really sure what subnet the modem is on. It's default is the same 192.168.1.0/24 and I have left it like that, because it just worked and I had a web connection. On the system status page of the 2920, this is what I get in the WAN section:

WAN1(Plusnet)
Link Status: Connected
MAC Address:
Connection: DHCP Client
IP Address: 192.168.1.92
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.254

The 192.168.2.0/24 subnet is listed as "IP Routed Subnet" in the LAN section of the same page. Does any of that sound about right?

TheGoody wrote:
On the system status page of the 2920, this is what I get in the WAN section:

WAN1(Plusnet)
Link Status: Connected
MAC Address:
Connection: DHCP Client
IP Address: 192.168.1.92
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.254

The 192.168.2.0/24 subnet is listed as "IP Routed Subnet" in the LAN section of the same page. Does any of that sound about right?

It looks like you have bigger fish to fry, than just lack of access to the modem's GUI...

The 2920 has failed to obtain a public IP address from Plusnet (192.168.1.92 is a Private IP address ). Presumably the Plusnet Router is still in its default Router-mode, rather than Bridge-mode? At the very least, it appears to still have an active DHCP server, and I suspect you are Double-NATting
[Double-NAT will pretty much stop all the advanced features of the Vigor from working - or at least make them more complicated to configure]

In short - without meaning to be rude - there are quite a few fundamental concepts you probably need to learn about first...

Not rude at all, I'm unashamedly picking this up as I go along, so I thank you for your patience and will look into this. I did read a few things about "bridge mode" and wondered if that might be a problem I was having. Sadly, it would appear this is not an option from the Plusnet Home One hub, I will connect into it directly later and check, but from some forum posts I've read I'm not hopeful. Looks like I will either need to change my 2920 for something with a modem built in or get a separate modem.

TheGoody wrote:
Sadly, it would appear this is not an option from the Plusnet Home One hub... Looks like I will either need to change my 2920 for something with a modem built in or get a separate modem.

That's bad news

I found a Plusnet forum thread that confirms what you already found: https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/Using-Hub-One-as-a-modem-only/td-p/1606699
There are a few different options given in that thread, which basically boil down to

• New Combined Router/Modem


• Second hand cheapo ISP Router than can be used in Bridge mode. [I found a Huawei HG633 that I've used in the past for this role @ £13 on eBay : https://bit.ly/34EhI33 ]


• Dedicated modem - such as Draytek Vigor 130