How to setup WAN VLAN for Nokia Optical modem on RT-AC87U?

[Richard Cooke]

I was happy with my RT-AC87U using Merlin! Everything seemed to work fine, and the WiFi range was impressive. Then my ISP offered me optical service at 500 up and 500 down for the same price I was paying for VHDSL 50/25! So I jumped at that!

They installed a Nokia optical modem. And sent me a new TP-Link Deca X50 router. It works fine, but, its a tiny thing. The WiFi range is terrible. And it cannot split the 2.4 and 5G networks. I have devices (like security cameras) that only work on 2.4Ghz networks.

So I want to switch back to my beloved AC87U. I found out my PPOE credentials. And they said you have to use VLAN 40 on the WAN port with priority 0.

How the heck do I do that?

I tried the IPTV tab, where I put in the 40 and 0 - that worked! For the Ethernet - but none of my WiFi SSIDs were visible!

So I assume there is a little more involved. My Asus manual does not mention VLAN setup at all. I see lots of posts on here, they are all doing exotic things I don't need. I just need to get all WAN traffic on a single VLAN.

Any help or link to VLAN setup tutorial appreciated!

 

[Tech9]

I see lots of posts on here, they are all doing exotic things I don't need.

Check your ISP support forums for using own router with the service. This is what you need.

The VLAN posts around are mostly LAN side VLAN related, unrelated to what you need to do.

 

[Richard Cooke]

My ISP will only support their X50 toy. If I want to use my own hardware, they will happily tell me the specs, but I am on my own.

 

[Tech9]

I mean forums where this ISP customers share information. Perhaps you are not the only one with an Asus router.

 

[Richard Cooke]

I will go and widen my search but what I need is how to set this in this router with this firmware - or Stock firmware. When I search assus-merlin+AC87U+VLAN I mostly find posts on this site, mostly in this group.

But as I said, they are all doing exotic things. I have yet to see anything about the "simple" task of getting the WAN port to use a single VLAN.

I suspect I am the first user to do this in Canada... They only recently opened up the optical network to third party resellers.

My ISP's official fix is to buy a X50 for each floor of my house. That would be 2 or 3. Market price is about $90 each.

 

[Richard Cooke]

And thank you for your prompt respone and continued input. I gretely apprecaite it!

 

[Tech9]

Who's the ISP in question?

Do you have access to the Deco unit to see it was setup?

 

[RMerlin]

Sounds like a Bell reseller as they tend to use VLAN 40.

VLAN is unrelated to wifi, it is only used for your PPPoE connection to be established with the ISP. Setting VLAN 40 on the IPTV page and entering your PPPoE credentials on the WAN page is all that's required for the Internet connection itself. Everything else related to wifi is configurable the same was as before.

 

[Tech9]

Interesting how they split Deco sets on single units. Deco X50 is sold as 2-pack and 3-pack. Someone discovered all units are identical with WAN/LAN ports.

 

[Richard Cooke]

Sounds like a Bell reseller as they tend to use VLAN 40.

VLAN is unrelated to wifi, it is only used for your PPPoE connection to be established with the ISP. Setting VLAN 40 on the IPTV page and entering your PPPoE credentials on the WAN page is all that's required for the Internet connection itself. Everything else related to wifi is configurable the same was as before.

Well that's interesting.
Tomorrow I will try this again.
As I said in the first post, the first test I had no WiFi's at all. I have 3 configured:
- 2.4Ghz
- 5Ghz
- 2.4Ghz Public (no password) for guests and neighbors whose own system is down.

All have different SSIDs. Not a single one was visible. I did check and they were all enabled. I even changed, changed back and re-saved the settings to be sure.

I assumed it was the IPTV setting that caused it.

Now I wonder if the WiFi's were offline before I even got that far. I shall test that theory.

Assuming my WiFis have stopped working entirely, any advice on that?

 

[Richard Cooke]

Who's the ISP in question?

Do you have access to the Deco unit to see it was setup?

Acanac.com

A licensed reseller in Canada, they resell everybody else!

They don't allow access to the "ISP" side of the X50. I can only see the PPOE account. It makes no mentioned of the VLAN settings, nor the MAC of the WAN jack. Although, as somebody else mentioned, it only has 3 jacks. None of which are labelled "WAN". It appears I can connect the Nokia modem into any of them. neato.

 

[RMerlin]

Assuming my WiFis have stopped working entirely, any advice on that?

Could be the wireless scheduler, could be you had wifi disabled through a button. Check the router's wifi settings.

 

[Richard Cooke]

Hah! When I was handling the router I must have pressed the WiFi kill switch on the front. I honestly had forgoten it even had that feature! I had to press it for over 3 seconds to restore it, so I must have been holding the router up to get at the cables or something, with a finger on the kill switch for long enough to Kill WiFi.

Anyway, after I turned it back ON all my WiFi's came back! In hindsight, the clue was no SSID. If the VLAN was the problem, they would likely have been present, just not moving any data.

For others, I found exactly one manual on Asus website on how to set WAN VLAN up. And there is a specific sequence they recommend. In my case, I skipped the first step - I left just my WAN jack as the primary WAN. As you will see from my earlier post, I did manage to bungle my way to getting it working, it was the lack of WiFi SSIDs that threw me off.

Here is the document link:

How to configure VLAN ID tagging for Internet connection on BRT-AC828? | Official Support | ASUS Canada

In summary, the steps they recommend are:
1. Plug modem into a switch jack, Enable Dual WAN and select the jack as Internet
- Again, I skipped this step - kept my modem in the default WAN jack
- If you do make changes, a reboot is required to apply them
2. Go To IPTV tab (LAN/IPTV for me)
3. Change ISP Profile to Manual
4. Enter the ISP specified VLAN ID beside INTERNET VID. Enter the Priority in PRIO
- I left the other fields empty, I assume they are for actual IPTV services and VOIP.
5. Go to INTERNET CONNECTION tab (WAN/Internet connection for me)
6. Change WAN Connection Type to PPoE, enter credentials
7. Apply

And my connection LED went GREEN and everything worked and I lived happily ever after.

Thank you again to everybody that responded!

Oh, and since I forgot this in my OP here is my firmware version:

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Model	RT-AC87U
Firmware Version	384.13_10
Firmware Build	Sun Jun 28 17:57:25 UTC 2020 merlin@ad8747c
Bootloader (CFE)	1.0.3.2
Driver version	wl0: Apr 27 2020 17:44:52 version 6.37.14.126 (r561982)
Quantenna Firmware	37.4.0.56

​

CPU Model	ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l) (Cores: 2)
CPU Frequency	1000 MHz