Seting up TP-Link TD-W8968

Recently I had an opportunity to setup TP-Link TD-W8968 which is a ADSL modem cum WiFi router. This article is for a novice who is venturing into modem/router set-ups for the first time.This post is for MTNL/BSNL on ADSL+  connections.

Connecting the Modem Router: See Fig 1.

1)  Connect the ADSL Line.

You can use a separate splitter. External splitter can divide the data and voice, and then you can access the Internet and make calls at the same time. The external splitter has three ports:

• LINE: Connect to the wall jack

• PHONE: Connect to the phone sets

• MODEM: Connect to the ADSL port of  the modem.

Plug one end of the ADSL cable into the ADSL port on the rear panel of the unit. Connect the other end to the MODEM port of the external splitter.

2)  Connect the Ethernet cable. Attach one end of a network cable to your computer’s Ethernet port or a regular hub/switch port, and the other end to the LAN port on the modem router.

3)  Attach the power adapter. Connect the power adapter to the power connector on the rear of the unit and plug in the adapter to a electrical point. Switch on the unit

4)  Power on the computer and LAN devices.

Next step is to configure your computers IP address. (For Win 7)

Click on the Start button->Control Panel->Network & Sharing centre. Click on ‘Change Adapter Settings’ (In the left Panel)

Fig. 2

Right click on Local Area Connection->;Properties & Double click on ‘Internet Protocol Version 4’->In the General Tab-& Select ‘Obtain an IP automatically’  then select ‘Use the following DNS Addresses’

59.185.3.10 & 59.185.3.12 
You are free to use any DNS addresses eg: Open DNS, Google DNS Comodo DNS.

Open DNS 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220 & 208.67.220.222 & 208.67.222.220

or Google DNS 8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4

Comodo DNS. 156.154.70.22 & 156.154.71.22

Fig. 3

You can run the Ping command in the command prompt to verify the network connection.

Please click the ‘Start’ button on your desktop, in the search field type ‘run’ & in that window type ‘ping 192.168.1.1’, and then press ‘Enter’.

If the result displayed is similar to the screen below, the connection between your PC and the modem router has been established.

Fig. 4

If in the same screen you get a display of ‘Timed Out’ it means that you’re PC has not connected to the unit.

Now for setting up this model.

The Web-based utility can be used on any Windows, Macintosh or UNIX OS with a Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari. My setup is in the Windows environment & using Mozilla Firefox.

1)    Open Firefox & type 192.168.1.1 in the address bar & pres ‘Enter’ Fig.5 (Below)

2)    A login window will appear, as seen below. Enter ‘admin’ for the User Name and Password, both in lower case letters. Then click the ‘OK’ button or press the Enter key.

If the above screen does not pop up, it means that your Web-browser has been set to a proxy. Go to Start-> Control Panel->Network & Sharing Center→Internet Options→Connections→LAN Settings, in the screen that appears, cancel the Using Proxy checkbox, and click OK to finish it.

3)    After successful login we will see the fifteen main menus (See below) on the left of the Web-based utility. On the right, there are the corresponding explanations and instructions.  

4)    If we click on ‘Status’ we shall see the fig as seen below in Fig 7. below

5)    We click on ‘Quick Setup’. Here the modem router supports three modes: ADSL Modem Router Mode, 3G Router Mode and Wireless Router Mode. Choose your desired mode and then click Next. See Fig 8 below.

ADSL Modem Router Mode: In this mode, the device enables multi-users to share Internet via ADSL using its ADSL port and share it via wireless at 300Mbps wireless 802.11n speeds. 

3G Router Mode: In this mode, the device allows multi-users to share a 3G mobile broadband connection via wired or wireless connection.

Wireless Router Mode: In this mode, the device enables multi-users to share Internet via Ethernet WAN (EWAN) using its interchangeable LAN/WAN port and share it via wireless at 300Mbps wireless 802.11n speeds. 

6)    We select ‘ADSL Modem Router Mode’. Change the VPI = 0 & VCI = 32 for MTNL Mumbai (these values which are used to define a unique path for your connection). Click 'Next'.

Fig 9.

These VCI & VPI I have mentioned above is basically for MTNL for the other ISP’s in India.

Connection Name	VPI	VCI
MTNL	0	32
BSNL	0	35
Airtel	1	32
VSNL	0	33

We then come to the Fig 10. as seen below

1)    Here we select PPPoE & then click ‘Next’. After that.

2)    We come to the ‘PPPoE’ window and we come to the Fig 11 as seen below.

3)    The ‘Username’ is one’s telephone number. ‘Password’ is the CA number given on one’s tel bill enter password again & click ‘Next’.

7)    Here we come to the 3G window (3G backup function is disabled by default.). Click Next to skip to the next step

4)     And we come to Fig 12. (Below)

Wireless is enabled.

Wireless Network Name. A meaningful name is given, avoid personal name/surnames, address etc

Region. Is changed to India.

Channel is left at ‘auto’.

Mode. Select relevant mode (more on this later.

Security. ‘Disable Wireless Security’. We shall be changing it later.

 Click on ‘Next’. We to come to confirmation page Fig 13. (Below)

Click on ‘Save’ & we come to the Quick Setup Complete page Fig 14.

Click on ‘Finish’

What we have done so far is thru the ‘Quick Setup’ there are some more entries to be done to fine tune our setup.

In Fig 15 below Click on ‘Network’ then ‘WAN Settings’

Then click on WAN Settings

and you will see the WAN Port Information Table where we Click on ‘ADD’,  we come to the following fig as seen below Fig 17

VPI & VCI entries have already been done & should read as 0/32

Connection Type should be PPPoE (MTNL Mumbai)

User Name & Password have already been entered.

Connection Mode should be ‘Always On’

Click on the two ‘Advance’ buttons on the right side of the page & we get the following Fig 18 

Encapsulation Mode & ATM DoS Type SHOULD NOT BE changed

Authentication Method can be left as AUTO_AUTH which is Default.

Enable IPv4: Check this box to enable IPv4.

Enable IPv6: Do not enable IPv6 for the time being. Maybe when MTNL starts this service it can be enabled.

Default Gateway: Select a WAN connection from the drop-down list as the IPv4 default gateway.  

MTU (bytes): Maximum Transmission Unit Size can be set to 1492, 1500 is Default.

Enable IGMP Proxy. The default value is disabled. Keep it that way.

Click on ‘Save’.

Choose Network ->LAN Settings” menu, and you will see the LAN screen shown in Fig 19.

 

DHCP Server Enable.

Start IP Address. The default Start IP Address is 192.168.1.100

End IP Address. The default End IP Address is 192.168.1.254

Leased Time. The default is 1440 minutes

Gateway is 192.168.1.1

Primary DNS Server is 59.185.3.10

Secondary DNS Server is 59.185.3.12

Network->DSL Settings

DSL Modulation Type: Select the DSL operation Modulation Type which your DSL connection uses.

Annex Type: Select the DSL operation Annex Type which your DSL connection uses. Click the ‘Save’ button to save your settings.

Wireless. Click “Wireless”, there are six sub menus to configure Wireless LAN settings.

Click Wireless ->;Basic Settings, you should see the screen of Wireless Basic Settings shown below. The basic settings for wireless networking are set on this screen.

If you remember we had enabled wireless, but disabled security. As a recap

Wireless. Click Enable

SSID. Give a name to your wireless network (but not your personal name or address)

Region. Select India from the drop down list box. Channel & Channel Width leave it as Auto.

Mode. Select the mode of your choice (depending on your type of gadgets)

11b only: Select if all of your wireless clients are 802.11b.

11g only: Select if all of your wireless clients are 802.11g.

11n only: Select only if all of your wireless clients are 802.11n.

11bg mixed: Select if you are using both 802.11b and 802.11g wireless clients.

11bgn mixed: Select if you are using a mix of 802.11b, 11g, and 11n wireless clients.

(If 11b only, 11g only, or 11bg mixed is selected in the Mode field, the Channel Width selecting field will turn grey and the value will become 20M, which is unable to be changed.)

Enable SSID Broadcast checkbox,

Click on Save.

Now check if you can connect a wireless device.

Wireless Security. Click on Wireless->Wireless Security, you can configure the security settings of your wireless network.

WPA/WPA2 - Personal: should be selected.

Authentication Type. Select WPA2 Personal.

Encryption. Select TKIP.

Wireless Password - You can enter ASCII characters between 8 and 63 characters or 8 to 64 Hexadecimal characters.

Group Key Update Period. Enter 0 to disable the update.

For generating long random passwords you can use

https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm
https://secure.pctools.com/guides/password/  

Wireless MAC Filtering.

Click on Wireless->MAC Filtering, you can control the wireless access by configuring

Wireless MAC Filtering function, seen Fig 26.

Select ‘Allow the stations specified by any enabled entries in the list to access’. What it means that only those gadgets whose MAC address is mentioned & enabled will get access to wifi from this router.

To Add a Wireless MAC Address filtering entry, click the Add Newbutton. The following page will appear, seen in Fig 27

To add a MAC Address Filtering entry, follow these instructions:

1. Enter the appropriate MAC Address into the MAC Address field. The format of the MAC Address is XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX (X is  any hexadecimal digit). For example:00:1D:0F:13:22:23.

2. Give a simple description for the wireless gadget in the Description field. For example: Nokia E63.

3. Select Enabled or Disabled for this entry on the Status drop-down list.

4. Click on the Save button to save this entry.

After this is done the last thing to be done is in the menu on the left side click on System Tools->Time Settings.

To set time manually:

1. Select your local time zone. 

2. Enter the Date in Year/Month/Day format. 

3. Enter the Time in Hour/Minute/Second format. 

4. Click Save.  or

To set time automatically:

1. Select your local time zone.

2. Enter the address or domain of the NTP Server 1 or NTP Server 2. (Some can be found at http://tf.nist.gov/tf-cgi/servers.cgi &
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/262680

3. Click on the Get GMT button to get system time from Internet if you have connected to the Internet.

Configure USB Ports

To configure the USB features? See http://www.tp-link.com/app/usb/?siteid=1

A few useful sites are mentioned below.

http://www.whatismyip.com/
http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks
https://www.opendns.com/
http://speedtest.net/
http://pingtest.net/
http://airtel.in/speedcheck