Setup of TP-Link TD W8970.

This article is for a novice who is venturing into modem/router set-ups for the first time. 

Connecting the Modem Router: See Fig 1.

1)  Connect the ADSL Line.

Use a separate external splitter which 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. To connect to the wall jack

• PHONE. To connect to the phone set.

• MODEM. To connect to the ADSL port of the modem.

1) 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 address eg: Open DNS, Google DNS, Comodo DNS, Google DNS.

Open DNS 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220 & 208.67.220.222 & 208.67.222.220

& 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 eighteen main menus (Fig 6a See below) on the left of the Web-based utility. On the right, there are the corresponding explanations and instructions.  

Operation Mode.

Click on ‘Operation Mode’, and you will see the screen as shown in Fig 7 Select ‘ADSL Modem Router Mode’

Click ‘Save’. After Saving the Modem will reboot.

Next Click on ‘Network’ then ‘WAN Settings’ Fig 8.

 

And you will see the WAN Port Information Table like in Fig 9 

 

Where we Click on ‘ADD’ & we come to the following fig as seen below Fig 10 where we configure the parameters for ATM and WAN Service.

In ‘WAN Service Type’

Connection Type should be PPPoE (MTNL Mumbai)

VPI = 0 & VCI = 32

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

User Name is your Tel No.&;

Password is your CA number (found on your Tel bill.

Encapsulation Mode & ATM DoS Type SHOULD NOT BE changed

Connection Mode should be ‘Always On’

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.

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

Click on ‘Save’.

Click on Network ->LAN Settings menu, and you will see the LAN screen (shown in Fig 11).

 

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

Click on Network->DSL Settings

DSL Modulation Type: Select ‘Auto’.

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

Now we do the setup for the WiFi.

Wireless.

Wireless. Click ‘Wireless’, there are six submenus to configure Wireless LAN settings. In model TD-W8970 it should like in Fig 13.

Basic Setting.

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.