We Only Provide Support for the airCube
If you just bought a new router, note that LCWA will not help you set it up or fix it. Since Fall of 2019, we’ve written extensively in our monthly newsletters about how we are only supporting the new LCWA standard router called the airCube. So if you need a new router, simply send an email to tech.support@lcwirless.net, and we’ll prep a new airCube customized for your account, and then let you pick it up and plug it in. It’s only $33, which will show up on your next LCWA invoice.
If you bought an airCube from Amazon, BestBuy, or Walmart, here is a link for how you can configure it yourself. Or you can drop it off at a volunteer’s house and they will configure it for you to come pick up later.
If you, for some reason, decided not to follow our recommendations to opt for our standard router, and got something else, then at this point, you are on your own. Every router is configured differently, and we don’t get in involved with that. We’ll give a few instructions below that apply to all routers, but for detailed help, contact one of our recommended computer professionals. Or, if you have not yet unboxed the router, consider returning it and getting the airCube from us. That really is the easiest way to go.
General Settings All Routers Should Have to Use with LCWA
If you’ve already bought a new router, and want to keep it, and need some tips to configure it to work on the LCWA network, here are some important settings that must be made. Or if you pushed the reset button on an older router, and now need to reconfigure it, these tips apply too.
PPPOE
LCWA uses the PPPOE standard to authorize your connection to our network. So you must activate PPPOE in the router, and then enter the specific PPPOE username and password associated with your account. You can get that information by writing an email to support@lcwireless.net, and saying you need your PPPOE credentials. They will email that info back to you.
You can find some very detailed information about PPPOE settings at this article.
MTU
You should set the MTU of the router to 1480. Leaving it at the default (usually 1500) on the LCWA network will lead to issues when surfing the web—some pages will not load correctly or at all.
Turn Off 5Ghz Radios
Nearly all routers these days come with both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz radios installed and turned on. You must turn off the 5Ghz radio in your router because it will interfere with your rooftop radio, which also runs at 5Ghz. Each router has different ways to turn that off, and sometimes you have to turn it off in multiple locations—it can be difficult. LCWA won’t help with this but the computer professionals we recommend you hire will know what to do.
Note in most popular mesh systems (Eero, Google Nest, Orbi, etc) you cannot turn off 5Ghz and it might interfere with rooftop radio. So if your internet suffers, that might be it. We do have a recommended mesh system in which you can turn the 5Ghz radios off: https://lcwireless.net/setting…