Your Internet Router: Care and Feeding for Security and Long Life

As you may know, LCWA is responsible for managing the operation of the outdoor Santa Fe area network, which includes the LCWA radio on your roof. But Members are responsible for their routers (and computers) inside the house. If you have problems with your router, our volunteers will try to help you by email or phone, but there are limits to what we can do. This article is to give you a few tips on how to maintain your router for security and long life, to avoid future router issues or even fix existing ones. 

What is a Router?

Your router is a small to medium-sized electronic box, located indoors, that attaches to the end of the cable from your outdoor rooftop radio. Generally, it’s the thing with all the blinking lights on it (sorry if that’s obvious!). Most people have Wi-Fi built into their router and that’s how their computers connect to the router. But some of you might have a wired connection (Ethernet) between the router and your computer.

The Router basically Does Three Things:

• It translates the Internet signal, so your computer can use it, including (for most of you) creating Wi-Fi inside your house.
• It provides some firewall protection (it acts as a “traffic cop” to keep out unwanted traffic).
• And it provides your LCWA “credentials” to the LCWA network; this last thing is what prevents unpaid users from getting access to the Internet through our network.

Knowing whether your Router is Working or Not

If your Internet is down it’s most likely either your router or some part of the LCWA network (which includes the radio on your roof). If you call our tech support, then usually within a day we can remotely test the LCWA network right up to and including the radio on your roof. If those are shown as working, then it most likely is your router.

Fixing your Router

If your router appears to not be working, or even if you are not sure if it’s the router or the network that is at issue, then here are some steps to take.

• The first thing to do is reboot your computer. You see, sometimes it’s your computer (not the router or the network).
• If that doesn’t work, the next thing to try is to pull the power on the router, wait 90 secs, and plug it back in. That will often fix things (but it may take 2-3 minutes for your computer to show Internet access again, so be patient).
• If that does not fix things, then do the same for the rooftop radio: pull the power, wait 90 secs, and plug it back in.
• If that does not fix it, and tech support has confirmed the network up to your house is fine, then call us and we will configure and loan you a replacement router for you to pick up to see if that fixes the problem.
• Note, an on-site visit to your house to fix your router is generally not included in your monthly LCWA fee. But there are professionals in the community who will, for a fee, come to your house to fix things (call our support line for their contact info). They can also design “campus systems” for you if you have a very large house, or have multiple buildings, and your single Wi-Fi just isn’t reaching everywhere.

Buying a New Router: Recommended Models

If you know you need a new router, we recommend the following brand/models. For a very inexpensive but good model, get the Ubiquiti AirCube, it’s our latest recommendation for all users. It’s about $30 and we will configure and let you pick one up, just call us. It’s a very good choice.

Another at a higher price point (about $80) and with more feature like parental controls, is the Linksys EA6350. However we are no longer a fan or Linksys due to some security issues and you have to be careful to turn off the 5Ghz radios in this router if you get it.

We generally don’t recommend the very expensive “high speed” routers because they use that Wi-Fi 5Ghz radio frequency that interferes with our rooftop radio signals, and they often don’t configure easily. Even lower-end routers can have a conflicting radio setting. See the bullet below about turning off the 5 GHz channel on your router.

Care and Feeding of Your Router

Even if your router appears to be working, there are a number of things you can do to keep it working better:

• The number-one thing we recommend is that you buy a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) for both your router and rooftop radio (one for both). This will feed both your router and radio some nice clean power. You see, 90% or our service calls are caused by router issues, and 90% of those are caused by power glitches—which are virtually eliminated by a UPS. Go to this article to see how to pick one and use it; it’s easy.
• Keep routers out of direct sun.
• Make sure the cables into your router are well seated—plugged in fully.
• Locate your router as high as possible in a central location for best Wi-Fi coverage.
• Hard plaster and adobe walls have metal sheathing that can limit Wi-Fi coverage, so place your router away from there.
• If you install and configure your own router, you should change the default admin password (and write it down on a note attached to the router). Changing that password will keep remote router hackers out (this is more and more common these days).
• When you install your own router, you should turn off the 5 GHz channel and only activate the 2.4 GHz one. That’s because the 5 GHz channel conflicts with our rooftop radio frequency and can lead to Internet access problems.
• If your router is very old, say three years or more, we recommend either 1) updating your router’s internal firmware, or 2) obtaining a new router (like the airCube). Reason: Internet protocols and security measures change over time, and old routers will slow down or stop working if not updated. Or they can be subject to hacking.
• Do not use more than one router in your house; that can lead to access problems. You CAN use more than one Wi-Fi access point for large homes; that’s called a campus solution, but you’ll probably need knowledgeable help to install that.

That’s it!