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TW replaced my Apple router with theirs.

Hi Scotty,

I finally dumped earthlink and moved to the AT&T U-verse platform yesterday. Our neighborhood had fiber optic lines laid a few weeks ago (the first area in Charlotte). While it will still be a few months before they go live, we will be the first to go live in Charlotte which will be great. SO right now I have a decent 12Mbps download speed on copper (definitely better than 6Mbps with Earthlink).

Here is my issue: I have Time Capsule in my On-Q panel as my router (quit using as a back up drive about a year ago after problems - now just use plug back up drives). When AT&T came they installed their combo modem and router. I have 3 airport expresses throughout the house to extend the wifi reach. When we plugged AT&T hardware into Time capsule it worked but started receiving lots of error messages when tech was testing.  I really don’t need Time capsule anymore, but I would like to use the airport expresses. Can they be configured to work with the AT&T router/modem? MY printer of course is tied to one of the expresses as well. My computer keeps trying to revert back to my old network as well (router is unplugged, expresses are not though). Is it a simply fix you can tell me how to do or should I schedule an appt.?
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The fix is a little involved. It’s very common to see TW or ATT service guys come in and break apart the network. However, it’s totally fine to have the TW modem/router live within the same ecosystem as the apple routers. Just ask the other three or four hundred people I know that have it set up this way. It frustrates me to no end because this could all be avoided if the TW or ATT guys knew how to use airport utility. Basically one router has to be in charge of handing the IP addresses out. (this is called DHCP)

Now, even though I hate time capsule as a backup system, it’s still a perfectly good router. And I’m glad to hear that you don’t use it as a backup but you use connected drives instead. Good choice. Time machine is great but not when used in combination with Time Capsule routers.

The expresses will not work solely with the TW router without the main apple router. They only take orders from another apple router. So in my opinion, that time capsule router should be put back in place and forget about using the TW modem/router as a router. You’d only use it to feed internet to your Apple router. You can schedule a session and we can take care of that.
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