How to Use Own Router with AT&T Fiber

AT&T follows the same bizarre rules that most internet providers seem to follow:
they only want you to play with their toys. Many excuses exist, like security or
assisting you during the dreaded customer support call, but the fact of the matter is
that most third-party routers are just better than that provided by the provider
themselves.

Netgear, Linksys, TP-Link, and so on, all have offerings that can make better use of
your fiber broadband you’re shelling out for with better Wi-Fi signals across the
house or if you live in an apartment building, helping cut through the noise that
multiple devices can cause in one place.

So it’s no coincidence that AT&T has a massive hill to overcome if you want to use
your own router. Getting out of their ecosystem and into your own just means that
they can’t upsell you on repeaters or a newer router towards the end of your current
contract.

But fear not, as help is at hand and we’ll help you break the shackles of the dreaded
broadband provider… sort of.

See, AT&T still require the router to be in the lineup of devices to act as the gateway
for your connection – pretty much to determine whether you’re a legitimate
customer – and you’ll need to keep it on at all times as we daisy chain routers
together in this attempt at getting you a better overall experience.

How to Use Own Router with AT&T Fiber

Find your router’s IP
Routers across the world all deal with similar strings of IP addresses. For those not
sure, an IP address is the unique set of numbers that your connection places onto
each device that connects to it, literally like an address, and is used as an identity for
the device when communicating with the router.

Before we do anything remotely more complex than guessing, an AT&T router will
usually use one of two defaults: 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.254. This will bring you
to the administration page for the router.

If you’ve never really changed any settings on your router, the login will be admin
and then your modem should have a sticker or leaflet included with it that gives you
the right login under “system password” or “device access code”. This password
could also be blank or admin.

However, if you’ve already changed them at some point, you’ll want to type in your
credentials.

We only have access to a PC at the time of writing, so for Mac devices, we’ll have
no images.

Find IP Address on Windows

In Windows 10 and 11, you can head to the designated search bar or icon in the
taskbar and type in ‘cmd’ or ‘command prompt’ to access the famous black box.
STEP
2

Run CMD

If you have this turned off for whatever reason, you can still do the classic Run into
CMD by loading up ‘Run’ and typing in ‘cmd’.

STEP
3

In the Start Menu

Windows also now collate the Command Prompt in the same Windows System
folder in the start bar.

Finding your router's IP on macOS

In the upper bar, click the Apple icon and go to System Preferences. You can also
press Command + Space to bring up the search option and type in Network.
STEP
2

System Preferences
In System Preferences, choose Network and it’ll bring up a window with all your
current connections. From here, you want to choose Advanced.

STEP
3

TCP/IP
In the menu bar, next to Wi-Fi, there’s TCP/IP which will contain the information
you need under ‘Router’.

Find IP on Android and iOS

For Android devices, it’s recommended you use Wi-Fi Analyzer or a similar app
from your devices’ app store, while for iPhones, this can found in the Settings app
and in the menu after tapping the currently connected Wi-Fi network. It’ll be listed
as ‘Router’.

You will now have the IP address and be able to head into AT&T’s router
options.
1

Swap from Wi-Fi to Ethernet

On most AT&T routers, you’re going to need to disable the 2.4GHz and 5GHz
signal, so that when you connect up your new router, you won’t have two conflicting
signals trying to grab your device.

In Home Network on the top settings band, choose Wi-Fi and disable Home SSID
and Guest SSID. If you’re not connected over Ethernet at this point, you’ll lose your
connection.

STEP
2

Packet Filter
Next, in Firewall, there’s Packet Filter, which will have the option to disable it. The
router will be taking care of this from now on, so there’s no need for the AT&T
modem to be using it.

STEP
3

Firewall Advanced and IP Passthrough

Then we need to go Firewall Advanced and turn everything off. Don’t fret.

Once we’re done in Firewall Advanced, go through to IP Passthrough and turn

Allocation Mode to Passthrough. Underneath, Passthrough Mode. Here choose
either Dynamic or Static.

Side note about IP Passthrough

You might find one mode works, while the other doesn’t here. It’s a bit of a shot in
the dark, but to simply put it: ensure your AT&T Modem is only hosting the router
you want to use in its Ethernet ports. Everything else is going to go into your third-
party router, so there’s no need for it other than this.

Dynamic Mode will assign an IP to everything that connects, while Static is for a
singular device. Folk online have issues with each, so it’s really dependent on what
you can get working. If anything goes wrong, that’ll be one thing you want to
change.

STEP
4

Save and Check

Press save and back to Status. In here, everything other than IP Passthrough should
be off.

STEP
5

Plug in Router and Check Subnet

You should now be good to go, plugin and set up the new router, but you’ll want to
ensure that the Subnet it uses is set to another string of numbers. In this case,
because AT&T is using 192.168.1.254, go ahead and set the new router to
192.168.2.254 or something along those lines, ensuring that there are no conflicts.

This will be different for each router and you’ll have to check your user manual for
how to do this for your specific brand.