Router Installation

Physical location

You want to place the router in the most central location in your house, unless your house is over 3,000 square feet or has thick walls that don't let the signal through. Then you would want two access points and we won't be dealing with that in this article. In order to place your router centrally, you can run an ethernet cable as long as you want between the modem and the router.  Often the modem is in a corner of the house where the telephone service enters. This is not ideal for the location of your WiFi signal. You can buy ethernet cables of any length and run them through a wall or ceiling. If necessary, you can hire someone to run the cable for you.  It is well worth it to place your router centrally.  You can mount it on a wall.  It is always a good idea to test the location by running the cable across the floor to the proposed location, and then testing the signal in all corners of your house.  Just walk around with a phone and see how many bars the WiFi signal is in all locations.

Connecting router to modem

There are many possible scenarios, so we will just look at the two most common ones.

Scenario 1 (most common)

There is a single modem/router from your Internet company.  There may be a second box with a cable decoder for your TV channels, but as long as it stays plugged into your modem, you won't be changing anything related to the television working.

Solution

  • Connect the router to the modem and let it handle the WiFi instead.
  • The blue Internet port in the back of the router connects to an ethernet port in the back of your modem with the provided cable.

Scenario 2

There is a modem from your Internet company and a separate WiFi router (usually with antennae).

Solution

  • You can start by removing the existing WiFi router and replacing it with the new one
    • plug the same cables back into it
    • be sure to use the new power cord.
  • The blue Internet port in the back of the router connects to an ethernet port in the back of your modem with the provided cable.

In most cases that should work, but if it doesn’t we can try to help troubleshoot it for you.

Starting the router

  • Router is plugged in to power
  • Router is turned on with push button in the back.
  • WiFi switch in back of router is set to ON
  • The blue Internet port on the router is connected to your modem.
  • Test by connecting a device to the WiFi network you named earlier, with the password phrase you chose.
  • You should have Internet. If you do not, please see our page on troubleshooting.

Is the filtering working?

Awkwardly, the only way to test for blocking is to try to go to a blocked site. As a man, I perform the test by going to badboys.com –which, when it has popped up, I find disgusting and I’m not tempted to stick around. If you are a woman, please find another site to test with!

In any case, we’re pretty confident that the sites mentioned above will be blocked by your new Norton ConnectSafe router.

Turning off WiFi on your modem

Your modem from your Internet provider will continue to put out a wireless signal.  The signal can actually jam the signal of your new router, and people can connect to it to bypass the DNS filtering.  You want to disable it, and all modems are required to have this option, although you might have to dig for the setting to turn it off.

Your modem has a control panel that allows you to log into it and change certain settings.  You will have to refer to the materials you were given when the service was installed, or, if you can't find them, than you will have to call for support or look up the information on the Internet.

If you can log into the web based control panel for your modem, you should see an option to uncheck or turn off the WiFi signal.

Certain providers like Comcast actually put out a signal that is intended to be used by anybody on the Comcast network who is in range.  Your neighbors could log in with their credentials and use your network bandwidth. Not cool! This is another reason to shut it off and to maintain your own wireless network.

That's all!

Please comment to let us know if this has helped you. We hope this helps you in your battle to reduce the negative influences of the web out of your home.