Turn Off Wireless Radio for Cisco DPQ3925

Do you want your Time Capsule to just do the wireless, or do the wireless AND all the routing and handling of traffic? You can disable the wireless as seen on page 35 and 42 of the manual. This does not turn the gateway into a modem nor does it enable "bridge" mode. You either want to trade in the gateway for a stand alone modem, or configure the time capsule as a Access Point(AP). The problem with that is if the time capsule is in AP mode it doesn't perform any of the time capsule functions you bought it to do. 

I want to use the AirPort as a network extender and just do the wireless (to take advantage of the 5 GHz band and the ac connection speed). I have to keep the Cisco because of the ethernet connections it supplies for devices in the home.  I can't fit the AirPort in the wiring closet where the Cisco Modem/router is installed so that I could use its ethernet ports.  I would like to remove the Cisco (it fails to assign IP addresses every month), but Cox told me I had to have it because of my Phone service.  I don't need to have both the Cisco and the AirPort broadcasting in the 2.4GHz band - it just wastes frequency space in my very crowded neighborhood.

David

HamsterDR said:
I want to use the AirPort as a network extender and just do the wireless

Define network extender? If you want it to "just do wireless" then are you going to be turning everything else in the time capsule off? DHCP? Backup service? It has a way of just acting as a wireless NAS, but it needs to be configured as such.

HamsterDR said:
I have to keep the Cisco because of the ethernet connections it supplies for devices in the home.

The time capsule has 3 ethernet LAN ports on the back. If you need more, your better off getting a unmanaged or "dumb" switch. Otherwise devices wired to the gateway won't be able to talk to devices wired or wireless on the Time capsule. This decreases the effectiveness and performance of performing backups, which is the main purpose of the time capsule. See this post on Apple forums which better explains my point.

HamsterDR said:
I can't fit the AirPort in the wiring closet where the Cisco Modem/router is installed so that I could use its ethernet ports.

So do you have a ethernet going from wiring closet to room where Airport is? Or are you using the Airport as a wireless repeater?

HamsterDR said:
Cox told me I had to have it because of my Phone service.

That is partly true. You need a phone modem for your phone service, but there is no reason you need to use THAT modem. They can give you something like a DPQ3212 which is a phone/data modem only. You can either use that instead of the DPC3925, or they can set it up so the DPQ3212 does the phone while the DPC3925 does the internet. 

HamsterDR said:
it just wastes frequency space in my very crowded neighborhood.

Very considerate of you. Your intent and basic idea is sound, I just don't think it's the optimal solution IMO. But if that's the best solution for you, then by all means, just disable the wireless on the DPC3925. Then only worry about it if you have problems?

Clearly, I don't understand all the details of what is going on.  I have a small wiring closet where all my network connections are made.  My home ethernet connections are made in this closet - there is an ethernet connection to a port in my computer room (and the AirPort is connected to this ethernet connection and my Windows PC is connected via ethernet to the AirPort).  Also in this closet are three other ethernet connections to devices in my house - in particular, one that connects to my Sun Power Solar Panel monitoring, the NV Energy Whole House Battery System (part of an NV Energy/DOE experimental project just starting in my community), the HAC system thermostats, and the security system (which actually has _another_ Wi-Fi router in the closet.  So, I can't use the Air Port ethernet connections for those network connections - because the cables are in my cabinet and the Air Port is sitting on my desk in my computer room (an upstairs bedroom).  I have the Wi-Fi radio turned off on the Cisco device now, and everything seems to be working.  In fact, rebooting the Air Port seemed to have fixed by connection problems to my printers - which was one thing that started this whole effort.  The benefit I get from the Air Port Time Capsule is the 5 GHz band and the ac network connection which is (theoretically) much faster than the 2.4GHz "n" network being supplied by the Cisco box (all my Macs support this).  And, I can use the Time Capsule for my MacBook Air Time Machine backups.

I believe you are correct that what I really need from Cox is a basic Docis 3 cable modem and router - so that I can support my home ethernet connections (in the wiring closet) and then use the Air Port for all my Wi-Fi networks.  I am waiting for Cox to actually roll out the faster Gigabit network and then upgrade all the equipment at that time.  I have to have an expert to do this work, however - my network connections are unbelievable complicated.  It seems like every time one vendor does some work, something else is disconnected.  (My Sun Power monitoring has not been working now for some reason.)  Ugh.

David

HamsterDR said:
Clearly, I don't understand all the details of what is going on.

Thats understandable, sounds like you have a decently complex network. 

HamsterDR said:
 I am waiting for Cox to actually roll out the faster Gigabit network

What area do you live in? How much time do you plan on waiting? It might be a couple years before some areas see Cox's fiber, and some won't see it at all. 

HamsterDR said:
 I have to have an expert to do this work,

Who did you have do work before? Any warranty on that work? I can make suggestions, but without understanding the full scope of the situation, my recomendations are going to be inaccurate. Like is the entire network on the same subnet? Is there any port forwarding in place? What devices need to talk to each other?  I think a professional is the way to go, especially if your home security is tied to it. 

I'm in Las Vegas, and Cox is advertising Gigabit here - but not currently at my address.  I live in a new community and I believe we have fibre to the community, so maybe this will be available sooner rather than later.  I don't actually have any complaints about speed now, but we do very little TV streaming.  My neighbor across the street (who has a teenage son who streams everything) had to buy a commercial package because they kept exceeding the data limits each month.  I haven't come close yet - but I am in the process of backing up about 2 TB to the Amazon Cloud so I am monitoring this.

Everything is working fine now - even my printers are working - so I am not going to make any more changes.  NV Energy has promised to coordinate the Sun Power connection fix - Sun Power has to come out to inspect the battery system anyway.  Strangely there is an IP address assigned to the Sun Power connection, but no data is being passed.

My problem is that I have both Cox and NV Energy techs messing with my network now - and I had DirecTV and ADT messing with it before.  Some techs are better than others - the last Cox tech doing my home security setup was nice, and actually fixed a lot of my wiring - it used to be worse.  I was told by the company that did the low voltage wiring for my house for the builder that the house was wired for megabit ethernet - but it is Cat 5e cables throughout and it does support gigabit ethernet.  My Sun Power connection had a bad plug - and worked for megabit but not for gigabit.  The last Cox install moved the Sun Power connection to connect directly to the Cisco modem which supports gigabit - and failed the connection.  It took a couple of hours to figure out the plug needed to be rewired.

Thanks for the suggestions.  Now, if i could just get Cox to have a reliable HBO HD channel connection......

David