I'm trying to switch to a hotspot, Sprint Franklin r850 LTE.
Because that hotspot does not have the power of my old DSL wifi, I needed an extender or some other way of covering my whole house.
I researched it a bit and got a Netgear WN3000RP N300 WiFi Range Extender specifically because it has an ethernet port for the Ooma. I found a couple of posts on Amazon from folks who said they made it work with Ooma.
My current configuration is r850 hotspot - extender with ethernet port - ooma.
My problem is that I'm getting blinking red lights. I've done factory reset, power cycle, and messed around with static ips to no avail.
I'm directly plugged into the Home network port of the Ooma with my laptop (wifi off). From here I can access configuration pages for Ooma, the extender, and the hotspot.
I can access internet from my laptop, so connectivity is not a problem. The hotspot and extender are close so signal isn't a problem.
Here's some relevant info on each of the devices:
*Ooma*
Home page: Internet connected, Ooma network not connected
Status page: Internet and Home network have IPs, Ooma tunnel is connected. All applications are running with port #s
Status.Ports page:
Internet: 192.168.128.5
Broadcast address: 192.168.128.255
Netmask address: 255.255.255.0
Also static IP configured to 192.168.128.1 as DNS and router address
*Extender*
Is dynamically getting IP addresses from hotspot (currently 192.168.128.10)
Shows wired connection for Ooma with IP 192.168.128.5
Assigns a virtual mac address to the Ooma (apparently extenders commonly do this.
If I manually assign that virtual mac to the Ooma, the extender just assigns a new virtual one.
*Hotspot*
Shows Ooma virtual mac address as connected
Shows extender mac address as connected
No firewall rules
IP address 192.168.128.1
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
Assigns IPs in the range 192.168.128.10 - 192.168.128.100 (DHCP on)
UPnP is on
Summary:
I've got the Ooma currently set up with a static IP outside the range of the DHCP server on the hotspot, there's no firewall, I can connect through the ethernet on the extender directly on my laptop or connect the Ooma to the ethernet port on the extender and my laptop to the Home network port of Ooma and get internet fine either way. The Ooma home page shows "Not connected - Attempting to connect to the Ooma network" but that is the only visible error message in that interface. The only hardware error message is a fast blinking red light (~3-4 flashes/sec).
**UPDATE -- SOLVED**
I tried connecting the Ooma to the extender and the extender to my old DSL modem/wifi router, and that works with default/auto configuration. The Ooma is plugged into the extender's ethernet jack, and the extender is now extending the old wireless network projected by the DSL modem/wifi router.
That made me think that the problem was somehow with my r850 hotspot.
I did a port scan from the Ooma web interface (Tools->Basic scan and Tools->Advanced scan)
When connected to the DSL wifi, Basic shows 53 denied and Advanced shows 123 denied
When connected to the r850, Basic shows 53 denied and Advanced shows 123 & 1194 denied
I googled around port 1194 and noticed it is associated with VPN services.
Then I remembered in my r850 configuration page, there is an option for VPN (not in the firewall section; firewall has been turned off the whole time)
For those who want to follow this in the future
- go to you r850 configuration page (http://myhotspot)
- go to Settings -> Advanced router -> LAN Settings
- find option "VPN passthrough" and enable it
That was all I needed to make this work
