Movistar Router Smart WiFi 6 Manual – Configuration Guide

Access to configuration firmware via web

The new Movistar router is managed like any other router of the operator, we must access the address http://192.168.1.1 via the web with any browser, once inside, we have to enter the default password that comes on a sticker on the back bottom of the router (at the base), by entering this password, we can directly access the basic configuration menu of the router. We can change this password later, but it is essential that you enter it the first time you log in, otherwise you will not be able to start managing the computer.

In this article we have recorded a complete video where we explain 5 basic configuration options that you must perform to get the most out of the equipment:

We also have a complete analysis of the firmware on video so that you can see all the configuration options of the router, both in the basic menu and in the advanced menu.

There are two different addresses to access the router:

http://192.168.1.1 : this address allows you to directly access the basic configuration menu, to carry out the main configurations of the equipment. From here you can also access the advanced settings as it is available in the drop-down menu on the left. By accessing the advanced menu, we can configure in detail all the options available on the router
http://192.168.1.1/instalacion : this address allows you to directly access the ONT identifier configuration menu (IDONT), in order to establish communication with the OLT correctly and download the configuration profile assigned to our fiber line. If you access this menu with the fiber line connected, you will be able to see data such as received and transmitted optical power, however, you will not be able to change the IDONT or enter a new one if it is empty.

Now that you know how to access the Movistar router, both the basic and advanced firmware menu, as well as the IDONT installation menu in the router so that it authenticates correctly with the operator’s OLT, we are going to see the rest of the configurations that we can carry out. .

Configure the IDONT of the fiber GPON

If we go to the address http://192.168.1.1/instalacion and enter the router administration password, we can enter the equipment installation menu. In this section we can see different aspects of the router:

Router manufacturer : Mitrastar.
Equipment model : GPT-2841GX4X5.
Firmware installed : the firmware is automatically updated the first time the router is connected to the Movistar fiber network.
Router : general status of the router.
Equipment serial number.
MAC address of the router.
Received optical power in dBm.
Optical power transmitted by the OLT.
Additional Information

In the following image you can see the initial state of the router with the fiber disconnected in order to enter the IDONT correctly.

If we enter the IDONT of the previous router and click on accept, we simply have to turn off the router, connect the fiber again, and turn on the router so that it automatically begins to receive information and even updates the firmware automatically. It is very important that you wait approximately 10 minutes for all the settings to be downloaded, the firmware to be updated, and to reboot several times.

Optimization and configuration of the Wi-Fi network

The Wi-Fi network is one of the most important parts of this router, since the main novelty that it incorporates is the new Wi-Fi 6 standard , so we will have greater coverage, greater speed, and the possibility of connecting many more wireless clients simultaneously. This router has a configuration that is quite different from the previous Movistar HGU models, since on this occasion we have the band-steering functionality enabled by default .

What is the band-steering feature we have on this router? Basically it is that we have a single SSID, encryption method and access password for the two WiFi frequency bands. In previous models we had two different SSIDs, the usual WiFi network MOVISTAR_XXXX (which is the 2.4GHz band) and MOVISTAR_PLUS_XXXX (which is the 5GHz band). We now have a single WiFi network called “MOVISTAR-WiFi6-XXXX” common to both frequency bands, and we can only disable band-steering from the router’s advanced settings.

If you want to know all the configuration options that you can carry out in the basic menu, then you have all the details.

Basic Menu WiFi Configuration

In the “WiFi” section is where we can configure everything related to the 2.4GHz band, by having the band-steering functionality enabled by default, any change to the SSID or password that we make here will also be seen reflected in the 5GHz band or also called “WiFi Plus”, so you must take this into account.

In this basic menu we can perform the following actions:

Change the SSID or WiFi network name. If you have band-steering enabled, this setting will also be reflected in the 5GHz band.
Hide WiFi network name
Change the password of the WiFi network with WPA2-PSK by default. If you have band-steering enabled, this setting will also be reflected in the 5GHz band.
Change the WiFi channel number , by default we have it automatic but we can select the channel we want.

A new option has to do with the “ Installation of IoT devices ” option. By activating this functionality, for 10 minutes the 5GHz band will not be available for you to connect IP cameras, smart TVs or any other device that does not support the 5GHz band. This functionality only makes sense to use it if you have band-steering enabled, when we have this feature of joining the two bands in the same SSID, IoT devices could have problems connecting, because usually smartphones do support the 5GHz band while IoT devices not all support it. If you have band-steering disabled, there is no point in using this “Installation of IoT devices” functionality because it does not affect them at all, simply with your smartphone you connect to the 2.4GHz band and you will be able to connect without problems.

Regarding WPS , we have the WPS button enabled by default, to connect the different wireless clients easily and quickly. If we choose another encryption method other than WPA2, we will not have this feature. Finally, we have the MAC filtering that we can enable and introduce the different MACs that we are going to allow to connect to the WiFi wireless network. In the advanced menu we can define if we want a white list or a black list of MAC addresses.

As for the 5GHz band options, we have the same options as in the 2.4GHz band except for the “Installation of IoT devices” functionality that we have explained to you. Here we can make the following configurations:

Change WiFi network name . If you have band-steering enabled this setting will also be reflected in the 2.4GHz band.
Hide WiFi network name
Change the password of the WiFi network with WPA2-PSK by default. It will also be reflected in the 2.4GHz band if you have band-steering.
Change the WiFi channel number , by default we have it automatic but we can select the channel we want.

Of course, we also have the corresponding menu regarding the WPS of the router as well as the MAC filtering that we have available.

Configuring the guest WiFi network

If we go to the guest WiFi menu, we can enable an additional SSID or WiFI network name, with its corresponding WPA2-PSK password so that no one can connect, and only guests who have this password can do so. Internally, this WiFi network is isolated from the main WiFi network and also from the local network, so we will have privacy and security.

A very important aspect is that by activating this guest WiFi network, only the 2.4GHz band is being activated for our guests, we do not have simultaneous dual band in this case, so you must take this into account. How do we know? In the advanced configuration menu it appears as an additional SSID in the 2.4GHz part, and in the 5GHz part this default guest WiFi network does not appear. If you want to connect your guests to the 5GHz band, you will need to enable and configure an SSID for it.

Now that you have seen all the configuration options of the basic menu, we are going to see the advanced configuration menu.

Advanced Menu WiFi Settings

In the advanced configuration menu of the router is where we have at our disposal all the options of the equipment. If you want to configure a parameter that is not in the basic menu, then it will be available in this advanced menu. Within the configuration menu we have the 2.4GHz band with a specific configuration, and another 5GHz band with another configuration, so we have separated the tutorial into two sections, one for each frequency band. All these menus are in « Network Settings / Wireless 2.4GHz » or « Network Settings / Wireless 5GHz «.

2.4GHz band

In the general menu we can enable or disable the physical on/off button of the 2.4GHz WiFi network, we can also disable this frequency band without problems. Of course, we have the option to configure the SSID (WiFi network name), hide the SSID, select the broadcast channel manually, and also choose the security level.

This router supports different security options, the most normal is to maintain the WPA2-PSK protocol to maintain band-steering and the WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) protocol. If we choose to increase the security of this equipment and choose WPA3-SAE , then we will not have any of these functions available (neither band-steering nor WPS).

Before configuring the router with the WPA3 protocol you should review:

That all your WiFi clients in the 2.4GHz band support the WPA3 protocol . If they do not support it, they will not be able to connect because they will not see the network, or at the time of authentication it will give them an error in the authentication even if the password is correct.
There are some WiFi cards that do support WPA3 at the hardware level, but the drivers installed on your PC are very old and do not support it. Check if you have installed the latest drivers for your WiFi card .

If you configure WPA3-SAE, the router will notify you that band-steering will not work, and that all clients must support it, otherwise they will not be able to connect to the wireless network, it is something that you must take into account.

In the ” More AP ” menu is where we can see the SSID or WiFi network name of the 2.4GHz band, this is the guest WiFi network that we have enabled before. We can change your settings, including the SSID, access permissions to other WiFi networks and the local network, change the authentication, change the access password and even activate a timer so that the WiFi network turns off automatically.

In the ” WPS ” menu we have the possibility to enable or disable this functionality, in our opinion, our recommendation is that you disable WPS and never use it for security reasons, directly enter the WPA2 password directly.

The ” Advanced ” tab is where we have all the advanced configuration options for this frequency band. In this menu you should touch the following options:

802.11 mode : 802.11ax (Auto). By default it is configured as 802.11n so we will not have the Wi-Fi 6 standard but Wi-Fi 4. We have checked with programs like Acrylic for Windows that it emits with the old standard by default, you must change this option if you want Wi-Fi Fi 6.
Channel Width : it is always fixed as 20MHz, our recommendation is that it be configured as Auto(20/40MHz) to allow double the speed by occupying more channel width, however, it will work at 20MHz if there are other WiFi networks broadcasting near us .
OBSS Coexistence : if we put “enabled” we have the coexistence activated, it will work in 20MHz mode if there are WiFi networks and 40MHz if there is nobody around. If we put “disable” we have the coexistence deactivated, and it will always work in 40MHz of channel width. Having 40MHz in a high interference environment could cause sporadic dropouts and slower speeds, please use with caution and do your own testing.

The rest of the configuration options are fine as they are, however, the “PMF” will be enabled if we choose WPA3-Personal, this option depends on the type of encryption chosen.

Finally, in the ” Station information ” menu, all the wireless clients that we have connected at a certain moment will appear.

5GHz band

If we go to the advanced configuration menu of the 5GHz band, we can see all the advanced menu options. In this case, we have exactly the same options that we had in the 2.4GHz band, nothing has changed in this regard. We can enable or disable the physical button, enable or disable the WiFi network, configure the SSID, hide it, choose the broadcast channel as well as the WiFi security of the device.

If we display the different options regarding security, we can see the following:

WPA2-PSK/AES : it is the default option, if you are going to use band-steering and WPS is the one you must use.
Open/EnhancedOpen Open&OWE : Leave the network open without authentication, old computers won’t send the encrypted data and anyone could capture it. New equipment could use OWE (Opportunistic Wireless Encryption) so that we do have data encryption but no authentication.
EnhancedOpen OWE : OWE is only used for security, we don’t have authentication but we do have data encryption.
WPA2-PSK/WPA3-SAE : allows you to connect WiFi clients with the WPA2 or WPA3 protocol, taking into account that there are “downgrade” attacks, for security it is the same to select this option or directly WPA2-PSK.
WPA3-SAE : It is the most secure configuration option, only compatible wireless clients will be able to connect successfully. Before choosing this option you must make sure that all clients support it.

In the following image you can see all these options:

In the “More AP” menu is where we have the possibility to configure other SSIDs or additional WiFi networks. If we go into the configuration options, we can see the following options:

WiFi network name.
Isolate clients within the WiFi network.
Isolate clients from other BSSIDs.
Maximum number of WiFi clients on this WiFi network.
Security chosen, WPA2 is the default although you can choose WPA3 as well.

In the WPS menu we can enable or disable this protocol, remember that if you use WPA3 you will not be able to use it.

In the “Advanced” section is where we have all the advanced configuration options. In this menu you can do the following:

Enable 160MHz channel width : in the “bandwidth” menu you can do it and choose this option. We have tried to select it, and apart from disabling the possibility to choose the “high” WiFi channels of UNII2-Extended, it does not really work. Normally when this option is enabled in WiFi routers, you must wait about 10 minutes to be operational because we always take DFS channels and you have to comply with the regulations. With this router we have waited much longer, and we have never clocked faster than 1.2Gbps (which gives us 80MHz of channel width). We have used Acrylic and it does detect the extra channels and channel width, but the Intel AX211 card with the latest drivers never syncs faster than 1.2Gbps, when it should be 2.4Gbps. There may be a small bug in this section.
FAQ : If we have chosen the WPA3 protocol for wireless security, it will be enabled.
Enabled Options : By default we have different options enabled such as Beamforming, depending on whether we use 160MHz or not, some options will be disabled automatically.

As you can see, in this advanced menu we have many options available to adjust it to our needs.

Disable Band-steering and separate WiFi bands

If you want to disable band-steering and separate the WiFi bands, you must go to the ” Unique SSID ” option, choose ” Disabled ” and a pop-up message will appear indicating that band-steering will be disabled and that we can configure both separate WiFi networks without problems.

By disabling this option, automatically in the SSID of the 5GHz band we will have the name of the original WiFi network ending in “-5GHz” indicating that it is actually using this frequency band.

Our recommendation is that you separate the frequency bands into different SSIDs or WiFi network names, so that you always connect to the band you want and not be decided by the WiFi router.

Put fixed private IP to any device

If you want all your devices to always have the same private IP address, you must perform this configuration through the advanced menu. The reasons for having a fixed private IP on the different devices are the following:

If you want to open TCP and UDP ports, you must have a fixed IP to ensure that that device will not change its IP. If you change the IP, you will not have the ports open and the server you have at home will not work.
If you want to share files on the local network, either with a PC or a NAS server, and you access it through its IP address.
If you are going to play with consoles or PC, having the same IP is also important to open ports well and to share resources on the local network.

In order to do this, we go to the advanced configuration menu, and in « Network Map » we filter by list, click on the icon that we have in the upper right part, just to the left of «Refresh Interval». In this menu we choose the device the devices that we want to set a fixed IP, and mark it as “Reserve”, as you can see here:

Now we go to the ” Network Settings / LAN ” menu, and the first thing we will see will be the different equipment that we have selected before with the “Reserved”. In this menu we must do two actions, the first is to activate the ” Activate Static DHCP ” option and click on “Apply” to apply the changes. Next, click on ” Modify ” in each of the entries that we have and click on “Activate” to activate it, and click on OK.

Finally, click on “Apply” and we will have the Static DHCP perfectly operational.

Open ports on the router

One of the most important parts in configuring a router has arrived, which is opening the ports in the NAT, or rather, configuring port forwarding (Port Forwarding) on the equipment. To do this we go to the basic menu again, and in the “Ports” section is where we can configure the different ports. In this menu we will have to fill in the following sections:

Port rule name : we simply have to put a descriptive name of what we are opening, if the ports for the FTP server, VPN or any other service or game.
IP address : we must enter the private IP address of our PC, if you have set a fixed private IP with the Static DHCP that we have explained to you before, here you simply put the IP address of the device in question and you can see “Local network” from the basic menu or “Network Map” from the advanced menu.
Protocol : we can choose between TCP, UDP protocol or both (TCP and UDP).
Open port/external range (WAN) : here we must enter the port to open in the WAN, the same port will automatically be set in the LAN.
Open external port/range (LAN) : generally it is not necessary to fill it in because it will be the same as the WAN, but we have the possibility that the WAN port is different from the LAN port.

In the following image you have an example of how to open FTP port 21 to a specific private IP address.

As soon as we introduce the rule, it will go just below, we will have to activate the rule that we have just added for it to work. Here we also have the possibility to choose a range of ports using ” : ” between the start port and the end port.

If we click on “Edit” we can remove the rule that we have just created, by clicking on the X that we have on the left side.

As you have seen, configuring the ports on the new Movistar Smart WiFi 6 Router is quite simple, although it is essential that you first configure Static DHCP so that it always has the same IP address.

Configuring single user mode

If you want to configure this router in single-user mode to establish the PPPoE connection with another third-party router, and that this router has the public IP address provided by the operator, in the ” Multi-user / Single-user ” menu is where you must activate this feature. If we choose the single-user mode and click on “Apply changes”, the router will automatically be in this configuration mode to put another router later.

Remember that in the router you connect you must configure the PPPoE with the data “user: adslppp@telefonicanetpa” and the “password: adslppp”. And you should not put any VLAN ID, since the router is in charge of sending the untagged traffic (without a label) as the HGU did. This is not really a “full bridge” mode where all the tagged VLANs are passed and have the possibility of using IPTV, we will only be passing Internet VLAN ID 6, in fact, telephony should continue to work on the Movistar router without problems .

Network status with IPv6

This Movistar router is prepared for the future with the IPv6 protocol, in the IPv6 local network menu we can see the status of the network at this time, in addition, we also have the possibility of opening ports in the firewall to be accessible from the Internet to GUA (Global Unicast Address) IP addresses.

In the port configuration part, you will have to fill in the following configuration:

Port Name – We need to give it a descriptive name.
Global IPv6 address of the device : it is the public IPv6 address that each device will have.
Protocol : TCP, UDP or both.
Open Port/Port Range – Here you can easily open a port or range of ports.

Will we see the IPv6 protocol widely deployed in the Movistar network in 2023? The router is ready for it, you just need to activate it.

change router password

It is advisable to change the password to access the router, and not use the default one for security reasons. To change the password of the router you must go to the basic menu and in the section ” Change router password ” you will have to enter the old password (the one that comes by default, if you have never changed it before) and enter the new password twice.

Once we change the password, the router will automatically be logged out and we will have to log in again with the password we just entered.

Configure dynamic DNS or DynDNS

If you want to use a dynamic DNS host, either from DynDNS, ZoneEdit or No-IP, in the advanced configuration menu is where you can find this option. If we go to ” Network Settings / Dynamic DNS ” we can see all the necessary options to configure them correctly. We will have to activate this function, we can also enable support for the IPv6 protocol, and finally choose the provider of the dynamic DNS service.

At the bottom we have to choose the name of the host that we have registered, as well as the username and also the access password to authenticate correctly.

We miss that Movistar does not incorporate a “Custom” option to manually enter the data and that it is compatible with any dynamic DNS service.

General administration options

In the basic menu we can perform some basic actions for the administration of the equipment, for example, save the current configuration applied, load a previously saved configuration, restore the operator’s router to factory settings, and we also have direct access to the part of the firewall in case we want to disable it (it is not recommended to do this for security reasons), in addition, we can also enable UPnP, which is disabled by default.

So far we have come with this complete guide to the main configuration options that you must make in the Movistar router, especially in the WiFi part to have the best possible performance.

Movistar Router Smart WiFi 6 Manual – Configuration Guide | ITIGIC (2024)