Our trusty old Orbi mesh system needs to go into the in-laws new house. They are currently on a 300Mb fibre connection with a standard Chorus ONT and a HG659 Spark modem; the wifi from this peters out about halfway down the hall to the bedrooms. But I have a spare RBR50/RBS50 system so all will be well, right?

If I turn off the wifi from the HG659, use it in bridge mode and run a LAN connection to the Orbi everything is fine; the Orbi creates a considerably stronger wifi signal around the house even without the satellites.

So I have previously managed to remove the HG659 and let the Orbi connect direct to the ONT. If I apply https://www.pbtech.co.nz/NetgearISPSettings on the Orbi and click VLAN tagging, and run an ethernet cable from the ONT to the 'in' on the base station I get the purple glow of doom and no internet connection.

I note the Spark connections look to need a username and password for a PPPoE connection - now the chances of my father-in-law knowing these are infinitely small - is this a Helpdesk discussion or can these be left to defaults? Are they actually needed?

Turns out the satellites need a firmware update too, but that's a problem for another evening!

Any ideas what I'm missing?

Many thanks

b