Kill the 2WIRE – Renaming your U-verse Router

AT&T U-verse modems all come pre-installed with default names (2WIRE123) and default passwords (10 digits).  That is boring, and not easy to remember.  Picking your router from all your sheep neighbors can be difficult if your urban density is high, and the 10 digits are not the ones you need.

If you connect your computer to the modem directly with an ethernet cable, you can manipulate these things.  There is a default IP address for ALL routers.  If they’ve politely implemented it, you can access it at http://192.168.1.254/ – though there are other addresses used by different manufacturers.  The U-verse modems have a quite nice interface to manipulate the settings. (I’ve recently found that http://gateway.2wire.net/ might get caught by the modem as well.)

There’s a link at the bottom labeled “Wireless”, which is the equivalent of clicking on the tabs Settings->LAN->Wireless.

full screen (notice you can see the devices that have connected):

Which will take you to a page where it should be obvious where to change the name and/or password for the Wi-Fi:

I like the network name (SSID) to be something useful.  I put my address there.  If a neighbor wants access, I give them the password.  That’s how I roll.  And I prefer a custom Wireless Key so that I can easily give it to visitors. I suggest everyone use

1
bill!IS!awesome.

 Your local security expert may suggest something else, but 10 digits is just annoying.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2012 at 5:00 amand is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Kill the 2WIRE – Renaming your U-verse Router”

  • tg Says:
    May 10th, 2012 at 7:27 am

    Thanks Bill!! Very helpful.

  • Kris Says:
    August 15th, 2012 at 10:06 pm

    this ruled thank you so much

  • Katie Says:
    February 26th, 2013 at 9:56 pm

    I have been trying to follow this and when I get to the screen that I should enter the current 10 digit password on, it tells me it’s incorrect. What am I missing here? Is it a certain browser that I need? I’m accessing it on an iPad so I’m curious if that could be the issue as well. Any guidance is appreciated!

    [Depending on where you are, it could be one of two passwords. There are 2 passwords on the router. A hardware password and a wireless password. If it hasn't been modified (or if the router has been reset), the passwords are both printed on the device. The wi-fi password is in a very prominent location on a sticker and also on the device as "Wireless Network Key" (in my case). The hardware password is in the fine print on the device as "Device Access Code". -Ed.]

  • Bob Says:
    April 4th, 2013 at 9:37 pm

    Still works. Thanks for the tip, very helpful.

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