AirTies 4971 Ethernet Backhaul?

Obtained a 4971 WiFi extender. It is only available as a rental/lease at $5/month. Looks like wired backhaul is working, but it's tough to tell. All devices connected to the extender (via WiFi) show up as using a 'wired' connection on the Smart Home app.

Whatever, it's helped my Chromecast, significantly reducing buffering (eliminating it, really) and reduced deadspots in my home.

I'm not even mad about the monthly fee. I'm saving about 50% off my former Comcast plan. $60 a year to clean up my WiFi seems worth it.

I have been getting contradictory claims from the technicians and the at&t support line about the 4971. Have been trying to find a manual for this device for a while. However, I am in need of a wired connection to one of my devices and am trying to hard wire that device to the 4971, while the 4971 is wirelessly connected to the gateway. Does the 4971 support this type of use with its 2 ethrenet ports or is it just for connecting to the gateway and other extenders?

Good question.  I do not think "bridge" functionality is supported.  Officially, it is not documented.  I have seen reports of users that it did not function correctly.  I have not tried it myself.

Yes you can connect an Ethernet device to one of the Ethernet ports on the back of the 4971 and use the 4971 for wireless backhaul to your AT&T Gateway. You can even use both of the Ethernet ports to connect Ethernet devices to the 4971.

I have read at least two reports of users not having satisfactory results with this type of configuration on the 492x extenders.  It could be that their issues had nothing to do with the AirTies  capabilities.  It could be that the 4971 is better than the 492x.

My house is Concrete block with Rebar and solid concrete pours in all the corners to keep this sucker from blowing away in a hurricane.

They do those sorts of things where you live.  ;-)

Yes it tends to be the same customers that can't understand why...

Well, probably.  Bridge mode is normally so simple that even the AT&T Wireless TV Receivers bridge their Wi-Fi and their Ethernet port, so I would have expected to be simple here as well.

I ended up having issues with my 4920. It looked fine at install, but after a few months, I'd have inexplicable issues where clients would not be able to use Wi-Fi for 5-10 minutes at a time, then the problem would just vanish.  After a month or two of that, I just decided to go back to using a single ASUS router behind the BGW210, and  have been fine with that.

I received three 4971s in the mail this week and connected one at a remote area in my house and connected it to an ethernet cable that goes back to a switch then to the AT&T router. I'm not seeing anything that would indicate that ethernet backhaul is enabled. The SmartHome app shows it's connected via wifi and there doesn't appear to be any other configuration options.

I too have an AirTies 4971 (WFEXT4971-41) with Ethernet connected for backhaul, however it only seems to be able to use WiFi as shown in the app. I set it up by first bringing it close to the gateway, getting a good status light, waiting a few mins for firmware/update/settle, and then moved it the remote part of the house with the backhaul.

It does not utilize the backhaul once it's set up, but does get a DHCP from the Ethernet side. This makes me believe that the ports on the back are meant only for bridging Ethernet clients over the WiFi connection.

$ nmap 192.168.1.108
Starting Nmap 7.70 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2021-11-14 11:15 PST
Nmap scan report for ATT_4971_e43a98.attlocal.net (192.168.1.108)
Host is up (0.0041s latency).
Not shown: 997 closed ports
PORT      STATE SERVICE
80/tcp    open  http
443/tcp   open  https
49152/tcp open  unknown

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.19 seconds

No recognizable service running on port 49152.

Accessing the IP over HTTP/HTTPS asks for HTTP BASIC auth, I don't know what the user/pass here is. See https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r33140906-AT-T-Fiber-AirTies-4971.

This contradicts the PDF found at https://fccid.io/Z3WAIR4971/User-Manual/User-Manual-5008832.pdf where it says:

all AirTies mesh devices also support in-wall data cabling as an option, to establish an Ethernet backhaul

Why would the extender need to have ANY port open to function with (or without)  wired back haul? The extender operates at layer 2.

To exchange metadata with the gateway, you'd still need some layer 3 functionality. I assume this is how the extender collects the main WiFi SSID/key and configures itself. If there were no ports open it would need ports open on the gateway (BGW320-505), which has the following ports open:

$ nmap 192.168.1.254Starting Nmap 7.70 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2021-11-14 12:30 PSTNmap scan report for dsldevice.attlocal.net (192.168.1.254)Host is up (0.0083s latency).Not shown: 996 closed portsPORT    STATE    SERVICE53/tcp  open     domain80/tcp  open     http111/tcp filtered rpcbind443/tcp open     httpsNmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 1.36 seconds

I wish someone from AT&T with knowledge would pipe in. It clearly says it supports wired backhaul. I called AT&T support and of course they have no idea what I'm talking about.

I unplugged the three I got and boxed them back up to be returned. They’re worthless until the backhaul is made to work.