Updated on 2023-12-07

Note to self: never host your images on external services.

You recently changed ISP or upgraded your connection to an FTTH and now you have an extra Vodafone Power Station laying around, don’t you?

Don’t throw it in the trash! Instead, use it as an Access Point by following the guide below!

Your pockets will thank you!

Requirements

I’m going to refer to the Vodafone Power Station as VS.

1. Vodafone Power Station
2. Laptop or Smartphone
3. A LAN cable running from your current router to the area where you want to place your VS.
4. Web-UI credentials that can be found on the bottom side of the VS
5. A working brain

1. Factory Reset

Before going on with the guide, it’s important to check if the VS is configured or not. If it was previously used, it’s highly suggested that you’ll have to perform a Factory Reset to avoid any kind of issue.

There are two ways to perform a Factory Reset, you can choose the one you prefer:

• By pressing the reset button on the back of your VS for a few seconds.
• Through the VS Web-UI interface.

Reset Button

If you want to reset your VS through the physical button, you simply need to press it using a needle for a few seconds.
Once all the LEDs light up, you can release it and wait for the process to finish in a few minutes.

Web-UI

If you want to reset your VS through the Web-UI, you need to connect to the router first.

After connecting, even if you can’t browse the internet, you will be able to access the router (we can also refer to it as “gateway”) Web-UI.

To access the gateway, we should first check which subnet the VS is currently using; generally, after a Factory Reset, the default subnet should always be “192.168.1.0/24”, but checking it is fairly easy, so I highly suggest not to skip this part.

So, in case you don’t remember the address of your VS or you want to reset it, you can:

• Windows

  • Open “Command Prompt” or “Powershell” [ Need help? Click HERE ]
  • Type “ipconfig” and press enter.
  • Your Subnet / Gateway IP will be shown on the corresponding interface.

• Linux

  • Do I really need to tell you this?

• Android

  • As you would on Linux if you use APPs like Termux, or you simply check the assigned addresses by looking at the options that appear once you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network and click on it.
    
    

Once you’ve got the gateway address, you can then access it through any browser.
If we suppose that the Gateway IP is 192.168.1.1, the address will be: https://192.168.1.1/

P.S: If you see any HTTPS errors, you can safely skip them. These are mostly due to self-signed HTTPS certificates being used.

Then, the router will ask for a username and a password, that you should already have, as requested in the Requirements.
After entering the credentials, you can finally log in.

You can find a button to perform the Factory Reset within the “Settings” options.

After clicking the button and confirming, the router will start blinking. Wait (up to 5 minutes) for the process to end and then start finding your gateway address again, this time you will actually be able to configure it as an access point.

2. IP Settings

Before going on by adding the “General Router” features, you should first change the gateway subnet to something else if it matches the one you used in your original router (the one that will provide the connection).

Any conflict won’t let both routers work, so be careful.

In my case, I’ve decided to set the VS to use the 192.168.10.0/24 subnet and connect it to the main router through DHCP.
In this way, my main router will manage everything.

To set your subnet, you need to set your Mode to “Advanced User” using the options available in the upper right corner. After enabling this functionality, you will see many new options appearing in the interface.

You can set your preferred address through Settings -> IPv4.

Always check that the local DHCP pool also gets updated.

You can then click the “Apply” button.

3. Wi-Fi Settings

You can now change the Wi-Fi name and password. Due to this configuration not being “mesh”, our original Wi-Fi network and the AP need to have different SSIDs. To change your Wi-Fi settings, you can browse the Wi-Fi tab of your gateway. Edit it according to your needs. :)

4. Generic Router mode

After the setup of your custom subnet and Wi-Fi settings, you can now apply the most important option.

The VS itself provides a way to use it as a “generic router” by supplying an internet connection through the WAN port.

In order to edit this option, you need, to be in “Advanced User” mode, as we did in IP Settings.

Once you enabled it, you can access the “Generic Router” settings through Settings → Generic Router.

Here, configure the WAN port depending on whether the original router is ADSL or fiber.

In my case, I added a “WAN FIBER” option and gave it the following options:

1. Used for: Data
2. Connection Type: DHCP

After clicking the Save button, everything is done.

You will be able to browse the internet without any problems just by connecting the LAN cable, coming from our original router, to the WAN port of the VS.

Enjoy your new access point!

Contacts

For questions or suggestions, contact:noc@balzabu.io.