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How to disable wireless on your personal router

As you can imagine, thousands of wireless routers in a relatively small area can cause interference and slow internet connections down for everyone.  As such, Clarkson University prohibits the use of personal wireless routers/access points. If you need additional wired ports in your room, you are permitted to use a network switch or use a router if and only if the wireless radios have been completely disabled.

Note that simply disabling the SSID broadcast is NOT sufficient and operating such a wireless network violates student and employee regulations.

General Instructions to disable wireless:

On some routers and modem-router combo units, there may be a physical switch or button to turn off the WiFi. Typically though, you will have to follow the following steps:

  1. From a device connected to your wireless router/access point, open a web browser and go to your router’s web interface (typically noted on the bottom of the unit).
  2. Log in with the username and password. Use the default one provided by the manufacturer or again check on the bottom or back of the unit. 
  3. From the web interface, look for wireless settings, and you should have the ability to turn off WiFi on the device. You may have to do this a second time; once for each of the radios (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, etc.) 
  4. After the change has been saved or applied, your router should restart.
  5. After disabling WiFi on your other router, your wired devices should automatically connect.

Wireless Data Network