HOW TO: Use a third party router on Vodafone VDSL

[jonnywombat]

On Firday afternoon Vodafone UK sent a corporate email telling their support team that they can now give out Broadband username and passwords.

I have now set up my own router, and here's what i did.

Step 1 Ring VF on 08080034515 and get your username and password. The support team member then emailed me my Log in info.

Step 2 Swap your router. Keep your VF router in case you ever get an issue and need tech support as they will not support your 3rd party device

Step 3 In your routers web interface access the WAN settings. Set connection type to PPPoE, enter username and password and leave all settings as default EXCEPT enable 802.1Q and set Vlan tag to 101.

Step 4 Save settings and apply. Your router should now connect to VF. Mine took a couple of minutes to get a connection and another couple from the router showing it was connected to actually being able to access the net

Step 5 After a few minutes the connection dropped, and it would not connect again. After investigation I was told this is to do with VF registering your router on there network. Hard reset your router. Power it down remove the power cord for 30 seconds and power back on.

Step 6 Enjoy

This is just based on my experience of setting up my router ASUS DSL-AC68U, YMMV. However the ASUS is syncd at 73.6meg, when the VF router syncd at 72.1 and I have noticed a marked improvment in performance.

HTH someone

Jonny

[Nabs]

@Bunn sounds like you have grounds to leave the contract without charge under the Ofcom Broadband Speed Voluntary Code of Practice (see link in my previous post)

[Bunn]

Thanks  for the helpNabs. I will contact VF and see what they are prepared to do. KR's Bunn

[UnPotat]

@Nabs

@MrWhite

Hey, thanks for the help all :), I've actually been able to resolve the issue, at least in terms of routers, I took your advice and this time went onto Live Chat rather than over the phone, turns out what people on the phone were saying were L's were actually upper case i's, even though I had called them many times and confirmed it letter by letter T_T

I've not asked them to reset the line yet and to change the SNR manually I'd have to SSH into this router/modem so for now I'm going to leave it at its current speed and see if the disconnects stop, if they do I'll note down the SNR margins and ask them to reset the line to see if it settles at a higher speed with this router.

Feels good to finally be on my own hardware and at least a step in the right direction to having the internet work properly, this being the same hardware I used when with BT when it had 55mbps down so at least I can rule that out, at the very least if it stops the dropouts I'll be happy

So if anyone else here has had the same problem as me getting their own router to work, my advice is talk to them over live chat and copy the info into notepad(not wordpad), and then for safe keeping you can select that the chat be emailed to you afterwards

[MrWhite]

Glad you got it sorted.

[UnPotat]

Cheers its nice to have it setup properly at least :), I'll have to have a think if I'm going to have them reset the line or not, I mean curently its like this - 

Status: UP
Line State: showtime_tc_sync [0x801]
Line Mode: G.993.2 (VDSL2)
Annex: B
Profile: 17a
Data Rate: 22.400 Mb/s / 3.198 Mb/s
Max. Attainable Data Rate (ATTNDR): 40.466 Mb/s / 7.334 Mb/s
Latency: 15.0 ms / 8.0 ms
Line Attenuation (LATN): 25.5 dB / 26.2 dB
Signal Attenuation (SATN): 23 dB / 26.1 dB
Noise Margin (SNR): 10.6 dB / 14.3 dB
Aggregate Transmit Power(ACTATP): 1.1 dB / 11.4 dB
Forward Error Correction Seconds (FECS): 25559 / 110
Errored seconds (ES): 0 / 1622
Severely Errored Seconds (SES): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal Seconds (LOSS): 3 / 0
Unavailable Seconds (UAS): 400 / 400
Header Error Code Errors (HEC): 0 / 0
Non Pre-emtive CRC errors (CRC_P): 2 / 0
Pre-emtive CRC errors (CRCP_P): 0 / 0
Line Uptime: 6h 25m 49s
ATU-C System Vendor ID: Broadcom 164.140
Power Management Mode: L0 - Synchronized

The numbers look allright in terms of errors to me, I can't imagine it dropping the line with it like this, although it does worry me that it still gets errors at this speed, as on the same line using the same router back when I was on BT Fibre it was at 50-55down and stable, so I don't see how changing provider would change that(obviously im not paying for above 36mbps but still) as I thought pretty much everything aside from authentication was Openreach.

[UnPotat]

Just a quick reply as I thought I'd update you lot so anyone thinking of using their own router knows how things went.

Been a little while now since I started using it, the line automatically started upping the speed after a few days and its now at 35 down 6 up and totally stable, its still on interleved as before and still has a high FEC error count, but it appears the new router is handling it all perfectly, unlike the Vodafone one which would drop out ever 2-3 hours even at 22down 3 up. Currently on almost 3 days actual uptime of the line, and thats only because before that it would reset and put the line speed up each time, very happy.

So to sum up, I'm now a happy customer, may have had to struggle to get the correct info and get things working, but since changing routers everythings resolved its self without any intervention at all. 

[Bunn]

Hi UnPotat

Glad you are sorted now. Just to update you guys I went through tech 1 and 2. VF agreed down speed at 19 to 25 was too low and under their guaranteed min. Engineer attended and rewired the in house socket and checked connection outside the house. Went to box about 150 metres away and reconnected there. Result was that he measured 80 mbps at the box which then diluted down to 45 at home. Loads of errors showing on router stats but connection totally stable. Guess the new router is coping well. I am a happy bunny now too. 

Bunn

[deejayburnout]

Hello all

My VF broadband connects tomorrow and i called to get my username and password to use on my Asus RT - N56U and that is not on the approved list.

looks like i need to upgrade.

Anyone reccomend an Asus Router to use?

[UnPotat]

Personally I would go through the live chat, perhaps just say you have one of the ones on the list if they gave you one, but the 'list' they state is very old and barely has any good/normal routers on it, the one you have should be fine if its a VDSL one, as far as I know they don't have any modern Asus ones on the 'list'. FYI the 'list' is more of a cop out and is meaningless. 

Get it via live chat and copy it into notepad.

Edit: I don't believe that router even has a DSL/VDSL port, its a router and not a modem/Router combo, you need something like the DSL-AC55U or something with a VDSL port. However if your connection works with the standard router you can turn wifi and everything off on the Vodafone one and connect it to your current one using the Vodafone router like a modem and your current one for Wifi.

[daveb99]

Hi - I'm a new user on here and currently at the end of my broadband contract with BT.   I'm considering switching to Vodafone, as they have a very good offer currently, but have read many reports of the flaky connection and poor wifi performance of the Vodafone-supplied router.   We both work at home most days and rely on the broadband connection, so cannot afford to have a flaky connection.

I was going to use my existing BT Smart Hub 6 router to provide the Wifi, with the Vodafone router being used as a modem to pass the broadband connection to it - but I've read that the BT hub is locked down, so is that possible?   Or if I simply connect them via a Cat6 ethernet cable to a LAN port on each router will it basically work OK then?

If not, then I guess I would need to buy another router to use and get the Vodafone user ID & password via live chat - so I'd be looking to buy one that is at least equal to the BT Smart Hub in terms of Wi-fi performance, and one that is proven to be stable with Vodafone, i.e. doesn't drop the connection like the VF one apparently does.

If I go down the latter route, can anyone recommend a router?   I was thinking of an Asus one as that's what most people seem to use - but I do want to keep the cost down somewhat.   

Any help would be much appreciated......many thanks.