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

[MrWhite]

You won't be able to use the BT router on its own as it's locked down, as you've stated.  You can turn off the wifi on the Vodafone router and use the BT one as an access point (turn off DHCP on the BT router).

If you want an all-in-one, then you need to make sure it has a VDSL modem in it (sounds obvious, but many have picked up cable routers).  If you look on the kitz website, there's a list and discussions on a number of routers.  I've used the TP-Link VR600 and Netgear D6220 both of which were decent - held a good connection and wifi was fine.

[UnPotat]

In my experience an unlocked/flashed BT home hub 5 works very well, im now currently at 4 and a half days uptime on my line with it, I would reccomend either an Asus VDSL router/modem as you say, or if you really need to keep costs down you can usually get flashed/unlocked HomeHub 5's on eBay for around 25-30 incl delivery.

However be prepared to spend some time learning how to make it work as its not aimed at home users, however its pretty feature rich and the connection has been rock solid for me, I've setup SQM/QoS on it as well as Adblock on the router its self.

You should be able to use the current home hub for Wifi only, you can turn DHCP and Wifi off on the Vodafone router, then plug it in Via network cable to the Wan port of the router you want to use for Wifi, I'm not sure if the BT one could do that side of it, but others I have used were fine.

[Bunn]

Hi UnPotat

Afraid I spoke too soon when stating I was a happy bunny with the Archer VR2800 replacing the VF tin can. Speed was running nicely around 50mbs. I pay for 76. Well it lasted a day and then huge amounts of packet errors continued to appear and the speed dropped down to 33mbs and is still dropping.

Tech 2 have been very helpful I have to say and when I spoke to them again they confirmed that the line had capped itself to maintain an average speed due to the packet errors.

To continue with their help I have had to reconnect the VF router in order to demonstrate that it is also suffering the same issues. This was the very reason along with frequent disconnections that I changed it for the Archer. Lol! I have to wait now til Tuesday to see if the VF router is performing any better, but I already know the answer. They will want to reset line again as well to see if the speed increases with the original equipment. Watch this space.

Regards

Bunn

[UnPotat]

Damn that sucks, shame to hear it, mine just hit a stable line uptime of 5 days today but I unplugged it to refit the faceplate as I was still in the test socket, it dropped the speed slightly from me unplugging it and putting it back in but only from 35mbps to 34.95mbps, mine still gets the errors as it did before it just seems that this router/modem can handle all of them where as the VF one couldn't, I don't know the soloution to whats up with you line, perhaps there is an actual fault somewhere however mine appears fine, hopefully it stays stable for me as it has done the past week.

Did you ever get higher speeds with another supplier? I know that when I had 80mbps through BT I would only get 55max on my current line so it might just be a limitation in the area however I would expect at least 45+ even in a 'bad' area.

Best to have a look at your error counts, if you are only getting FEC erros then that *should* be fine as it means those were errors along the line it corrected without any issues, however if you get both FEC erros and lots of CRC errors thats when there is an actual line fault going on, for example on my Home Hub 5 before I reset it today it had over 1 billion FEC errors on the downstream and several 100 thousand on the upstream, it also had about 100 CRC errors which I think were when it first connected as the number wasnt increasing, however it didnt drop out a single time in that period.

[Bunn]

Hi UnPotat

This is the current error situation

Down 43 FEC 2 CRC   Up   2.2Million FEC 0 CRC

It's still capped at 43mbs and achieving 33mbs but I expect that to be changed on the next reset. Looking at this I hate to admit it but the VF router appears to be performing better than the Archer VR2800. I cant understand why though as the Archer is supposed to be an excellent machine for the money.

Regards

Bunn

[MrWhite]

I'm assuming the Archer is a new model??  I've heard on other forums TP-Link routers can be a bit 'iffy' until a there's been a few revisions in firmware.  I've not seen this myself, but neither have done extensive research.

[Bunn]

Hi. 

The Archer VR2800 is supposed to be very good from my own research. Separate processors for 2.4 and 5 wifi and for Ethernet etc. It seems to cope totally fine with the VF broadband apart from all the errors. It is runni g the latest firmware, but as you say, if it's a new product it may be less than perfect as yet! All I want to achieve is a fast and stable connection. Lol! It sounds so simple. I am not fussed about which router just so long as I get that. Thought the VF equipment would be inferior as it is given a bad name by many. It seems that is possibly wrong. Today I am due to speak with tech2 to see the results of runni g the old router. I will post again afterwards.

Regards

Bunn

[Bunn]

Hi All

Well after having the original VF router in place for some 10 days now it has finally synqd to 37 megs download and 18 up. Tech2 closed the ticket following 2 Openreach visits to sort out my line.

Bearing in mind VF charge me for fibre 76 that is now less than half the paid for spedd and 2 megs under their guaranteed speed.

Their answer to this was to suggest that the line will not sustain any higher speed and to change over to fibre 38 and all will be fine. I rejected that on the grounds that if half the speed is lost on 76 down to 37 megs than at 38 I will probably end up with around 19 megs. Aside from the point that VF are in breach of their contract now as well. A further engineers visit is booked tomoz in the hope that reconnecting the fibre to another port may speed matters up. I have had up to 50 megs previously with my new Archer VR2800 but lots of line errors meant that the line capped itself at around 43 megs.

I suppose my dilemma now is that if no higher speed aclieved after tomoz and I break the VF contract then who do I get to replace VF? No Virgin access here at present so no obvious solutions to attain the speed paid for. Ironically I checked my address on VF yesterday and they still say a guaranteed speed of 39.81 megs with an estimated speed of 44.65 to 61.76 megs download with fibre 76. This is clearly rubbish!

I'll post again when I have had their final word via Openreach tomoz. Not optimistic that this can be improved.

Regards to all

Bunn

[machare]

@Bunn

What does https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html show you should get for VDSL IMpacted speeds?

Anything better you are fortunate. Anything much worse you can complain.

There is no point in paying for up to 76mbps if your line is not good enough, the higher speeds use higher frequency signals which get lost typically due to the length of the phone line.  Changing ISP won't solve that problem.   The arguement that at the moment you get half of 76 so if you change to 38 you will get half of that is wrong.   If you ask a barman to put a pint in a half pint pot you will get half a pint, if you just ask for half a pint then you will get all the half pint. 

[Bunn]

Thanks for the response.

VDSL impacted speeds show Down High 49 Low 27.4 Up High 14.9 Low 7.

Not sure how this equates with VF's min guaranteed speed Down of 39.8?

I would not have paid for 76 megs if I had been advised at that time that the best speed would be in the region of 37. VF of course have never mentioned this until the speed fell away drastically and I started to question the situation. I have been with this contract now for 15 months. The irony is that initially my new router was achieving over 50 megs until the line capped the speed at 43 megs apparently due to the number of CRC errors encountered. I'm also experiencing a drop out of wifi when it appears that it is connected but try using it and it simply buffers. Done all the usual checks and remedies along with ensuring as many devices as possible are disconnected when I am streaming IPTV for example (I stream via a cat 7 ethernet cable directly connected into the router) Wifi seems to be affected along with any other ethernet connections. The router just does not seem to cope which is why I thought I'd bought a better one!