Review

Summary

This review details the tremendous support provided by TP-Link support engineer, Abner Zeng to analyse and provide the parameters required to connect the VX1800v router to the One NZ fibre network and to configure the VOIP Landline.

Background

When any item of equipment is purchased, one hopes and expects support from the supplier and/ or the manufacturer.

However, the situation becomes very complex when a piece of equipment is designed to work with a service from a third party, and more so when multiple service providers are involved.

In my instance I was replacing a modem/router that had been supplied by my local Internet Service Provider (ISP), a different company supplied the physical network, in this case the fibre and termination equipment (ONT).

Thus,

·       I purchased the new modem/router from the retailer PB Tech, in Auckland

·       The equipment was manufactured by TP-Link (VX1800v) selected because I wanted a WiFi mesh system with VOIP functionality.

·       The ONT and fibre was provided by Chorus and

·       The Internet Service Provider (ISP) was Vodafone, now renamed ONE NZ.

When I connected the VX1800v to the ONT I was able to connect the router to the EWAN and successfully obtain high speed connection and my static IP address.

My VOIP connection failed.

Multiple calls to my ISP (ONE NZ) told me that the VS1800v Router would not work with the ONE NZ system. This did not make sense to me as ONE NZ were moving over to TP-Link routers instead of the previous UltraHub.

A search on line found many other people failing to get the VX1800v router to work on the ONE NZ network, and people were discussing how to setup an UltraHub for VOIP and then a TP-Link router in AP mode for WiFi.

I could not find how to put the VX1800v into AP mode so I called TP-Link support.

TP-Link support advised that the VX1800v should work on the ONE NZ network and advised removing the UltraHub completely.

I called ONE NZ again and told them what I had been told by TP-Link. ONE NZ then admitted that the router will work on their system but is not supported (by ONENZ).

ONE NZ network advised that the settings should be automatically downloaded and nothing was required by the user.

I knew that was not correct as I had had to manually configure the router to get the EWAN working, so it was a call back to TP-Link.

TP-Link were very helpful and said they would investigate and get back to me. This they did after a couple of days, with a set of entries to try in the router, and instructions to call them back if they did not work and they would try remote management of the router.

I tried every combination I could think of but nothing worked. However, my investigations alerted me to the fact there were two username/password combinations – one for the EWAN and a different username and password for the VOIP registration. I knew the VOIP username, as I could get that from the old UltraHub, but I did not know the password, and it appeared to be different to the password I has used for the EWAN.

So, another call to ONE NZ, but this time asking the specific question – What was the password for the VOIP registration? After a lot of discussion, they gave me a password that they said was the only one in their system.

I did not have any success using the setting supplied by TP-Link and the new VOIP password. So, in desperation I called TP-Link support and asked for their help…

Solution

I received a fantastic response from TP-Link support engineer, Abner Zeng.

After confirming I was happy to receive remote assistance, a TeamViewer session was started to begin 15 minutes later.

Abner Zeng spent over an hour checking the setup that I had configured to get the EWAN working, and then investigated the VOIP setup. I had supplied both the password used for setting up the EWAN and the second password for the VOIP registration supplied by ONE NZ.

As I had found, the obvious settings did not work, so Abner loaded network monitoring software and then captured network the traffic to and from the ONE NZ during attempted VOIP registration.

This allowed various combinations to be tested and eventually a valid combination was found that resulted in the VOIP number to be successfully registered.

Result

·       The TP-Link VX1800v router DOES work successfully on the ONE NZ network

·       To set up the EWAN connection a username and password are required, these are the username and password which are used to access the customer’s ONE NZ account on the web.

·       A different username and password are required to register the VOIP (SIP) registration.

o   The username consists of <Area code><phone number>@vodafone.co.nz

o   The password must be obtained from ONE NZ and is not able to be changed by the customer.

Example Settings for VX1800v

Advanced > EWAN

The Username and password are the values chosen by the user when the Vodafone (One NZ) account was set up.

The Telephony on the router has to be set up separately.

From the Advanced tab > Telephony > Phone Number > click the Edit icon.

·      The provider is “Other”, not Vodafone which is available on the dropdown list.

·      The phone number is provided by One NZ

·      The registrar address is vodafone.co.nz.

·      The authentication ID consists of the “phonenumber”@vodafone.co.nz

·      The password is provided by One NZ

When everything has been entered correctly the status of phone line will change to a tick.

My sincere thanks to TP-Link Support Engineer, Abner Zeng, for his dedicated perseverance to provide this solution.

Result

•         The TP-Link VX1800v router DOES work successfully on the ONE NZ network

•         To set up the EWAN connection a username and password are required, these are the username and password which are used to access the customer’s ONE NZ account on the web.

•         A different username and password are required to register the VOIP (SIP) registration.

o        The username consists of <Area code><phone number>@vodafone.co.nz

o        The password must be obtained from ONE NZ and is not able to be changed by the customer.

Summary

I highly recommend the TP-Link VX1800v router with VOIP as a replacement for the UltraHub. The support from TP-Link Engineer Abner Zenq was outstanding and continued until a solution was found that worked with the One NZ Network.

The Router forms the basis of a complex network consisting of  Easy Smart TL-SG105E/108Eswitches with separate Vlans for Video, data and computer traffic, and RE605X wifi range extenders.