Vodafone Ultra Home Hub - new adsl/vdsl/cable/fibre modem/wireless router

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79 posts

Master Geek

# 1869305 20-Sep-2017 12:47

wratterus:

When you say 'tuned', do you simply mean the the wireless details, or are you talking about IP reservations, port forwards etc etc.

I mean that every device has been set with a static IP within the network, with varying levels of access depending on the user (guests do not get to touch my dataserver) because that suits my needs, and my MyBookLive won't talk to my iMac if I use DHCP (mutter mutter El Capitan, mutter). I don't use port forwards, but I have tweaked it a bit over the years, as I've learned how stuff inside it works. I like owning the bits of my system, and just want to connect it to the internet, which is what I thought I was getting.

If it's just the wireless that's bothering you, you can replicate the wireless settings from your N600 on the new Vodafone Hub, and as long as you get it exactly the same, all your devices will just connect.

Not really bothering me, yes I could do this (I think), but then the N600 is redundant unnecessarily. Why can't I just plug it into the Hub and have it connect through to the net? That's what puzzles me. I'm not a network geek by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems to me I should be able to do this.

~mark

nzlemming

79 posts

Master Geek

# 1869310 20-Sep-2017 12:53

Morm:

Thats an ADSL router not a VDSL router I believe so it wont work.

It will connect to an ADSL modem, yes, but it never has been. It has been plugged into a cable modem for the last 4 years via ethernet. Worked perfectly. Surely it's only passing IP traffic?

Use the Ultra Hub, log in and change the wifi username and password to the same as your existing one and then all the devices will connect to the new router. Easy.

Well, yes, easy as a work around. But that's not what I want to do. I want to preserve my existing internal network and just connect it to the internet. I don't understand why changing from a cable modem to a VDSL hub won't let me do that.

~mark

Morm

48 posts

Geek

# 1869318 20-Sep-2017 13:00

nzlemming:

Morm:

Thats an ADSL router not a VDSL router I believe so it wont work.

It will connect to an ADSL modem, yes, but it never has been. It has been plugged into a cable modem for the last 4 years via ethernet. Worked perfectly. Surely it's only passing IP traffic?

Use the Ultra Hub, log in and change the wifi username and password to the same as your existing one and then all the devices will connect to the new router. Easy.

Well, yes, easy as a work around. But that's not what I want to do. I want to preserve my existing internal network and just connect it to the internet. I don't understand why changing from a cable modem to a VDSL hub won't let me do that.

~mark

If both the netgear and the Ultra Hub have DHCP turned on then that could be an issue. Ideally the Netgear DHCP should be off and both network IP ranges should match up (the ultra Hub uses 192.168.1.1 as gateway).

Also, the WAN port on the Ultra Hub is only for the Internet connection (not used in your case). Dont plug anything into that or the DSL will stop working..

So connect the Negear LAN to LAN with the ultrahub, match IP network ranges on the lan and have only 1 dhcp server. Normally that would work ok.

gaddman

190 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

Vodafone NZ

# 1869403 20-Sep-2017 14:23

nzlemming:

It has been plugged into a cable modem for the last 4 years via ethernet. Worked perfectly.

Technology has improved a lot in the past 4 years - at some point it's worth going through the hassle of hooking up a new gateway. Whether shifting from the Netgear N600 to the Ultra Hub makes a difference in your case depends on a couple of key things:

wifi speed & reliability - the Ultra Hub does 802.11ac with beam-forming, so could provide better performance than what you're currently getting. Really depends how good your current wifi is.
VDSL connection speed - ADSL tops out at 24Mbps, VDSL 100Mbps. Depending on the relative speeds of your DSL and your wifi, the limiting factor could shift from the DSL connection to the wifi connection - in other words you may be constrained by an old router.

I've been through the hassle of recreating port forwards and static IPs a few times, so I know your pain. But this might be a reasonable upgrade from what you've got now.

nzlemming

79 posts

Master Geek

# 1869538 20-Sep-2017 16:11

Morm:

If both the netgear and the Ultra Hub have DHCP turned on then that could be an issue. Ideally the Netgear DHCP should be off and both network IP ranges should match up (the ultra Hub uses 192.168.1.1 as gateway).

Could well be the issue, as diving into the settings shows that DHCP seems to be turned on again on the N600, which may have happened during the shift. However:

gaddman:

Technology has improved a lot in the past 4 years - at some point it's worth going through the hassle of hooking up a new gateway. Whether shifting from the Netgear N600 to the Ultra Hub makes a difference in your case depends on a couple of key things:

wifi speed & reliability - the Ultra Hub does 802.11ac with beam-forming, so could provide better performance than what you're currently getting. Really depends how good your current wifi is.
VDSL connection speed - ADSL tops out at 24Mbps, VDSL 100Mbps. Depending on the relative speeds of your DSL and your wifi, the limiting factor could shift from the DSL connection to the wifi connection - in other words you may be constrained by an old router.

This is a very good point and I hadn't considered that. I may play with that and see if I get an improvement.

Thanks to you both.

~mark

dubh

19 posts

Geek

# 1872645 25-Sep-2017 19:15

As part of the ADSL -> VDSL upgrade I've been sent a HG659 (rather than the UltraHub that the nice lady in the VF contact centre said I'd be sent).

Should I be trying to do a swap?

(I'd rather switch from ADSL to UFB, but VF won't offer that to me as I'm in a FibreX area, and apparently that's the better product for customers according to the sales team. I should really be talking to the retention team about this.)

Jase2985

8947 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

# 1872690 25-Sep-2017 20:18

One person supports this post

dont settle for fibrex if UFB fibre (proper fibre) is available. they can and will supply it if you ask specifically for it

@mikehales should have something to say about that

MikeHales

615 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Vodafone NZ

# 1872864 26-Sep-2017 09:07

2 people support this post

@dubh

If you want UFB then yes talk to our retention team if it's available at your address, it's your choice as to type of broadband.

Channel Manager, Help & Support @ Vodafone NZ

kiwifidget

1785 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

# 1873077 26-Sep-2017 14:23

Does the Ultra Home Hub have the same 32 device limit that the HG659b has?

Life is too short to remove USB safely.

Jax

88 posts

Master Geek

# 1873080 26-Sep-2017 14:30

kiwifidget:

Does the Ultra Home Hub have the same 32 device limit that the HG659b has?

Can you expand or link to more information around this 32 device limit on HG659b?

Where have you observed this and what happens when device #33 gets on the network?

I am having some network issues, and this might be part of it..

kiwifidget

1785 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

# 1873085 26-Sep-2017 14:39

2 people support this post

@jax it is my thread titled "My VF-HG659b no longer cuts the mustard".

I'll just copy and paste the guts here for you...

On the HG659b Home Network tab, then Lan Devices on the left, you get a list of the devices connected to your router.

Active devices in blue, inactive are grey.

This list will never exceed 32 entries.

The connected devices can be wired, wifi, static, dhcp, whatever. They all count towards the 32.

It doesn't matter how big your DHCP range is.

Port forward rules will drop off to make room for new connections, until active connected devices reaches 32.

(The B026 firmware update may or may not take the port forwards out of the equation. I haven't had it long enough to test it.)

If you have 32 blue entries that's it, nothing else will connect to the router until you disconnect something else and delete it from the LAN Devices table.

I have seen this on both Spark and VF HG659bs.

Life is too short to remove USB safely.

Morm

48 posts

Geek

# 1873143 26-Sep-2017 14:57

Jax:

kiwifidget:

Does the Ultra Home Hub have the same 32 device limit that the HG659b has?

Can you expand or link to more information around this 32 device limit on HG659b?

Where have you observed this and what happens when device #33 gets on the network?

I am having some network issues, and this might be part of it..

The Ultrahub does 64. It is only a problem if you manage devices (eg port forwards) or all are on wifi - otherwise both can connect 254 devices. Although more than 15-20 on wifi will make wifi go rather slow if they are all active.

kiwifidget

1785 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

# 1873146 26-Sep-2017 15:02

@Morm, how can I get the HG659b to accept 254 connections?

Life is too short to remove USB safely.

Morm

48 posts

Geek

# 1873182 26-Sep-2017 15:49

kiwifidget:

@Morm, how can I get the HG659b to accept 254 connections?

OK, hope this all makes sense and its direct from Vodafone device engineers. Note, this is for the Vodafone HG659 firmware, not the Spark HG659b (who knows what they have)

Total number of devices you can connect to the router and pass traffic/use internet etc = 254 (number of hosts in subnet.)

Total number of devices you can have on wifi - max 16 per SSID, 32 total across all SSIDs

The management table in the router menu holds 32 devices. *The first 32 devices which attached to the router appear in this table*. You can apply rules (mac filter, parental control, port forwards) to any device that appears in this table.

Now, prior to B26 firmware, if you had a reboot or dhcp renewal, the devices in the list of 32 change and you can have some drop out. When they dropped, so did the rules. This bug was fixed in B26 which means that even if the device drops off the page the rules still work.

The Ultra hub has higher limits (eg 128 devices per radio instead). The limits in the HG659 wont be changed in future

kiwifidget

1785 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

# 1873192 26-Sep-2017 16:01

One person supports this post

Thanks for that clarification @Morm.

I still think that my HG659b rejects device #33 regardless of how it is connecting or how the previous 32 have connected.

Now that I have B026 on board I will try and see if that still happens.

Life is too short to remove USB safely.

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