Plusnet Hub One

[#1]

Please be kind to me as I am about ask some simple questions.

I contacted PN to talk about moving home in about 2 months and at the end of the conversation I had upgraded to Fibre as where I am moving to is quite a distance from the exchange and opted to pay for upgrade as of now. I have been billed at the higher rate so I know it has gone into the system. I received the PN Hub One this morning and now waiting to be informed of when the upgrade to fibre will take place. So far so good.

This afternoon my internet went down. The technical people could not answer why but suggested the problem was at my end, bad wiring etc etc. They could see all the upgrade information, asked if I would try plugging directly into the master socket but that made no difference. Then after about 1/2 hour with every thing back as it was the internet/email starts to work.

Had BT pulled the plug before my planned move?

Having read the booklet on the PN Hub One and if I enter on my PC 192.168.1.254 is there a menu where I can set up safe guards e.g. access through the hub as I can on my NetGear Router? Or do I have to purchase a separate router to plug into the Hub One?

On the PlusNet help pages on the web it talks about an OpenReach hub supplied by BT when connected to fibre.

I am confused. Help please.

[#2]

First of all you do not need an additional modem these days for fibre, the modem in the Hub One is compatible with both standard and fibre broadband.

Was your broadband updated to fibre today, have you done a speed check?

To access the router you enter the address 192.168.1.254 and enter the password on the label fixed to the router. I don't understand what you are looking for in terms of 'safeguards'. You can't add another router to the Hub One unless you convert it from a router to a Switch/Wireless Access Point

[#3]

Thanks Baldrick1, No, still waiting hear when the upgrade will take place. They seem to think within the next 48hrs. Should receive Txt/email.

I assume then the Hub One has an advanced section within the setup when accessing it via the IE.

If I power up the hub the indicator light turns from flashing green, then blue then to flashing orange. The telephone cable is not connected as the switch over has not been processed.

If I then connect a Ethernet cable from it to my PC,  and enter 192.168.1.254, my PC will not connect to the hub.

I am assuming the hub must be up and running with the incoming internet signal?

[#4]

The Hub One works on both ADSL and VDSL so you can plug it in now and it should work on your standard broadband.. It should auto configure and connect.

You do not need a ‘live’ connection to access the admin pages so I do not know why you can’t access it. I assume that you are entering it in the browser address field and not the search field? What response are you getting?

If it doesn’t play ball do a factory reset by pushing a paper clip or similar in the reset hole and hold the reset switch in for 30 seconds.

[#5]

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wrote:

You do not need a ‘live’ connection to access the admin pages so I do not know why you can’t access it.

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I cannot state with total confidence what a Hub One will or will not do without the WAN connection being up - however based on my recent attempt to use a Hub Zero as a local LAN router without a WAN connection, I can assert that it did not do anything useful if the WAN is not at least sync'd.

[#6]

@Townman

I do not have a Hub One either. However I know that this can be converted into a WAP, so I assume that you must be able to access the admin pages without having a live WAN connection. I have recently played with Hub 6s and they can certainly be configured by just connecting to them in stand alone mode via Ethernet.

As you will have read, I have advised the OP that the Hub One will work on his current ADSL connection so if he connects this in now he will have a live WAN.

It's interesting what you say about the Hub Zero. With nothing else to do on this freezing cold day I will dig the one out I have in my junk store and have a play.

[#7]

First an apology to the Mods for taking this off topic.

@Townman Following on from my earlier post I have tried logging in to my Hub Zero. It needed a factory reset but I can get into all the pages without needing any WAN connection, just the one Ethernet cable. With respect to doing anything useful with this router I agree, tt is locked down to the point of being useless. As a challenge it might be interesting to see if the firmware could be changed to the standard Sagecom. or other third party, offering (should such firmware exist) but on reflection mine will just return to the junk store.

[#8]

After checking everything over again and connecting my laptop directly to the Hub One. It was only until I turned off the wireless connection to my old Netgear router that I could then communicate with the Hub One. Other wise it would go to the internet via IE.

Probably obvious, but the short manual says to connect directly to the hub but does not say turn all other wireless connection off as well.

Still now I home I will go through the settings and connect to the telephone line and leave it on for a long time and see if connects. As you guys say the hub one will work just as well as a normal router and then when the fibre gets turned on fingers crossed it should be all bells and whistles. As the Zen Master said "we'll see"

[#9]

Ah, obvious but only after you think about it. You must drop your current connection before you can pick up a new one.. If it fails to spring into life after say half an hour then it’s probably got its knickers in a twist from the previous connections, so you may need to do a factory reset. If so, push a paper clip or similar in the reset hole and hold the switch closed for about 30 seconds. This will kick the auto connect sequence off again from scratch.

[#10]

Hi Baldrick1,

Up and running with all your help. Many thanks.

Did a speed test:- Download = 4.2Mb and Upload = 0.57Mb

Once I get confirmation that the fibre connection has been made will test again and update here.

Thanks again.

[#11]

Two questions if I may.

1. Still waiting to hear when the fibre will be activated. I know this has been answered before but still not clear in my mind if I will require an other box of tricks for the fibre connection to the PN Hub One is required? So as to benefit from the higher speeds I am expecting from the upgrade. Or does this new hub take that data? The reason I ask is that when I set up the moving date to my new home there is an engineer booked to visit on the day. What will his purpose be?

2. The more pressing issue I have right now. The PN Hub is up and running (normal slow speed) and I have connected my cables from the Netgear router to the new hub in the same order. The PC connects and any laptop plugged into the hub or any high speed switch I have around the house will connect to the web.

However, my printer which has a TP Link net work printer server connected to it and connects to the hub via Ethernet cable will not print. I have rerun the TPLink software about 6 times this morning and the software "sees" the printer but no matter what I do I cannot send a file to the printer. If I reconnect my old netgear router to my Pc I can send a file to be printed.

When I look in advanced settings of the PN Hub, wired devices, the printer is not seen. See attached.

This is becoming frustrating. I am sure there is an easy answer.

[#12]

First of all you need nothing more to switch to fibre. Now you are using the Hub One it should automatically switch over without you needing to do anything.

Regarding your printer problem, can you explain what you have connected to each LAN port. I see that there are two equipments on LAN 1. To which port is the printer connected?

[#13]

Thanks for the reassurance will wait for the switch over. very new to this so learning as I go.

The printer is an HP LaserJet which was linked in the past direct to my PC via a centronics cable. In recent years we needed to be able to use laptops in other areas of the house I used a TP Link print server which plugs into the centronics connector on the printer and then by Ethernet cable to the Netgear router. Up until now every one can access the printer with out my PC being on.

But, now I have the Hub one running the TP Link print server is connected to socket 2 on the Hub one. I run the TP Link print server driver/software which looks at the network, identifies the print server and then sets up the link to the printer.

But as you can see from the screen shot there is nothing shown connected to socket 2. except it knows something is connected as it has altered the speed down from 1Gbs to 100Mbs. If I move the printer cable the speed changes with the position it is plugged into.

I know it all works because soon as I reconnect my Netgear DGN3500 it all springs to life and the printer works fine.

There seems less flexibility in the Hub One as there is in the Netgear.

I tried to play around with the add a game/application etc. but that did not work either.

[#14 · Accepted solution]

The problem with your print server is that it uses a fixed IP address. The default is 192.168.0.10, which coincidentally is within the range of Netgear routers. The Hub one uses the range 192.168.1.xxx, hence the incompatibility.

The solution is to go in to the settings on the server and change the IP address to 192.168.1.10 and this should do the trick. The following link: https://static.tp-link.com/resources/document/TL-PS110P_V1_UG.pdf probably refers to your print server, if not I would guess that it's near enough. If you go to Chapter 3, Paragraph 3.1 sub heading 3. this refers to one way to change it.

I would guess (but obviously can't confirm) that the other way to change it is to connect it directly to your computer with the Ethernet cable and put 192.168.0.10 in your browser address (not search) field. This should give you access to the server from where you can make the change to 192.168.1.10. Note that as soon as you change it you will lose contact, do not panic, you now just need to use the new IP address should you want to re-establish contact. If you then reconnect your network hopefully it will spring into life.

A word of caution, if you keep swapping between routers there is a risk that the constantly dropped connections will be interpreted as problems on your line and broadband may be automatically slowed to try to compensate for a non existent problem..

[#15]

Baldrick1 you are a star coming back with the info.

I am home this afternoon so will have a read up on the link you sent.

Thanks for the heads up on switching between the routers. Not the sort of thing I would have thought of.

Many thanks again.

Got an update from PN re the fibre update and again delayed a further 24 hours.

Will keep you informed if you don't mind.