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Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

SONiQz
Dabbler
Posts: 14
Registered: ‎27-03-2014

Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Hi Guys,
Just wondered if anyone else on here had any experience with Vodafone Sure Signals and the BT Home Hub 5.
I managed to get a Home Hub 5 and was well chuffed, Gigabit LAN, WiFi was a lot faster and it was one less box generating heat! That was until I tried to get my Suresignal V2 working with it. Vodafone blame the Router, BT blame the ISP and little old me is stuck trying to find some reasonable source of information. I have setup port forwarding and locked the IP address and enabled VPN Port Clamping and still it doesn't want to connect. As soon as I switch back to the Openreach Modem and Technicolor TG582 and reset the Sure Signal, BOOM working..... Lets just say I'm a little disappointed. To be fair I wouldn't mind so much if I wasn't totally reliant on the suresignal for mobile coverage, but there we are.
Anyway, as I said, anyone who can offer any advice, that doesn't involve buying yet another router I would be grateful.
Thanks in advance!
17 REPLIES 17
Kelly
Hero
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Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

SONiQz
Dabbler
Posts: 14
Registered: ‎27-03-2014

Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Sounds like it's a 'round the houses' approach, but I'll have to give it a shot at the weekend unless someone has had other ways of sorting it. As unfortunately I can't be without the mobile during the week, but hey ho!
MisterW
Superuser
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Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

This http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Vodafone-Sure-Signal/Sure-Signal-and-BT-Home-Hub/td-p/1519302 seems to be Vodafone admitting defeat with some BT hubs. That does say BT infinity for Business routers but I wouldn't be surprised if they've got that wrong and it's HH5's.
Given that your SS works with the TG582n it obviously isn't the SS. None of the port forwarding SHOULD be necessary , as I understand it the SS makes a VPN connection and just about every router supports VPN pass through OOTB. Is the HH5 local network a different subnet to the TG582's 192.168.1.x ? it shoudn't make any difference but if its not on that subnet then changing it may be worth a try... 

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SONiQz
Dabbler
Posts: 14
Registered: ‎27-03-2014

Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Looking at the age of the post they'd be referring to the HH3, which did have issues with port forwarding. That said it's also possible that there could still be an issue. However there have been several reports of proper operation, which muddies the water a bit....
SONiQz
Dabbler
Posts: 14
Registered: ‎27-03-2014

Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Hi all,
in response to Kelly's post, it didn't work.... Thanks anyway. I am going to speak to Vodafone tomorrow to see if they have an alternate solution. There are murmurings that the Sure Signal 2 may be the issue and that the Sure Signal 3 is 'more compatible'.... Can't say I am holding my breath.... Failing that,  does anyone know where I can get a Draytek 2860n plus without having to sell my body (to science obviously) as unfortunately my budget got put into redundant storage/media server (I thought I got a good deal on a router heh, hindsight).....
Cheers!
MisterW
Superuser
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Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Another thought... Check the default MTU setting on the HH5 and see if it's changeable to that of the TG582n ( probably 1492 for a PPPoE connection )

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

SONiQz
Dabbler
Posts: 14
Registered: ‎27-03-2014

Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Hi MisterW,
The MTU setting appears to be a fixed parameter (There aren't a lot of configurable options it appears). So I can't be sure what it is set to, I will try and carry out further testing.... I have been to-and-fro with Vodafone and they seem to think the Router is the issue, but can't tell me what to do to resolve it. Some have said that the Sure Signal 3 doesn't appear to suffer the same issues, but will need to try and get hold of one to test this theory.
Thanks for the ideas!
MisterW
Superuser
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Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Hi, Yes, a quick look at the Vodafone forums seems to indicate that no one at Vodafone or BT really has a clue ( or is interested? ) as to why it doesn't work with HH5's.
Edit: I know this defeats the object of your using the HH5 BUT have you tried it connected via Ethernet to the BT modem. That might give a better clue as to what the problem with the HH5 may be...
Also, looking further at some of the posts regarding VPN and the HH5, there is some suggestion that it's Parental controls function might be implicated. Have you tried disabling it ?

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SONiQz
Dabbler
Posts: 14
Registered: ‎27-03-2014

Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Heya,
I quite agree that there seems to be a lot of 'washing-of-hands' going on at both BT and Vodafone. BT really offer no support for their equipment unless they supply the connection, which to be frank is a bit S#!T. With the Home Hub itself there is no need for the Modem so that's been packed away. However the older Technicolor 582n and BT-O Modem worked OK..... As for the parental controls, heh, what are parental controls. I have disabled Them, the smart setup and anything else they refer to as a 'feature' LOL
Basically it just has Port Forwarding and port clamping for VPN on port 500..... That's about it.
I think the biggest issue is down to packet size, as there are some log entries that show packet rejection over a certain size. But I can ping out at whatever size I like, which is odd.
MisterW
Superuser
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Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Quote
BT really offer no support for their equipment unless they supply the connection, which to be frank is a bit S#!T
From what I can see on The BT forums, they don't offer much support even if they do supply the connection! ::).They seem to be saying VPN isn't supported on a residential connection.
Quote
I think the biggest issue is down to packet size,
That's my thoughts too, from what I can see it's probably down to the MTU in the HH5.
I found this https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=34387.0 which makes interesting reading.
Quote
But I can ping out at whatever size I like, which is odd.
That is odd, are you saying that a ping above 1460 works without requiring fragmentation ?

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SONiQz
Dabbler
Posts: 14
Registered: ‎27-03-2014

Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Well MisterW, I need to take back my previous statement. I foolishly thought Windows was returning true figures when I ran some test the other day. Either that or I suffered from BAD brain-fade. I re-ran the tests today, with the addition of running them from my linux box and it was more in-line with the 1460 bit figure I expected and fragmenting anything above that..... Strange but hey!
As for VPN connections I have a VPN to my office that works, admittedly it isn't IPSec, thats just out of laziness and convenience tho!
Just reading that post you linked to.... Much data! Will need time to digest it all I think!

MisterW
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Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Quote
and it was more in-line with the 1460 bit figure I expected and fragmenting anything above that
That sounds better, well not really better, but what you would expect with an MTU of 1492 at the router. That post seems to provide evidence that it is down to fragmentation, or more exactly that the Vodafone servers refuse to negotiate fragmentation.

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SONiQz
Dabbler
Posts: 14
Registered: ‎27-03-2014

Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

I prefer the argument that Vodafone's servers refuse to negotiate than the router being the sole cause. However that puts it back in Vodafone's court, which means I'm stuck until I can get a hold of another reasonable router. *SIGH*
I love technology, I do!
Thanks
MisterW
Superuser
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Re: Vodafone Suresignal and Home Hub 5

Yes, it's perfectly resonable for a router to request an MTU less than 1500 (or even 1492). From what I can find, there seems to be a better (but not guaranteed!) chance of success with the SS v3, maybe that has a slightly different authentication mechanism which perhaps doesn't need so large a packet. Any chance of you persuading VF to give you one of those ?

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