Double NAT on Home Hub 4000 with an existing home LAN

WalterG
Contributor II

Is there an actual or potential double NAT issue with connecting my existing router to the 4000?  Are there settings on the 4000 to avoid this while retaining TV and phone connections?

I intend to use my existing wifi setup on my LAN.  Can I switch off the 4000 transmitter?

 

*Updated title & added Labels

3 helpful replies

Accepted Solutions

ZaneP
Community All-Star
Community All-Star

For starters, you'll need to connect your own router's WAN port to a LAN port on the HH4000, and configure your router to use PPPoE. This should ensure no double NAT.

But the big-picture question: what will be the overall benefit to using your own router? What are your "must-haves"? You may find that your existing devices will get along well with the HH4000's wifi. So when you get the 4000 installed, I think you should test-drive it for a while to see if if meets your needs.

I am a Community All-Star and customer. I'm here to help by sharing my knowledge and experience. My views on Bell and the Community Forum are my own and not the views of Bell or any of its affiliates.

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ZaneP
Community All-Star
Community All-Star

Take a look through DSL Reports, Bell forum thread on the 4000, for specific info/instructions on Advanced DMZ. (The thread is labeled "HomeHub 4000"). 

Re the Cisco router: you wrote this, which confused me: "It would be a lot easier if I could just plug the modem into the 4000 and connect it with the router's WAN side ip address." 

 Hope everything goes smoothly. Let us know where you land!

Cheers,

ZaneP

I am a Community All-Star and customer. I'm here to help by sharing my knowledge and experience. My views on Bell and the Community Forum are my own and not the views of Bell or any of its affiliates.

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BellDRock
Community Manager

 

Hey community! Great conversation. 

For a bridge mode setting; the DMZ / Advanced DMZ in the Advanced Tool section of the GUI should provide the necessary functionalities needed. 

Depending on the scenario you want to achieve, in your 3rd party device that should be connected on a LAN port you may also need to do some or all the following configuration tasks:

  • Turn off Whole Home Wi-Fi and Primary Wi-Fi network on the HH4K / Enable Wi-Fi on device
  • Turn  off DHCP in the HH4K / Enable DHCP on your device
  • Configure PPPoE settings on your device by either inputting your Bell b1 and password [Bell Internet user ID (e.g., b1xxxxxx)Opens in a new tab or window] - (under the internet tab on the top page of the GUI) or inputting other credentials you may want to use.  This will circumvent the HH4K NAT.

 

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28 REPLIES 28

ZaneP
Community All-Star
Community All-Star

For starters, you'll need to connect your own router's WAN port to a LAN port on the HH4000, and configure your router to use PPPoE. This should ensure no double NAT.

But the big-picture question: what will be the overall benefit to using your own router? What are your "must-haves"? You may find that your existing devices will get along well with the HH4000's wifi. So when you get the 4000 installed, I think you should test-drive it for a while to see if if meets your needs.

I am a Community All-Star and customer. I'm here to help by sharing my knowledge and experience. My views on Bell and the Community Forum are my own and not the views of Bell or any of its affiliates.

JD
Regular Contributor II

I agree with ZaneP - Check the modem capabilities without added routers, you might be surprised at the performance.  I got rid of my older router setup when I upgraded my modem.  For extra coverage I use WiFi mesh system.

WalterG
Contributor II

thank you both for you quick responses.  I should perhaps explained better in my post, but I thought it best to keep it short.  I presently have a Bell 2-wire modem/hub and run a LAN behind it through a router.  the router is setup to use static ip addressing (MAC addresses) with DHCP disabled for all devices; and, at the time I needed to run two separate networks.  I am now planning to upgrade to a fully Fibe connection which will come with a 4000 hub.  Essentially, I don't want the hassle of having to reconfigure and am unsure that the 4000 hub would allow me to replicate my current set up.  It would be a lot easier if I could just plug the modem into the 4000 and connect it with the router's WAN side ip address.

My concern about double NAT came from some problems I have had in the past and internet searches on the 4000 - always a bid dodgy in sorting out the wheat from the chaff - but I came across a detailed Bell-Aliant document on the 3000 hub (How to use your own router with Bell Fibe/FiberOP internet by enabling Advanced DMZ — Cormang.com).  It states:

"In cases where customer owned routers are deployed, there is a chance that placing them behind Network Address
Translation (NAT) on the Actiontec LAN can result in problematic behavior of some protocols."

but then goes on to say that it is preferred that "Advanced DMZ mode" is preferred to bridging to avoid those problems.

As that advice was from Bell-Aliant on the East coast and was specific to the 3000, I though it best to ask a question on this site about the 4000 and the possibility of double NAT issues with running my route behind it.

With apologies for the long reply, WalterG

"

ZaneP
Community All-Star
Community All-Star

No apologies needed! Good to read the details behind your original question.

Regarding double NAT, it seems many people who have the HH4000 are opting to enable Advanced DMZ. It's a multistep process to get it running smoothly, but it according to posts I've read it certainly works.

There is a very long thread in the Bell Canada forum on DSL Reports. Plenty of discussion, and instructions, on how to  use Advanced DMZ when connecting a router to the HH4000.

I'm not sure why you want to use your existing Bell modem with the new HH4000. Or if it can be done at all (I lack the tech knowledge). You're getting a new state-of-the-art modem in the 4000. Hopefully it, along with your existing router, will take care of everything you need. Keep us posted!

ZaneP

 

I am a Community All-Star and customer. I'm here to help by sharing my knowledge and experience. My views on Bell and the Community Forum are my own and not the views of Bell or any of its affiliates.

WalterG
Contributor II

thanks again ZaneP.  Advanced DMZ is what the Bell document I referenced recommended for the 3000, so good to know it is available on the 4000.  But it is not my existing Bell modem that I am retaining, it is the Cisco router that I run behind the Bell router on which I manage my  LAN.

Regards, WalterG

ZaneP
Community All-Star
Community All-Star

Take a look through DSL Reports, Bell forum thread on the 4000, for specific info/instructions on Advanced DMZ. (The thread is labeled "HomeHub 4000"). 

Re the Cisco router: you wrote this, which confused me: "It would be a lot easier if I could just plug the modem into the 4000 and connect it with the router's WAN side ip address." 

 Hope everything goes smoothly. Let us know where you land!

Cheers,

ZaneP

I am a Community All-Star and customer. I'm here to help by sharing my knowledge and experience. My views on Bell and the Community Forum are my own and not the views of Bell or any of its affiliates.

Although this does help...the Bell HH4000 should really have a bridge mode that can be enabled. I mean you said it yourself on the forum here that it is an advanced router. That statement doesn't hold a lot of water if it has only the very basic features. One other major annoyance is that the WiFi re-enables itself each time the modem is rebooted, even if it was specifically set to disabled by the administrator. This is not good behavior and should be corrected in future firmware release.

Regards,

-Derek

ZaneP
Community All-Star
Community All-Star

Hi Derek. Actually, what I wrote is that the HH4000 is an advanced modem. Its router side firmware seems a bit dumbed-down: No MAC addressing, no firewall, no obvious way to put separate SSIDs on the different transmitters.

It's my understanding that true bridge mode may not be workable with the HH4K, except with configuring via Advanced DMZ. PPPoE will provide pass-through. I've not connected my ASUS router to the HH4K yet. How's your experience been, when connecting your own router to it? You wrote about the WiFi annoyance (It's a firmware bug, btw). Any thing else? 

ZaneP

I am a Community All-Star and customer. I'm here to help by sharing my knowledge and experience. My views on Bell and the Community Forum are my own and not the views of Bell or any of its affiliates.

Well I tried the advanced DMZ + PPPoE setup on my side but the speeds were very slow. By slow I mean the best speed I could get running a speed test directly on the Google Node (wired facing WAN) was about 400Mbps down and 300Mbps up. That is quite slow compared the the 1.6Gbps down and 1Gbps up I can achieve with a direct wired connection to the HH4k (over a 2.5Gbps ethernet link).

So I instead went back to a double NAT configuration which is a bit of a pain but my speeds are a lot better at around 700Mbps down and 500Mbps up for anything connected through the Google side...that's ok for all the Wifi users in the home and since I have the HH4k in my office I am utilising the 10G link directly from HH4k for my office PC and get the full speed (1.6Gpbs down and 1Gbps up). It's not an ideal setup but I guess it can work. There will be issues sharing a printer on a double NAT setup..maybe I'll just buy a second printer for the office.

Overall it's aceptable but a real step backwards in terms of user experience. Home networks are a lot more complex these days and Bell really should wake up to that fact and give a better firmware to cover all the different use cases.