Using PPPoE and DMZ / Advanced DMZ for 'Bridge Mode' use of 3rd Party router on the HH4000 & Giga Hub

[navderek]

It would be great if Bell could confirm if they are going to update the FW on the HH4000 to enable a true bridge mode setup...also to stop the Wifi from automatically re-enabling itself anytime the HH4000 reboots itself. These are two MAJOR issues right now with the HH4000 and posted about on many forums (not just here).

It would be great if someone from Bell could chime in and let the community know if it is actually going to address these issues or not? If not, please explain why and please do not point to advanced DMZ as a solution because that doesn't actually work very well and severely impacts the performance on the Google Mesh (or any other pre-existing mesh setup). This is also discussed on many forums both on this one and externally by your customers.

We do realize the HH4000 is relatively new so there can be some improvements. We, as a community, just want to know if Bell plans to make those improvements or not.

Thanks,

-Derek

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❗AI Summary: 

When attempting to use a third-party router, customers frequently encounter networking challenges due to the absence of a true 'bridge mode'. This limitation has led to a variety of solutions involving PPPoE and the Advanced DMZ feature to avoid issues like double NAT; where two devices on the network are performing Network Address Translation (NAT). Double NAT can lead to problems with online gaming, port forwarding, and other applications that require a direct connection to the internet.

Some complications you may experience:

• Wi-Fi auto re-enabling: Even when disabled, the Bell Home Hub's Wi-Fi can turn back on after a reboot.
• Advanced DMZ limitations: Advanced DMZ can be unreliable, especially with third party mesh systems. PPPoE is preferred by users in this scenario.
• IP lease and connectivity drops: Devices lose connection when the public IP changes, requiring manual reconfiguration.
• Performance degradation: Speeds, especially download speeds can drop over time. A reboot or modem reset will be needed to restore.
• No static IPs: IP changes cause disruptions. Using DDNS can be considered.

In response, Bell Community users have detailed two primary methods to approximate a bridge mode: PPPoE passthrough and the use of the Advanced DMZ feature.

User-Shared Solutions:

PPPoE Passthrough: Often described as more stable and straightforward; it involves configuring the third-party router to establish the PPPoE connection directly with Bell. This effectively bypasses the Bell Home Hub 4000, Giga Hub and Giga Hub 2.0's routing functions, providing the third-party router with its own public IP address. To do this, users typically need to obtain their "b1" username and password from Bell. While stable, a significant drawback of this method is a potential reduction in internet speeds, particularly on plans faster than 500 Mbps, as many consumer routers struggle with the overhead of PPPoE.

Advanced DMZ: This method involves placing the third-party router in the modem's "Advanced Demilitarized Zone." This exposes the third-party router directly to the internet, which can result in higher performance. However, this solution is often reported to be less stable. For instance, rebooting your router might necessitate a subsequent reboot of your Giga Hub/Giga Hub 2.0 to restore the internet connection. Some have also reported experiencing lag spikes with this configuration. When using Advanced DMZ, it is advised to leave the login information on the third-party router blank, as entering PPPoE credentials can cause the connection to fail.

Configuration Tips from the Bell Community:

• When setting up either method, it's recommended to disable the Wi-Fi on the Bell Giga Hub/Giga Hub 2.0 to prevent interference.
• For PPPoE passthrough, connecting the WAN port of the third-party router to any LAN port on the Bell hub and configuring the router with your b1 credentials is the general procedure.
• For Advanced DMZ, users need to enable the feature in the Giga Hub/Giga Hub 2.0's settings and assign their third-party router to it. It's also highly recommended to not plug other devices directly into the Bell hub for security reasons when using Advanced DMZ.

Ultimately, the choice between PPPoE passthrough and Advanced DMZ depends on the user's priorities. If stability and ease of setup are paramount, PPPoE passthrough is often the recommended choice. For those who prioritize performance and are willing to troubleshoot potential instabilities, Advanced DMZ may be the preferred option.

[rossnick]

Haven't any down since the last couple of days. I also noticed the BELLXXX wifi was come back up again, even tough I disabled it. So maybe there was a firmware update on the HH4K hub and that caused the connection to drop. I've changed IP again after the last time, but did not see any drops in the internet. I have an ipsec tunnel with the office and it didn't go down since the time I think there was a firmware update on the HH4K.

I'm seeking a programable ONT SFP so that I can complety turn off the HH4K.

[rossnick]

Since the last couple of days, I've seen numerous HH4K reboot. Especialy when I was transfering large amount of data upstream. I've reverted back to double-nat with my router to see if it helps.

I was uploading at 41-ish mbps constatnt and saw several reboot during that time. I've received my SFP, now waiting for a SFP network card to be able to access it to change it's S/N.

[OldCrow]

Hi folks,

Bit of an odd situation I have so hopefully someone has an idea of what I can do. I have a HH4000 and my own eero 6E mesh network (which also has a 2.4 Gbps WAN port) - so not surprisingly I would prefer to "bridge" the modem.

The eero gateway is connected from its 2.4 Gbps WAN port to the HH4000 10Gbps port. The HH4000 is configured so that the eero gateway is in the Advanced DMZ and uses the external WAN address directly. The eero is configured to connect to the Bell network using PPPoE with the Bell B1****** username and password. All good and if I run speed tests I should get 3.25 Gbps up and down (on the HH4000 modem) or 2.4 Gbps up and down (on the eero gateway).

And I do get those speeds...for about two weeks at a time. Then the download speed (and only the download speed) drops significantly. Most recently to 1.1Gbps, but it has been as low as 64Mbps. And this is measured from the modem speed test, so it isn't an issue between the modem and the eero gateway. If anything, it seems to be a provisioning profile problem - which I think is supported by two things: first, only the download speed is affected; second, factory resetting the HH4000 and reconfiguring it fixes the issue...for another two weeks or so.

Now, factory resetting my modem and then setting it up again (changing default passwords, disabling the wifi, putting the gateway in the DMZ, etc, etc) is a pain and not what I want to do. But I cannot figure out how to prevent/solve this issue for the life of me.

Any advice or help would be great.

[joe2023]

Hello

Can you point to a document for configuring an external router with the Giga Hub modem (Fast 5689E) ? I have a Mesh wireless solution that I would prefer to use.

Thank you

[IceyIB]

I have the Home Hub 4000. I am not able to get pppoe passthrough so i thought it was a software issue. I tried everything with vlan 35 etc ! I have the 3.0 gbps plan

[MN]

My bell hub4000 is collapsing with 25 devices I have , the technician came and told me it was better to install an additional router to help alleviate the load. Can someone help me with the steps to configure the new router ? Thanks !

[BellNick]

Hi there @IceyIB 
Thank you for your post. 
Could you please clarify for the Community what exactly the issue you are experiencing is and what you are trying to attempt?

Looking forward to hearing back. 

[IceyIB]

hi, my problem is that I have the 3.0 Gbps plan and I cannot seem to get the full speed when going through PfSense. I have tried dmz, advanced dmz, ppoe passthrough and I am capping at 1800 download and 541 upload all the time when doing the speedtest-cli command. I have a xeon x5675 for cpu and my cores never goes below 81% idle state. On the HH4K i get 3200 Mbps download and same for upload so I get more then the 3.0 Gbps up and down but not on pfsense. My nic is a x520-da2 from Dell. 

any. Help would ge greatly appreciated thank you

[Taurus7774]

What do you mean by collapsing? I have tried the HH4000 with 30+ devices with no issues. Now I use my own router because some security features aren't available on the HH4000

[MN]

Hi Taurus, I have 5 cameras and is mostly when I want to see them all at the same time that my router collapses, It kicks me out for a minute, the cameras go down , no signal,  and then it re establishes the connection. Looks like the router is not that powerful. Even the technician from bell told me to buy another router and link my cameras to the new router.

[tpc]

(strange, came up as "visitor"... I'm really a customer here! :-))

Hi, @BellDRock!

I'm a new Fibe 1.5 subscriber - tech installed GigaHub (firmware version 1.16) yesterday.  Per your suggestion above, I tried configuring my ASUS router (connected to a 1GbE port on the GigaHub) using the Advanced-DMZ feature of the GigaHub.

The router received the router's WAN address, DNS server info properly updated, and etc; GigaHub agrees that the router is in the DMZ.... but network behaviour is very poor:

• from a Windows machine, opening a page is often very slow (over 15s) - but sometimes instantaneous; this looks like DNS problems.
• Client-side (Windows laptop) speed test failed (to speedtest.net)
  • after starting test, download paused for at least 15s (couldn't load the ads - presumably another DNS problem) and then speed was quite good (960Mb/s, but connection to my router is just 1GbE)
  • upload failed - a long pause, then speedtest.net complained I probably had a double-NAT in the way..

I gave up on that and instead went to PPPoE - I have good performance with that (about 900 Mb/s down, 800 Mb/s up), but I would agree with your position that I'd rather not have my router wrapping/unwrapping PPPoE packets all the time, and instead use the DMZ feature your hardware provides.  Any pointers on where to go to resolve the poor performance and erratic behaviour of the DMZ configuration?  I think the good performance on PPPoE suggests it's not my hardware, but it's quite possible it's my settings that are at fault.

Thanks!

[IceyIB]

Hi,

i had similar behaviours with admz where my pfsense box was getting a public ip bit I was getting very high pings to bell’s default gateway which resulted in packet loss everytime and very poor internet access performance. I then switched back to pppoe

[RYGUY]

@navderek it would be great if Bell would tell us anything but, my experience is that we will get nothing. It's hard to fathom how Bell can rollout this Gigahub 4000 in the complete garbage state it is in. I've had it for 2+ months on 1.5 Gbs service and it has only gotten worse over time. I've tried PPoE and Advanced DMZ. Advanced DMZ was unusable. PPoE works but, the Gigahub reboots frequently throughout the day which is a huge disruption. Frankly Bell should be paying us to be the Beta testers of an obviously not ready for rollout service.

@BellPatricia @BellNick 

[Frankbooth]

Hi @tpc 

In your router under WAN, there should be an option under switch control to change port acceleration for type 10G base T and SFP+.

Default would be auto, change both too NSS and see if it resolves your issue.

[Ron_Burgundy]

I believe myself along with countless Bell customers are very frustrated with Bell’s complete disregard for simply adding a bridge mode to their modem/routers. Why are they doing this? I’ve noticed that on every post here Bell simply responds by asking customers to use DMZ. So many users have had endless issues with this and the user interface is not user friendly. All we want is to use our own routers to actually take advantage of the fibre speeds you offer. Can Bell not do something about this?