[jameelch]

I have just got Bell Fibe (TV+Internet+Phone) installed - replacing Rogers Cable.

(I am normally keen to deep dive into any technology that I am using and thought of starting this thread. I do not want to duplicate information so if this is already being talked about elsewhere please let me know and I will drop this thread).

The information on Bell Fibe does not appear to be current in the different forums I have searched.

My Bell equipment is:

1) Sagemcom Modem/Router - LAN port 1 plugs into my home GigE switch (unmanaged).
2) PVR VIP2262 - connected via CAT5 to home network.
3) VAP2500 (wireless access point for wireless TV receivers) - connected via CAT5 to home network.
4) 2 x VIP2502 wireless receivers.

First question if anyone knows - It appears that *maybe* the older modem used differnet VLANS (/35 and /20) for TV and internet.

1) It appears that this is no longer needed since everything is hanging off the single port on the Sagemcom?
2) Is their just the one PPPoE connection being used here?
3) Does "guest" access go on a separate VLAN?
4) Any thoughts on the overall security of the Sagemcom? Wondering if it is better to bridge it and use a managed GigE switch.

jameelch

Edit: I should add that my internet is 25/10 carried over POTS - i.e. connection into Sagemcom is POTS line.

 

[jameelch]

Still working through trying to figure things out. Here is what I think so far (may be wrong!).


1) There are two PPPoE connections setup - one for IPTV and one for Internet.
2) Sagemcom likley does smart vlan/qos handling on the WAN side only.
3) Sagemcom *possibly* does smart handling on LAN side *if* it is the central switch - e.g. it may be able to route IPTV multicast traffic only on the ports that are feeding PVR/VAP - it might also be able to protect the wireless AP from IPTV - I am however not sure how much filtering it is able to do.
4) However in my setup, all IPTV traffic is being fed to the entire LAN including my Linksys E4200 wireless AP. I have not seen any issues - but this cannot be good.

Will keep digging.

 

[Larry]

Does anyone know if the connection hub's local IP address has to be the default 192.168.2.x or can it be 192.168.1.x for Fibe? Do the set top boxes get their address through DHCP ?

 

[jameelch]

Larry,

I have not tried to change the IP to 192.168.1.X but I am certain that this should not cause any issues.

The set tops get their IP through DHCP.

(PS: I too had a 192.168.1.X address space before switching to Fibe - there really should be no reason to care if the address space now becomes 192.168.2.X - unless you have a bunch of devices with on device static IP allocations - you are always better off allocating static IP's through your DHCP server - in this case it will be Sagemcom).

 

[jameelch]

I have been digging more into how the Fibe TV service works.

It is using a multicast with IGMP based subscriptions. The Sagemcom obviously handles this.

When ever a TV stream is enabled (start watching TV), I can see that my entire network is flooded by multicast traffic - this is happening since I am basically plugging the Sagemcom directly into my network built using unmanaged switches.

Fortunately, my WAP (using a Linksys E4200) in bridge mode is smart enough to filter out all the video multicast traffic so wireless networking is not impacted at all (that I can notice).

Bottom line is that even with multiple TV's swicthed on, I am noticing no real degredation in the network, even though there is tons of multicast sloshing all over the place.

A network built using smarter switches will obviously solve this - you need a switch that is capable of IGMP snooping. A switch like the Netgear GS108E will do this nicely - it is cheap and has IGMP snooping support built in.

 

[Larry]

I have a bunch of wireless routers on my network and their local IP address is set to 192.168.1.x. I would need to reset them all to a 2.x address. Not a huge problem but it seems that whenever I fiddle with the network, something ends up not working.

 

[bev fan]

Does wifi on sagemcom have to be on in order for iptv to function or can it be turned off and another router connected to do wireless function.

 

[jameelch]

Sagemcom wifi can be switched off - it is not needed for TV. The wireless TV receivers get their signal from a separate device which will be added if you have wireless receivers.

In my setup, I have turned off wirelss on the Sagemcom and am using the Linksys E4200 as the WAP in bridge mode.

 

[Dr.Dave]

bev fan, as the previous post says, wireless Fibe TV uses a separate wireless access point. See this thread for more details on how Wireless Fibe TV Receivers work:

Wireless Fibe TV Receiver (VIP2502)

 

[AsherN]

I've changed my Sagecom IP range with no ill effect.

 

[Larry]

Installation/Setup question

If I had ethernet where all my TVs are, would there be any need to use COAX? Any advantages / disadvantages ?

 

[betterthancable]

If properly setup it's best to use Ethernet. When you use Ethernet over cox all the connected devices share the same connection and compete for the same space (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZKrtV2tbRA). A switched Ethernet network (where you would add a multiport switch that supports multicast video) is your best bet for the best quality video.

 

[jameelch]

If I had ethernet where all my TVs are, would there be any need to use COAX? Any advantages / disadvantages ?

It depends on how your current ethernet wiring is setup. With Fibe TV you have only two devices that need to be wired in - one is the PVR and the second is the VAP - all TV's other than the one connected to the PVR will then connect wirelessly to the VAP.

So choices:

1) Run direct ethernet wire to PVR from Sage modem (Say port 1) and run a second direct wire to the VAP (say port 2). Then use one of the remaining ports for internet. This is the cleanest solution.
2) Plug Sage modem directly into your network - Now if your network is unmanaged you WILL have upto say 7 Mb/s per TV network capacity lost to TV multicast. On a GigE network this is not a problem. OR if you have a bunch of managed switches (see my post above) then you can segment traffic.
3) Using coax will separate out all TV traffic from your network and may be the simplest option if you do not a set of managed switches AND are unable to do individual runs to the PVR/VAP AND you are concerned about multicast traffic flooding your network.

Personally, i have seen no issues with just running the traffic on an unmanaged network - and I hate coax - it is hard to run neatly, does not bend around corners easily and is just a pain. Joys of IPTV should be that cabling is now standard. Other than that, there really is no con as such to using coax and in fact may be better in helping separate multicast traffic.

 

[Larry]

Fibe was installed today using my existing ethernet cable - no COAX at all. Since I installed the cabling myself many years after the house was built, I have multiple routers between the Connection Hub modem and the TVs. At first most of the channels were black or severely pixelated. The installer was going to switch and use COAX but we then tried hooking one of the settop boxes directly to the Connection Hub. Problem went away. I then bypassed an old D-LINK 16 port 10/100 switch I had as the main hub for my home network. Once I did that, all the TVs worked great with no other network changes. Easy and smooth installation (took about 30 minutes).

I guess the old 16-port switch didn't handle multicast traffic or something (VOD worked fine by the way).

So far so good.

 

[betterthancable]

VOD is unicast.

 

[Larry]

Careful with Wireless router

I ran into a common problem ( or so it seems). I had a wireless router acting as an access point to provide WIFI in other parts of my house. It turned out that this router was connected to the same LAN port of the sage modem as one of the set top boxes. When the box was on, WIFI in the house was hosed.

Solution (of course) was to connect the wireless router to a LAN port which had no set top boxes connected. Everything is great now.

Just thought I'd pass this along for anyone else having this issue. Of course the installer had such a rudimentary knowledge of networking/IP that there was no way he would have figured it out.

 

[17671]

how can 2 ethernet wires connect to port 1 on your Sagecom modem? that should be impossible. imagine, 2 wires going into one plug? arent there 4 lan ports on the sagecom? why cant the STB use 1 port and the unsupported non bell wireless access port you choose to use with your bell connect to lan port 2?

 

[jameelch]

Larry, what kind of a WAP are you using. In my case I have my entire LAN - which includes a Linksys E4200 WAP - running from a single port on the Sage.

I was very concerned about video traffic interfering with wireless - however, the E4200 auto-filters the video multicast and I see no issues.

I add this since it may not always be practical to plug the WAP directly into the Sage (e.g. my Sage is in the basement and WAP is on the second floor). If you run into this scenario try setting your WAP to filter multicast.

 

[Larry]

I am using an old Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I couldn't find anyway to filter multicast (in which case it treats multicast as broadcast and floods all the WIFI connected devices with traffic and overloads the router itself).

 

[Larry]

how can 2 ethernet wires connect to port 1 on your Sagecom modem? that should be impossible. imagine, 2 wires going into one plug? arent there 4 lan ports on the sagecom? why cant the STB use 1 port and the unsupported non bell wireless access port you choose to use with your bell connect to lan port 2?

There is a switch involved allowing more than one device to be connected to the same "ethernet run" from the Sage modem.

I did exactly as you suggested - using different LAN ports.