Revisiting How To Bypass Bell’s HH400 Hardware With Your Own Router… Along With Some Commentary About ASUS And Bell
When I first got my Bell Fibe Internet install, I set it up to use my own router to get to the Internet because I never, ever use my telco’s suppled gear for these reasons. Originally, I was using the PPPoE bypass method as described in this article to make this happen, which worked fine except for this:
Now I’m paying for 1.5 Gbps down / 940 Mbps up from Bell. And I am not getting those speeds using PPPoE bypass. And I know that the router is the cause because this is the speed that I get directly from the HH4000:
From the Bell hardware I was getting more than I was paying for.
So I put in a support ticket with ASUS who makes my ZenWiFi AX XT8 mesh router, but I have to say that their tech support was absolutely abysmal in terms of helping me to troubleshoot this issue. More on that in a bit. That negative support experience with ASUS made me go down the rabbit hole of tying to figure out how to maximize the speed of my connection using my XT8. And I hit on a method that so far seems to be stable. Though I will provide the following caveat: Your mileage may vary in terms of using this method depending on what router you are using. And it is a bit on the challenging side to set up. So if you’re not comfortable with the steps below, I would suggest not doing it at all.
In short, what I did is use DHCP and then use Bell’s “Advanced DMZ” feature to give the XT8 an external IP address which avoids the dreaded double NAT. The first time I tried it, this was my experience:
I did some more experimentation with the “Advanced DMZ” functionality built into the HH4000. My conclusion is that it isn’t very stable based on the fact that it broke HomeKit support and VPN connections from my network to another network would not work at all or very well. Thus I would avoid this option entirely.
It now turns out that I should have done a bit more experimentation. Which I got a chance to do a few nights ago when my wife was not at home. With her not being at home, it gave me the freedom to tinker with the home network without getting yelled at.
We will start with the HH4000. You should connect a CAT 5e or CAT 6 cable from HH4000 10Gbps Port which is the silver one on the right hand side on the back of the HH4000 to the WAN Port on the router. One thing that I should mention is that you need your router to have a 2.5 Gbps port or faster for best results. If you have a 1 Gbps port on your router, you will never ever achieve a speed faster than 1 Gbps up and down. In my case, I have a 2.5 Gbps port on my router, so I will get speeds up to 2.5 Gbps up and down.
Once you do that, here’s what you should do next:
- Go to 192.168.2.1 using a browser and be prepared to type in your HH4000 password
- Click on “Advanced Tools and Settings”
- Click on “DMZ”
This is where things start to get tricky. That’s why I have this screenshot:
I’ve redacted anything that I think is sensitive from this screen shot. But here’s what you need to do next:
- Turn on “DMZ”
- Put a checkmark next to “Advanced DMZ”
- Under the word “Device”, find the MAC (Media Access Control) address for your router. That address is usually looks something like this: 2C:54:91:88:C9:E3. And it is likely located on the back or bottom of your router. Once you find it, click the “>” so that there is not only a checkmark next to it (as is the case with the first item in the screen shot), but it also gets copied to the right as pictured in the screen shot under the words “Active Device”.
- Click save.
For bonus points make sure that under “Advanced tools and settings” it looks like this screen shot:
Specifically, turn off UPnP, DLNA, and SIP ALG as pictured above.
You should also deal with the WiFi on the HH4000 as well to cut down on potential WiFi interference:
- Go to ‘Manage my Wi-Fi’ and do the following:
- Change “Whole Home Wi-Fi” to OFF.
- Under “Primary Wi-Fi network” click on “Advanced settings”.
- Uncheck “Keep a common network name (SSID) and password for both 2.4 and 5 Ghz bands.”
- Turn OFF the 2.4GHz network but leave the 5.0GHz on so that you can get back into the HH4000 if you need to. Or you can turn it all off as rebooting the HH4000 will turn the WiFi back on again.
- Turn off Guest Network
- Click “Save”
Pro Tip: In my case, I just turn the WiFi off entirely and I have an Ethernet cable plugged into one of the gigabit ports of the HH4000. That way I can plug in a laptop via Ethernet and log into the HH4000 if I need to.
Next you have to go to your router and set the WAN port to use DHCP. How you do that depends on the brand of router you have. So you should check your router’s instructions to get instructions on how to do this.
Now here’s the important part. Power off (pulling the power plug is your best option) both your router and the HH4000. Go find something to do for a couple of minutes. Then power both devices back up. First the router and then the HH4000 once the router is live. If all goes well, you should have a connection to the Internet.
After I confirmed that I was back online, I was able to get this result via the XT8’s built in speed test:
Time to declare victory and have a beer as now I am getting the speed that I am paying Bell for via the XT8.
A couple of notes. I found that two things affected what speed that I could get. The first was QoS or Quality Of Service. Having it on slowed my speed significantly. Having it off increased it significantly. So I’m keeping that feature off. The second thing that affected my speed was a feature called AI Protection which ASUS says “not only protects your connected devices from compromise, but also your family from inappropriate content and unhealthy internet usage when using their smart devices.” Because it scans all the packets coming and going to and from the router for threats it will slow your connection. But based on my testing, it only slowed things by a tiny degree that is only noticeable on a speed test. So I’m going to leave this on because of the security that it provides. If you have similar settings on whatever router you are using, you should check those to maximize your speed.
This configuration has been stable for the last few days, but I will continue to monitor it and I am prepared to revert back to PPPoE bypass if stability becomes an issue. And trade speed for stability as a result.
Now this is the part of the article where I get to rant for a bit. Let’s start with Bell.
Consumers should not have to go through this much effort by using either the above method, or the previous method that I was using, to use their own hardware. And what is driving this level of effort is that Bell for whatever reason insists on using PPPoE on their Fiber connections in Ontario and Quebec (as far as I know, if other places in Canada use PPPoE on Bell’s Fiber connections, please let me know in the comments below). PPPoE was designed for DSL (digital subscriber line) connections and not for high speed fibre connections. Which without going deep into the weeds, this means that this protocol isn’t designed for this volume and speed of traffic. The fact that Bell continues to use PPPoE in 2022 is mind blowing. Much like the lack of IPv6 on their network, Bell really needs to do something about that. While they are at it, they could copy Rogers and just have a proper bridge mode on their modems. While I am sure that Rogers does not want their customers using bridge mode, and people like me are edge cases to them, Rogers at least gives their the customers the option of bridge mode and they even document how to enable it which is a good tech support call deflection strategy. Meanwhile, Bell has no such ability on their modems or documentation even if they did, which is a #Fail. The fact is that having a proper bridge mode would make life a lot easier for consumers as they would not have to go through these sorts of gymnastics just to use their own hardware.
The other part of my slow upstream speed issue was the ASUS ZenWiFi AX XT8 router and how it handles PPPoE traffic. Now to be fair to ASUS, most consumer routers do a craptastic job of handling high speed PPPoE traffic. And because of that, if you want to do PPPoE bypass on your Bell connection because you may not be able to use the method above, you need a really fast router to keep up with the high speeds of a fibre connection that uses PPPoE. If you’re on team ASUS, the only routers that I am aware of that can keep up with a 1.5 Gbps connection that uses PPPoE are the RT-X89X or the GT-AXE16000. But I would not be surprised that if you go to Bell’s 3 Gbps service or higher using either of those routers, that you’d run into a version of the issue that I had with the XT8 as either of those routers are only somewhat faster than my XT8 mesh router. I should also point out that either router is super expensive and complete overkill for most people as they’re aimed at the competitive gaming market. Alternately if you are not on Team ASUS, you can opt to get enterprise class hardware from a company like Netgate or Mikrotik which are not only complete overkill for most people, but they come with a level of complexity in terms of setting them up and operating them that most consumers aren’t used to. But this sort of gear will give you the performance that you need for this use case because it’s enterprise class gear designed for high performance. Either way, if you choose not to use Bell’s hardware for your network, and you want or need to use the PPPoE bypass method, you will need to spend significant amounts of cash to get the speed that you are looking for, and potentially deal with a more complex solution. Which goes back to Bell’s use of PPPoE and why they need to get rid of it sooner rather than later as consumers shouldn’t have to spend large amounts of money and deal with higher level of complexity just to use their own gear instead of Bell’s.
Now I would like to comment on the tech support that ASUS provides. It’s horrifically bad. I spent over two weeks with them running around in circles trying to help them understand what my problem was, which was that this router performs poorly via a PPPoE bypass setup, but performs just fine in the setup that I describe above. Then I ended up sending them endless sets of logs and exchanging endless emails with them to see if they could debug what was going on. The case ended up going to the “next level of support” (their words not mine) at ASUS. And the best that they could come up with is that I had a bad cable between the HH4000 and the XT8. Which is illogical as the PPPoE bypass setup created the slow upstream issue, and a DHCP setup like the one that I had outlined above does not create this issue. Which following that logic chain eliminates the cable as a possibility for the slow upstream issue, and points to a problem with the XT8 router. An organization the size of ASUS should have tech support people who can follow that logic and come to that conclusion. But clearly they don’t and out of frustration, I asked them to close the case.
What is worse is that all this troubleshooting was done via email which is the absolute worst way to provide tech support. Especially with complex issues like this. Getting onto a Zoom session or a phone call would have likely resulted in some sort of positive progress, and maybe even a solution. But they didn’t go that route and the net result of this rather negative experience is that it drove me to look at other options that avoided the use of PPPoE to get better performance from the XT8. It also made me decide that I won’t be recommending ASUS gear to my home and prosumer clients anymore. And chances are, my next router at home won’t be an ASUS product. While ASUS has great hardware, their support doesn’t meet the mark. Having competent tech support adds to the value of the gear that a vendor like ASUS makes. Or in this case, not having competent support detracts from the value of the gear that ASUS makes. So if the people at ASUS are reading this, they might want to look at this negative situation and make changes internally to make sure that they’re not on the wrong side of a public post like this as this sort of #Fail reflects poorly on ASUS as a brand. And will likely affect their future sales.
Rant over.
If you have any questions about setting up your Bell Fibe connection to use your home router via either of the methods that I have described, please leave a comment below or drop me an email and I will do my best to assist. Oh, and if you’re ASUS or Bell and you want to speak to me about what I said above, I’m a very easy person to find and I’d be more than willing to chat with you. All you have to do is take a look at my About page for contact details and we can go from there.
August 18, 2022 at 9:37 am
[…] UPDATE #2: There is an alternate way of doing this that appears to be stable for me and might work for you. Details are available here. […]
January 10, 2023 at 10:14 pm
Hello,
Im using an Asus router as well, the config page its very similar to yours (if not the same) can you please show me where can I
“set the WAN port to use DHCP”.
I do not see it in the Wan section on ly the LAN in advance settings has the DHCP server set to YES.
thank you.
January 11, 2023 at 7:57 am
It seems ASUS has changed some of the wording in the firmware for the XT8. Go to the “WAN” Tab and select “Automatic IP”.
June 16, 2023 at 6:30 pm
Thank you for making this article, it has helped me make my network much better and easier to maintain.
It’s been about a year since you posted this article, are you still using the DMZ method or have you reverted to PPPoE?
My Story:
***********
I got Bell fiber 1.5Gbps/940Mbps about 6 months ago and I’ve already had to have my modem replaced once and now a 2nd time since the 10G port has died.
I’m in the process of setting up a new 2.5Gbps router (TP-Link ER707-M2) following your instructions, so that I don’t have to have all of my port forwarding rules and static IPs setup on the Bell modem/router.
It was a PITA having to do it twice already, I don’t want to do it again.
June 16, 2023 at 6:59 pm
Thanks for the kudos. I am still running Advanced DMZ. Though the latest firmware update from ASUS has made doing so difficult as they (ASUS) broke something related to DHCP on the WAN port. Other than that, I’ve had no issues to speak of.
June 16, 2023 at 7:14 pm
I’m glad to hear it.
Since the 10Gbps port on my Bell modem has died, I’m currently plugged into 1 of the 1Gbps ports.
I tried both the PPPoE and DMZ methods tonight and both gave me 910Mbps down and 940Mbps… so basically maxing out the 1Gbps port.
Once I get my new Bell modem in the mail, I’ll try both methods again and see which one gets me closest to the 1.5Gbps down that I’m paying for.
I’ve bookmarked this post for the future 🙂
June 26, 2023 at 3:33 pm
Thanks again for your detailed instructions.
TL;DR
********
I ended up going with PPPoE due to DMZ being very unstable for me 🙁
Long Story
*************
I finally had a chance to setup our new Bell modem since my wife went into the office today 🙂
I first tried setting it up using your detailed steps for DMZ, but the connection was sporadic and overall flakey 🙁
Some sites would load while others would fail, connections would randomly die.
I then switched to using the PPPoE connection, and it’s been working like a dream.
I’m getting my full 1.5Gbps down and 940Mbps up using PPPoE.
I’m using the TP-Link ER707-M2 2.5Gbps VPN router and then I have a few Ubiquiti APs around my house providing Wi-Fi.
For anyone interested in it, this router only has 2 x 2.5Gbps ports, the other 4 x RJ-45 ports, as well as the 1 x SFP port, are all 1Gbps ports.
But for my purposes, this is perfect.
I have a 5 port 2.5Gbps switch and a 24 port 1Gbps switch hooked up to my router so I can have up-to 4 x 2.5Gbps devices on my network which can all get my full internet speed, and then 51 x 1Gbps devices.
For now, this is plenty 🙂
June 26, 2023 at 3:40 pm
Glad I can help!
November 6, 2023 at 11:06 am
I used my RT-AX89X as a go between the HH4000 and my Supermicro Pfsense server. I have 10gb fiber back end. Couldn’t get more than 5-6gb down or up running pfsense in PPPoE due to a known single core issue in Freebsd. I have the Bell 8gb service.
I put the mac address of the Asus into the DMZ bypass on HH4000. I used PPPoE credentials in the Asus to connect and get ip address. I give the pfsense a static ip address from outside the allocated asus dhcp range. I also exempt that ip address from any firewall activity with the software provided in the asus. Its somewhere in the dual wan settings area I believe. No double Nat. Everything works great. All servers and pc’s have 10gb spf+ adapters. Speed tests are typically 8200 down and 7950 up.
Asus PPPoE processing speed is exceptional.
Downside on pfsense is Wan interface will show static dhcp address from asus but using DDNS in Pfsense will show external ip address. Had to enable DDNS in Asus modem as well.
I have a lot of server apps that require external access into my network. I couldn’t get the port forwards to work properly in pfsense when I tried setting the asus wan as dhcp. This was rectified by using PPPoE in Asus in DMZ mode on HH4000
September 1, 2022 at 6:38 pm
Hi there,
Thanks for a great article, I am going to be attempting this shortly. The only difference is that I am going to be using ASUS AX89X router as my main router (which will be getting Internet connection from HH4000 via 10GB Ethernet or SPF+ connection since and then connecting ASUS AX89X has both 🙂 I also have 3GBs Bell Fibe service currently as I recently switched to (same price than 1.5GBs so no brainer)
And then I am hoping to utilize pair of XT8s to blanket my home with increased wifi speeds.
A few questions for you please if you don’t mind :
1) I am assuming that once I get the Internet from HH4000 into my ASUS AX89X router via the 10Gb port, I could utilize the second 10Gb port on the Asus and feed it into QNAP 10GB switch which will take care of all my wired Ethernet jacks in my home 🙂
2) Do you recommend that I then run pair of XT8s as AiMesh or as Access points ? I am hoping to set them up with wired 2.5Gbs backhaul as they both have 2.5Gbs port on them. I would put them each on first and second floor of my house and connect them back to the QNAP 10Gb switch via wired Ethernet jack on each level on my house (wires within walls lead each Ethernet jack to that QNAP 10GB switch wich also has 20 2.5GBs ports 🙂 )
3) When do you recommend that I turn off wifi on Bell HH4000 if at all ?
4) This method is different than PPPoE Bypass that you also documented – which one should I pursue in your honest opinion – if you could provide pros and cons based on my that would be great 🙂
5) I am really after best (better than now) wifi speeds in my house if that’s achievable with my equipment: ASUS AX89X as a main router and pair of Asus XT8s – feel free to recommend any other approach if that makes more sense to you. I am really hoping to get closer to 1GB wifi speeds throughout my house – is that achievable with my proposed setup ?
Thanks so much, I hope you don’t mind if I contact you if I run into issues setting up the method that you described and tested ?
Regards,
Marek
P.S. If I don’t get any responses via this website is it OK to email you nerd@theitnerd.ca ?
September 2, 2022 at 7:43 am
Good day. Thanks for the kudos. In answer to your questions:
1. I personally have not done what you are proposing. But there is a YouTuber named TechMixr who did something similar to what you are proposing to do. Here’s the video that explains this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRSUdiOlBZM
2. I would recommend this setup. Though you will lose speed as it’s going from a 3 Gbps connection down to 2.5 at each XT8 node. You will likely have to play with what ASUS calls its roaming assistant to make sure that devices connect to the right node relative to where it is in your home.
3. I did a list in this article of the things that I would tun off. In my case, I killed the WiFi entirely along with UPnP, DLNA, and SIP ALG.
4. The original PPPoE bypass method should be the first thing to try. It’s more stable and easier to set up, but because of the PPPoE overhead you might not get anywhere near 3Gbps up and down. In fact, I would surprised if you did. Thus the second method would be the better way to go.
5. WiFi speeds are a tricky thing. I did an article on the speeds that I get in my environment with a pair of XT8 that has insane amounts of WiFi access points to fight through. Not to mention concrete walls that they have to deal with. I am also using wireless backhaul so that’s a factor. So you could in theory get 1 Gbps speeds. But if you get anything about 500 or 600 Mbps, and you live in a heavy metropolitan area with neighbours close by, I would take that.
I hope that helps. Let me know if I can clarify anything.
September 2, 2022 at 9:25 am
Thanks again – some clarifications based on your answers 🙂
2) I would recommend this setup. Which one ? Do you recommend that I then run pair of XT8s as AiMesh or as Access points ?
When you say I will be losing speed , how so? Are you talking about wifi speeds or my network speeds ? Remember that from Asus router I am going 10Gbs out to my QNAP switch which is 10GB/2.5Gbs so via wired (locally)I will get my 10 Gbs speed to devices that support that speed and or 2.5GBs to devices that support it. Wifi will never get to that speed period but 1GBs wifi speeds should be achievable , I think ?
Please note that I am planning using my XT8 nodes for wifi either in AP mode or imesh as I have whole house wired already. So my local LAN will give me full speed to all the devices that support 10Gbs will it not ?
4) Once again, you are stating “that but because of the PPPoE overhead you might not get anywhere near 3Gbps up and down. In fact, I would surprised if you did. Thus the second method would be the better way to go”
I believe that TechMixr is getting that full speed and once again wired should be no problem to achieve in my opinion .
5. WiFi speeds are a tricky thing – I am already getting 300-500 with HH4000 and 6 pods but I would like more 🙂 so really hoping for close to Gbs wifi speeds with this otherwise it doesn’t make sense for me to do it 🙁 and invest all that money in the extra equipment.
Thanks again . I hope that I am getting this right 🙂
September 3, 2022 at 10:12 am
Hello again.
In answer to question two, I was talking about network speed. You have a 3Gbps connection coming into your home. But the connection between the nodes are 2.5 Gbps. Which means you’re leaving 500 Mbps on the table. Given that you are unlikely to see more than 1 Gbps via WiFi, it may not matter.
In answer to question four, TechMixr got full speed using a 1.5 Gbps connection. Not 3 Gbps. PPPoE overhead and a router’s ability to hand it is a concern and I haven’t seen consumer gear get speeds much above what TechMixr got via PPPoE.
In terms of question five, it’s hard to predict what you might get in terms of WiFi speed. Better equipment will help somewhat. Dumb question. When you say “pods”, you mean the Bell pods?
September 1, 2023 at 7:47 pm
Hello! Thanks for the article. I have 3gb up/down from bell and a asus raputure gt-ax11000 router. I have followed the above method and my download speed went from 750mbs to 500mbs but my upload went from 975mbs to 2000mbs. I was hoping you could advise how to boost the download speed as it certainly helped boost the upload speed
September 2, 2023 at 4:36 pm
Are you plugged into the 10gb port on the Bell hardware and the same port on your ASUS router? Are the relevant ports connected at speeds above 1Gbps?
September 3, 2022 at 8:08 am
[…] That wasn’t a big deal as after thanking the tech and sending him on his way, I set it up in this manner again which only took a few […]
September 3, 2022 at 11:22 am
Hello again,indeed, and thanks so much for taking teh time to converse about this 🙂 I really appreciate that! This is really what it means to be part of the Internet community in my opinion and I have learned so much!
So about my network speed 🙂 I am expecting to get full 3GBs internet speed to wired devices that will have 10GBs connection to my QNAP switch as I am getting it now (to my main desktop that has 10Gbs network adapter I am getting 3Gbs up and down! so full internet speed that I am paying for) Otherwise why would I even attempt to do this if I can achieve this today with Bell HH4000 being fed into QNAP 10GBs switch (out of HH4000 10Gbs port)
Note that I am strictly talking about WIRED speed as my house is fully wired with CAT6 cabling and each Ethernet jack is plugged in (via CAT6 cables in walls) into that QNAP switch that has 4 – 10GBs port and 16 2.5GBs ports. So what I am basically going to change is this (at least try) :
I will have 10GBs port connected from Bell HH4000 into my 10 GBs ASUS AX89X router port. And then I will do PPPoE pass-through from Bell HH4000 into my router. Remember that this particular router has 2 of these 10Gbs network ports (RJ45 and SFP+). So once PPPoE pass-through is done with to the ASUS AX89X router and I am getting the full 3Gbs internet speed into it which I should!
I will then use the other 10GBs SFP+ port from ASUS AX89X router to feed that into QNAP 10GBs switch which if it works (and I believe it should) it will give me full 3Gbs up and down speeds to my main desktop and to whole network (i.e. each Ethernet jack that has connection back to that switch should in theory get either 10Gbs or 2.5Gbs connection to it , depending what is on the end of that each Ethernet jack. Most of devices i.e. streaming etc… will connect at 1GBs wired and that’s OK but my network will be future proof once 2.5Gb connections will become more prevalent in such devices. And please keep in mind that still only talking about WIRED speeds internally on my local wired Network. At this point , I have not even started optimizing wifi coverage speeds yet as I am planning to do that with pair of Asus XT8s as I am hoping to use them as either iMesh or AP (Access Point) nodes (I will test both and decide which one setup gives me more of the coverage and wiffi speeds improvement)
Here is a link to what I am hoping to achieve:
(I am just going to replace ET with XT units in this example)
https://dongknows.com/best-multi-gig-wired-backhaul-aimesh-combos/#extra-mixed-wi-fi-6-and-wi-fi-6e-multi-gig-wired-backhaul-aimesh-combos
Keep in mind that each of Asus XTs units have a 2.5Gbs port which I am hoping to use as wired back haul and spread them to first and second level of my home as my main router is in the basement. So I am hoping to get quite a great wifi coverage and potentially better wifi speeds that I am getting now (as close to 1GBs wireless as I can)
The only unknown at this point is will the XT satellitenodes work as such as I am going to connect them via Ethernet jack on each level of my house (utilizing their 2.5Gb port) through my walls back to my multi-gig QNAP switch, which has 2.5Gbs ports. Hopefully this work and I will let you know how it went 🙂
But before attempting to incorporate XTs into my network, I am also going to test my ASUS AX89X router and its range, coverage and wifi speeds first and perhaps it will be more than enough for my 2500 sq feet home 🙂 That would be incredible actually and I have heard great deal of very favorable info on this router. And if the wifi speeds are improved I will then turn off wifi on Bell HH4000 for good and never use it but only use PPPoE pass-through into my router.
So that is the plan 🙂 Please let me know if you see any glaring omissions or assumptions on my part in this ?
You know this stuff more than I do so any words of wisdom/gotchas would be really appreciated.
Yes, TechMixr got full speed using a 1.5 Gbps connection. But that’s because I believe that he was testing it with that speed i.e. he did not have 3Gbs as he only subscribe to 1.5GBs from Bell at this time. So I am hoping to get that full speed with the setup that I outlined above 🙂 We shall see – if not then there is no point of doing this as I am getting that full speed (up and down) today to my main PC.
Yes, “pods” are Bell WIFI 6 pods which I have 6 in my house and with them in place. They each have 2 -1GBs ports on them so I have majority of them wired back into my QNAP switch via in wall Ethernet jacks for wired backhaul. So far, I am getting anywhere from 200-450Mbs wifi speeds throughout my house which isn’t really that bad so if I am not going to achieve significantly better wifi speeds or greater coverage I may as well stay with that setup. However, they each cost $5 per month so if you do the math, my router with be paid off within a year or 2 🙂
The wifi speed close to the Bell HH4000 router comes at ~650Mbs if I do my speed test on my iphone 12. So that’s respectable as well. We shall see if I am going to get better wifi speeds from my ASUS AX89X router which I think I should be (based on the research on the web)
Sorry about the long winded response buy I wanted to make sure that I had explained properly what I am attempting to and rely on your feedback if that’s even feasible 🙂 Thanks for all the feedback so far and thanks for listening!
Marek
September 3, 2022 at 11:46 am
Okay. Gotcha.
From the QNAP wired switch to things like your NAS will get full speed. So you’re good there.
The plan makes sense in terms of how you are going set this up and you are going to test this also makes sense. I don’t know what your home has in terms of walls and the like, but I suspect that you will need to use the XT8’s to get the speed that you want. While the X89X has insane range and the speed can be off the hook, having the XT8s with a wired backhaul will give you better coverage and decent speed. I looked over my notes and I found a client of mine who was getting mid 600’s Mbps on a gigabit connection with wireless backhaul. But there wasn’t a whole lot for them to compete against from his neighbours as he lives in place which doesn’t have a whole lot of people with WiFi for whatever reason. So it is possible depending on your environment.
September 3, 2022 at 12:05 pm
Awesome, thanks for the feedback 🙂 We shall see – I will let you know my results as soon as I have them.
Not NAS will get full speed from that QNAP switch but anything else connected to it will/should get the full speed- either 2.5Gb or 10Gbs (depending which port is is connected to and what’s the speed of the network adapter at the client side. On the devices that will be connecting to my QNAP switch that have full 10Gbs pipeline I am fully expect to see full 3Gbs internet speed 🙂 up and down as that QNAP switch is very good.
Yes, and I am really hoping that wired backhaul on XT8s would push my wifi closer to 1GBs wireless 🙂 Mid 600Mbs is not bad either!
September 3, 2022 at 5:39 pm
Great article thanks very much for the detailed explanations! I will be heading down this journey in a couple of weeks with Bell and pfsense as my router.
I’m a little unclear on the VPN results (from your network to others) at the end of this method.
With the DHCP method, are you able to VPN from your network to other servers?
Thanks Again,
Paul
September 3, 2022 at 5:41 pm
Hello. I use multiple VPNs to get to a few of my clients with no connection or speed issues. My wife is also able to use her work VPN with no issues in terms of connection or speed. So it would say that VPNs are a non issue.
September 6, 2022 at 10:15 pm
Thanks for the great articles (PPOE and Advanced DMZ). Its very informative and well written and explained.
I am looking to use one implementation in couple of weeks with BELL 1.5 Gbps service. I have a pfsense router which has only 1Gbps ports for now. So, I am good if i top out around.
Are you still liking the advanced DMZ setup?
Also, I have been reading forums where folks are losing connectivity for couple minutes when the HH4K reboots/changes IP. Did you see this with either PPOE or advanced DMZ? Similar to your situation, i cannot have any downtime with the wife also Working from Home 🙂
Thanks
Sam
September 6, 2022 at 10:42 pm
So far so good for me. I have had zero issues. That includes a firmware update from Bell last night that rebooted the HH4000. So for me this is the setup that I will go with.
September 7, 2022 at 8:32 am
Thank you. Hope my experience will be the same.
September 14, 2022 at 7:27 pm
Do you have home phone and tv with bell?
I also have pfsense as my router/gateway and will be trying the advanced dmz method. I am hoping I can just plug the bell tv box and phone box into my switch and it will work. Do you know if this will work?
hh4000 -> pfsense -> switch —
|—– tv
|—– phone
|—– computer
September 15, 2022 at 9:09 am
Hello there. Some random questions and comments.
– When you say “phone box” is this a non-Bell VoIP box of some sort? I ask because your phone plugs in directly to the HH4000 via the RJ-11 port on the left hand side of the HH4000.
– Your Bell TV boxes normally connect wirelessly to a hidden WiFi connection on the HH4000. I cannot recall if they have Ethernet. I believe they do but I am not 100% sure about that. If they do, I see no reason why they would not be able to connect to your switch and work.
– Connecting a switch (ideally to the 10Gbps port on the HH4000) should be fine. But I have to ask, are you connecting a switch that has faster than Gigabit speeds?
Please advise.
September 17, 2022 at 10:25 pm
Hi, an update, I gave up on XT8s and bought instead a pair of ET12s and switched HH4000 to the newest Bell router which is Giga Hub wifi 6E router and see if I will be able to achieve this ? I was not able to get full speed with XT8s. One question is do I really still need ASUS AX89X router anymore with this setup, or can I just simply use one of the ET12 as a router in PPPoE bypass mode and the second EP12 as either mesh node or access point ? Any ideas ?
Thanks,
M.
September 17, 2022 at 10:45 pm
As I understand it the Giga Hub has WiFi 6E and that is the only difference that anyone has found. The rest of it is apparently the same. And the ET12’s from what I understand work the same way as the XT8’s. So what I have outlined is in theory possible.
The other thing that I should note is that if you are running the latest firmware that supports AiMesh, you SHOULD be able to use any combo of Asus routers to do a mesh network. The only thing that I question is what they will use as the backhaul channel. I say that because they have the following band layout:
2.4GHz 4×4
5GHz 4×4
6GHz 4×4
My thinking is that the backhaul is on the 6Ghz channel. That won’t talk to the AX89X as far as I know. But I haven’t played with this mesh router so I am not 100% sure.
Another random thought, the AX89X has a 10Gbps port which will max out whatever connection Bell gives you. So I would be using that to connect to the Bell hardware.
September 17, 2022 at 11:10 pm
OK, thanks for suggestions/ideas. Since the AX89X is wifi 6 not 6E, I would like to get rid of it completely and do PPPoE bypass mode from Giga Hub 10Gbs port to ET12 2.5Gbs port which in theory would give me 2.5Gbs internet speeds to any devices that can support that (My Bell Fibe is 3Gbs so I will be loosing 0.5G but that’s a small price to pay as I only have couple devices that will support that speed anyway) and I don’t want to use wireless back haul but rather wired.
September 23, 2022 at 2:34 am
What’s the best router to use if you got a bell giga borne hub aka HH4000? I want to setup pihole or use a router that uses openwrt
September 23, 2022 at 4:42 pm
I don’t have a best router recommendation unfortunately as I haven’t tried any routers other than my XT8. Though I just got a TP-link to review in the next couple of weeks.
September 23, 2022 at 3:34 pm
Thanks for the writeup, I was able to get this working with my router (Netgate 5100 running pfSense) on the first go.
Once thing I’ve noticed is that if both the Home Hub 4000 and pfSense need to get rebooted for whatever reason (auto-on after an extended power failure), then even though my router gets an external IP address from the HH4000, I can’t connect to the Internet until I login to the Home Hub, remove and then re-add my router to the ADMZ.
Have you experienced this problem?
September 23, 2022 at 4:40 pm
What happens if you simply restart the HH4000? I ask because that’s what I had to do when I first started experimenting with this setup.
Also I have have not had the need to restart to restart due to the issue that you are describing as I never had this issue.
September 23, 2022 at 6:39 pm
I haven’t tried restarting the HH4000 a second time but that kinda defeats the purpose of having a self-maintaining setup. I would probably be home to kickstart everything after an extended power outage (my UPS only lasts up to 5 minutes, really need to get a new one!), but this is still sticking in my craw. I haven’t had to restart either the Home Hub or my router under normal usage but I do like to test these things to make sure everything will start up by itself if I’m not around to do it myself.
Next time I’m able to, I’ll see if rebooting the HH4400 works around the issue.
September 23, 2022 at 6:46 pm
To be clear I am suggesting this as a troubleshooting step. If you get into this situation and you restart the HH4000 and Internet access magically comes back on, then the HH4000 is having trouble for whatever reason dropping the router into the DMZ. You might have to delete everyone from the DMZ section of the HH4000 and try it again to see if that makes a difference.
In my case, I’ve had two power outages and everything came back up both times. So I know that this works. I also have an UPS but only lasts 39 minutes.
September 23, 2022 at 11:37 pm
Had a chance to dive into this some more tonight… so you were correct: rebooting the HH4000 after its initial power up seems to resolve the issue with my Internet remaining down even though my router gets an external IP address in the ADMZ.
Interestingly, the problem seems to be that the HH4000 does not create the necessary route to send traffic out (in my case, the route is a default to 10.50.43.234). However, either rebooting the HH4000 or restarting the WAN interface in pfSense adds the missing route and all is well.
So now I guess I need to decide what’s more important to me: not using PPPoE (being unable to access the HH4000’s web UI, lower performance) vs having to do a juggling act whenever one or both of those devices have to be restarted. I’m leaning towards going back to PPPoE for now since my router seems capable enough of handling it and I rarely need to go into the web UI much.
Would be nice to NOT have to use PPPoE, though…
September 24, 2022 at 12:49 am
What sort of performance do you get via PPPoE? Are you getting the speed that you are paying for?
September 24, 2022 at 1:36 am
The 5100 I’m using only has gigabit ports, looking to get a cheap box from AliExpress with 2.5Gbe ports to replace it. Without PPPoE, I was getting between 900 to 925 mbps on speed tests. With PPPoE, I seem to be getting between 850 to 915. The ancient CPU on this (Atom C3558) goes about as high as 30% during the speed tests. Not a huge difference speed-wise but it’s there.
September 25, 2022 at 12:17 pm
Thanks for that info. I am toying with the idea of doing what you’re doing and moving back to PPPoE passthrough if the PPPoE performance is close or equal to what I would get from using the Bell hardware.
September 25, 2022 at 1:05 pm
Curious why you’d consider going back to PPPoE if your setup is working? I think I’d prefer to go back to ADMZ if I could, to eliminate PPPoE protocol overhead and eliminate the burden of my router running a PPPoE client. If it wasn’t for the fact that the default route isn’t set up after a cold boot of both devices, I’d have stuck to the ADMZ option.
September 25, 2022 at 1:08 pm
My main concern is that I would be travelling again and I would have to talk my wife through restarting the modem and the router. While she’s smart at what she does for a living, IT is not her thing. Ideally, Bell’s hardware would just make this all a non issue by having a proper bridge mode. But since it doesn’t…..
September 25, 2022 at 1:12 pm
Yes! A proper bridge mode would be great but I’m not holding my breath. Maybe we’ll get it in the Home Hub 5000… 😉
I thought you said you went through two power outages and everything came up fine for you? If that’s the case, then I wouldn’t worry about switching back to PPPoE.
September 25, 2022 at 1:14 pm
Yeah. I have gone through 2 power outages with no issues. But there’s a first time for everything. And it tends to happen when I am away on business.
September 25, 2022 at 1:23 pm
For me, the problem is 100% reproducible after a cold boot but I understand your concern. Plus, given that I rarely need to reboot anything, chances are I’ll be the one who forgets what needs to be done to get the Internet back online… :-/
September 25, 2022 at 1:44 pm
lol! I know exactly how you feel.
September 24, 2022 at 1:36 am
Forgot to mention I’m on the Fibe 1.5 plan.
September 30, 2022 at 8:21 am
When i got BELL setup, i tried the ADMZ set up right away as itnerd had good performance. But, i had the exact same issue as you describe here and it was re-producible using pfsense. I tried couple of reboots and moved quickly to PPOE as the whigning got louder at home. PPOE worked right off the bat. I had my first proper modem reboot yesterday (during the day – why why why BELL?) and it came back up within 5 min with no inteference. I was tempted to hit the “Connect” button on my pfsense but wanted to see how long it would sort itself out. Was going to try ADMZ today being a holiday and all but i am sure based on responses in reddit and here, i am going to run into the same issue. So PPOE it is for now..
October 5, 2022 at 3:42 pm
Thanks for this write up. How has Advanced DMZ worked out for you since your last update (Sept 25)?
I’m currently running in a doubleNAT scenario, getting full speeds (3gig up/down) but haven’t opted to use the advanced dmz just yet. I’m debating on whether it’s worth the hassle.
Fwiw there are threads on the ubiquit forums where folks have gotten admz stable bu adding a static route to their router for the hh4000
https://community.ui.com/questions/My-UI-Experience-with-UDM-Pro-US-16-XG-and-Bell-Fibe-Canada-1-5gigabit/bacd218a-a1c5-4911-be23-11cbfb16fd8c#answer/b3b1303c-4a80-49e8-9d12-a2e572a3a05a
October 14, 2022 at 9:23 am
Just adding that this setup (double-nat) has been fine for ~2 weeks so far and persisted after brief power outage on the 10th (which i guess is to be expected).
My Q is on the benefits of Advanced DMZ vs Double Nat
October 14, 2022 at 9:36 am
You generally want to avoid double NAT but if you’re not doing anything “fancy” like gaming or trying to access your LAN from outside your house (e.g., VPN), then you may not really be affected by double NAT. That being said, double NAT can cause problems down the line that will be hard to track down if you’re not aware of it. For example, if you install a new smart home device that you can’t control when you’re outside the home, that could be caused by double NAT. It gets a bit technical to explain here but Googling the subject will bring up a lot of explanations as to why you’re better off avoiding double NAT if you can.
October 14, 2022 at 10:20 am
Double NAT is something that you should avoid. It can cause issues with games and apps like Teams or Zoom, as well as other weirdness.
October 14, 2022 at 3:26 pm
Thanks for the insights. So far (famous last words) I haven’t had issues with Video Conferencing (multiple daily, but usually Google Meet) nor remotely managing Smart Home stuff.
I suppose I’m not “risking” anything further by ADMZing
October 14, 2022 at 3:31 pm
You’re not risking anything as such. But if you come across something that doesn’t work, this might be something to have in the back of your mind.
October 17, 2022 at 3:54 pm
Gave ADMZ a go on Friday — working without issue, thanks again!
October 17, 2022 at 5:37 pm
Glad to hear that it worked!
October 10, 2022 at 9:05 pm
Hi, thanks a lot for the detailed instructions. I also have Bell Fibe 1.5. I have TP-link GX90 and I have put Bell Hub 4000 in advanced DMZ as per the instructions given by you. However, if I don’t choose PPPoE as connection type (and choose Dynamic IP), the internet is not connected. Any idea how I can resolve this? Also, there is no option to test speed to router from Bell hub 4000 in Tp-link Archer GX90. Any other way I can check the speed which my router is getting?
October 10, 2022 at 9:18 pm
Question: If you look at the HH4000 and look in the DMZ, do you have an IP address that starts with 169? If so, try rebooting the HH4000 only and see if the behaviour changes? As for your speed test question, if you plug a WIRED computer into the router, that is the best that you could do.
October 13, 2022 at 5:57 pm
No the IP address starts with 76 for my Archer GX90. Any idea what can I do? Also, I was thinking of moving to Asus from TP-link by returning my GX90 as I have some range issues in the upper floor. How has your experience been with XT8? What is the maximum wifi speed you get from XT8 router and node? Thanks!
October 13, 2022 at 9:14 pm
“No the IP address starts with 76 for my Archer GX90. Any idea what can I do?”
An IP address that starts with 76 is one of Bell’s external IP address ranges. Therefore it should work. If it’s not working, that implies that for some reason your router is not able to route traffic to/from the Internet.
Question: Is this the HH4000, or is it the Gigahub (it will say Gigahub on the front if it is). This is important as the Gigahub is different than the HH4000 as described here: https://itnerd.blog/2022/10/13/bell-rolls-out-their-gigahub-to-replace-the-hh4000-and-it-has-some-issues-that-i-would-like-to-understand-which-is-why-i-need-your-help/
The reason why I ask is that people are having issues doing this or PPPoE bypass on the Gigahub.
October 13, 2022 at 8:11 pm
I rebooted my Bell hub 4000 and checked IP address of my GX90 in DMZ. It now became an address starting with 169. I rebooted again but its still showing the same. What should I do? Sorry for bothering you with multiple questions.
October 13, 2022 at 9:35 pm
It is Bell Hub 4000. I am choosing PPPoE connection type in my own router. Not able to switch it to dynamic IP. Will this affect the internet speed? Also, on rebooting the IP address in DMZ of Home Hub 4000 was 169.x.x.x and IP address of GX90 in Internet section showed something starting with 76. Is that an issue?
October 13, 2022 at 9:41 pm
If you are able to access the Internet with your PPPoE setup you are fine.
As for your speed question. That’s an “it depends” answer. Specifically it depends on how good or bad your router handles PPPoE traffic. Consumer grade routers do a really bad job handling PPPoE traffic. Some gaming routers are capable of handling PPPoE traffic better if you’re willing to pay gaming router prices.
In my case, my downstream speeds were fine. My upstream speed was 50% of what I was paying for. I’ve heard of people just getting a 50% cut across the board. So I can’t predict what you might or might not see.
October 13, 2022 at 9:58 pm
Ok thanks. Any reason why non-PPPoE worked for you and is not working for me? We both have bell Fibe 1.5.
October 13, 2022 at 10:06 pm
Without looking at your setup in person, it would be hard to say. We have different routers so that’s a clear difference as your router might be doing something that the HH4000 doesn’t like. But I can’t say for sure.
October 13, 2022 at 10:12 pm
No problem. How has your experience been with Asus XT8? What kind of wifi speeds are you getting from router and satellite?
October 13, 2022 at 10:26 pm
I have an article on that here: https://itnerd.blog/2022/08/17/does-having-mesh-wifi-slow-down-your-access-to-the-internet-lets-find-out/
October 15, 2022 at 10:47 am
Thank you for all the inputs. I just wanted your opinion on how effective network adapter for ethernet over coax are? What kind of speeds can they carry in wired backhaul? I was looking at MoCA 2.5 network adapter.
October 15, 2022 at 12:47 pm
I don’t have any experience with these personally. When I do mesh WiFi setups for clients, I have an electrician run CAT 6E cable to where I need it after I have done my site assessment to figure out where to place the mesh nodes. I’ve done houses up to 6000 square feet and I’ve never had an issue.
October 15, 2022 at 9:31 pm
Ok thanks. Can you give me an estimate of how much does it typically cost to get ethernet cables installed by an electrician? Just one floor maybe 20 feet?
October 15, 2022 at 9:45 pm
It really depends on the amount of work. So it’s really hard to give you a definitive figure. But when I have worked with electricians in the past it could be as little as $300 a run or $800 a run. Or more if the house is really old. My advice is have a licensed electrician (or three) give you an estimate. And make sure they tell you that they will be using plenum rated Ethernet cable so that you will pass inspection by the whatever city you live in.
October 11, 2022 at 5:35 am
Thanks for the write up, has been working great for me.
October 11, 2022 at 7:48 am
Glad to hear it!
October 12, 2022 at 8:52 am
Hello. I found your article on how to bypass hb4000 very helpful. I currently have a hb3000 connected to my Asus RT-AX86U and, on this Sunday, Bell will make the change for the giga hub (I’m moving from 500 to 1.5). I’ll follow your lead on that. Whish me luck 🤞
My router has a 2.5 port on the back, should I connect the HB4000 to that port?
October 12, 2022 at 8:59 am
Hi There. You should your router into the 2.5 Gbps port. But I should warn you that the Giga hub has issues according to this DSL Reports thread: https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r33502228-Internet-Bell-Giga-Hub-4000-PPPoE-passthru-not-working
Thus you may want to proceed with caution.
October 12, 2022 at 10:05 am
Thanks for the heads up. Yes, definitely not going to try the PPPoE passthrough. Ill go with DMZ and my routers MAC, the same way I’m doing on my current configuration with he HH3000.
Right now I have the HH3000 connected to my routers WAN. I’ve never thought about using the 2.5 port before.
October 19, 2022 at 3:34 pm
Hi there,
I’m just a little confused as to what settings to change on the router side of things after setting up the advanced DMZ stuff on the HH4000, I also have an asus router (RT-AX86S). Could you walk me through the steps of what I need to change in the WAN or other settings to set this up properly?
Thanks!
October 19, 2022 at 10:16 pm
In the case of ASUS, you simply have to go to the WAN tab on the left (usually) and under “WAN Connection Type” select “Automatic IP.”
This will help you to visualize this: https://www.asus.com/us/support/faq/1011715/#a1
October 24, 2022 at 9:43 am
[…] to the plate and addresses this with a firmware fix. But I am not holding my breath as based on my recent experience with them and how they support their customers, ASUS doesn’t seem to be that sort […]
October 30, 2022 at 10:58 pm
How can I purchase your consulting services. I have this same problem with a pfsense firewall that I need help with.
October 31, 2022 at 8:26 am
Might I suggest a free solution? The Bell forum at DSLReports.com have a ton of people there who run pfsense and are always willing to help. You could try that first?
November 10, 2022 at 8:46 am
Hi, thanks a lot for your great article.
Do you get the default route (gateway) on your personal router?
With the advanced DMZ mode set, I get a public IP address on my router but could not get the default gateway… I am using a cisco router and my default route is set as followed:
route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 dhcp
Thanks
November 10, 2022 at 10:11 am
I have personally not experienced this. But you might want to visit DSL Reports Bell Forum as there are some people who have seen this with “real” routers like yours. Consumer routers seem not to have this issue.
November 12, 2022 at 12:28 am
Hi, I just activated the 1.5Gbps service on XGS-PON using a Gigahub. While I’m able to configure PPPOE bypass on my XT8 by following the instructions on your previous post, I have not been able to get the Advanced DMZ method in this post to work. The XT8 got the external IP from the gigahub but the connection was really slow and intermittent and trying to run a speed test caused the XT8 to hang and then report that it wasn’t able to complete the test. Is there a setting I need to change to set WAN to DHCP? I just left it on “Automatic IP”. Thanks in advance.
November 12, 2022 at 9:20 am
Dumb question. If you power down both devices, then power on the XT8 then when that is booted, powering on the Bell hardware, what happens?
November 12, 2022 at 10:56 am
Tried that again this morning and same result. XT8 reports the same external IP as the Gigahub, but the connection is really slow, just like night. Stuck on PPPOE with 1.5Gbps/590Mbps for now I guess.
November 12, 2022 at 12:02 pm
One thing that you can try is:
– Log into the Gigahub and turn off DMZ and Advanced DMZ.
– Go into DHCP, click on DHCP Lease Table and click on Clear All.
– Reboot
Then try things again.
November 27, 2022 at 9:12 am
[…] 4000 (AKA: HH4000) hardware, which I have effectively bypassed by using first this method and then this method to do it. But since Bell has been rolling out a new piece of hardware as they roll out 8Gbps […]
December 27, 2022 at 7:07 pm
Does Advanced DMZ still allow for port forwarding via your ASUS router like PPPoE bypass does? I would use Advanced DMZ but only if it allows for port forwarding trhough an ASUS router.
December 27, 2022 at 7:19 pm
I have not tested this myself but I don’t see a reason why not.
January 5, 2023 at 4:29 pm
It worked for me with no hassles! Did my port forwarding through my opnsense firewall and plex came back up within a minute.
January 5, 2023 at 10:40 am
Thanks for the write up, just added my own opnsense firewall with an old computer I had lying around, waiting for my 2x 2.5gb nic’s to come in. However my 2009 hardware seems to be pulling 1gb up and down with the onboard cards (which i’m very pleased with) Excited to get the other hardware to see if I can get the whole speed. I was dreading using PPPOE so thank you for that!
January 8, 2023 at 9:01 am
[…] I’d like to thank all of you who have read my previous stories about setting up and using advanced DMZ and PPPoE bypass on Bell hardware and asked a question or made a comment. I’ve tried really […]
January 9, 2023 at 10:46 am
I had Bell Fibe installed on Friday 1.5 down/940 up. I was hoping to use my existing AI Mesh using my RT-AC86U & RT-AC1900P. I followed your tutorial and used just my AC86U. I was able to get a public IP address but the speed was only 7 down/0.8 up. Any idea what may be causing this? When I setup the Asus router I also selected the DHCP box and it asked for some other info which I had to leave blank. Is this needed?
Thanks in advance
January 9, 2023 at 11:54 am
My initial question is what is your speed from the Bell hardware itself using the built in speed test from the Gigahub?
Also what DHCP box are you referring to?
February 21, 2023 at 3:53 pm
Hi great write-up.
I have tried both PPPOE & DHCP/ADMZ for WAN and they bot h work identically. I am on the 500MB plan and I get 545/540 in both scenarios, at the H4000 as well as on the router (I have 3 routers – Asus RT-AC86U, AX86U and AX88U)
My issue is not with the wired speed but the WiFi speed at the router !! While I am getting 500/500 WiFi directly from H4000 on all 3 bands (unexpected great connection), I am only getting 110/100 with the AC86U and 215/200 with the AX86U/AX88U on the 5G/ax (on the 2,4G it’s 1/2). I have tried every possible thing that I can thing of (disable Ai Protection, disable Q, etc) but still no difference…initially I thought it would be the AC router, but the AX ones have the same issue, except faster due to AX band. And I have tried this with both PPPOE & DHCP scenarios – same throughput 545/500 on both H4000 and Asus (Ookla speedtest), but only 1/2 & 1/5 on Wifi for Ausu AX and AC respectively
and I refuse to think the H4000 Wifi hardware/adapters/antennas are better than the Asus – does anyone have a similar setup with a H4000 and an Asus RT-AC86U, AX86U or AX88U and can share some optimization feedback?
February 21, 2023 at 4:28 pm
Dumb question. This router has a game mode does it not? What happens if you disable that? Assuming that it can be disabled of course.
February 21, 2023 at 4:40 pm
It has a “Game Device Prioritizing” function which has been disabled since the beginning
February 21, 2023 at 4:43 pm
How busy from a WiFi perspective is your environment? As in do you have a lot of other access points that you can “see” as that might be the source of your issue?
February 21, 2023 at 5:01 pm
I have 36 clients in total – 4 wired, 3 on 5G and 32 on the 2.4G…no AiMesh or RPT
I can see them all, but none have excessive traffic…looking through the traffic analyzer, I see peaks @ 0.9Mps
Also, not sure if related or not, but my traffic from PC to NAS via the router is also fairly slow at 60-80MBps via ETH and 8-10 Mbps via 5G
February 21, 2023 at 5:04 pm
I was actually talking about other access points. But based on the description above, it really sounds like SOMETHING on the router is limiting your bandwidth. Like QOS or something like that. But you said you turned that stuff off. Odd
February 21, 2023 at 5:35 pm
I know…but I don’t know what the heck it is 🙁
I removed all but 3 clients and same thing…
and how is it possible that all 3 routers are experiencing slowness…and on the AX86U & AX88U wifi speeds are the same 220/210
Also did another clean install on one of the routers, turned every feature off…same
February 21, 2023 at 6:25 pm
This is very odd indeed. It would almost be worth doing an audit of every setting to see if you missed something. In the meantime I am going to see if ASUS has a system simulator for this router so that I can see if there is some setting that has been overlooked.
February 21, 2023 at 7:07 pm
Do you have any settings such as:
– Flow Cache
– Hardware Acceleration
And if so, what are they set to?
February 21, 2023 at 7:45 pm
no I haven’t seen anything like that…will check again but I don’t believe so…I’m thinking of maybe getting a different brand of router to try out
February 22, 2023 at 6:18 pm
here’s some.progress I made, but it’s not definitive – I changed the SSID name on the Ac86u 5G channel down to 161 from 165 and the wifi speed had doubled. I tried porting that over to the Ax86U but it didn’t work – so I reverted back to the Ac86U and it actually got slower…changed again the SSID name and moved from 161 to 157, speeds doubled again…this is really weird…it looks like as long as the router doesn’t reboot the speed is there, otherwise I need to rename the SSID
Does this mean anything to you, because it makes nonsense to me
Thx
February 22, 2023 at 6:26 pm
It sort of makes sense. It sounds like you have an interference issue based on the fact that some channels work better than others. Sometimes. Are you in an urban area by chance?
February 22, 2023 at 7:14 pm
residential community with houses. I tried changing channels but to no avail, It’s the SSID that really does the trick…almost like it doesn’t like using the same SSID multiple times on rebooting of router
February 23, 2023 at 4:20 pm
That is extremely odd. I have seen channels being an issue in the past. But I haven’t ever seen an SSID name cause issues outside of someone having the same name. Which I assume you’ve checked.
February 22, 2023 at 7:22 pm
also channels 165 161 157 are empty no one’s on them
February 21, 2023 at 4:40 pm
It has a “Game Device Prioritizing” function which has been disabled since the beginning
March 7, 2023 at 9:41 am
Thank you for posting these guides, very frustrating switching to bell only to find out I can’t use my own hardware, easily anyways.
I followed your guide here but ran into some problems, the connection seemed intermittent and speed tests could not complete an upload test.
The one part I was unsure on was setting the WAN port to use DHCP. I also have an asus router and I saw in a previous reply that you said to select Automatic IP as they changed the wording, is there any other steps to this?
I also had the asus AImesh setup, could that be an issues?
Anyways thanks again for putting these up to walk people through it.
March 7, 2023 at 10:41 am
Thanks for the kudos.
“The one part I was unsure on was setting the WAN port to use DHCP. I also have an asus router and I saw in a previous reply that you said to select Automatic IP as they changed the wording, is there any other steps to this?”
No there is not. It should literally be as simple as choosing “Automatic IP”
“I also had the asus AImesh setup, could that be an issues?”
There aren’t any issues using a mesh setup that I have seen.
March 14, 2023 at 5:31 pm
Hi mr Nerd. Thank you for your thorough guide. I’ve followed it and managed to set everything up to work with my Ubiquiti usg-3p gateway. I have struggled at first as I kept on getting the old modem’s ip with everything apparently as you wrote. Finally I remembered that I’ve set the IP on the modem to be static (dhcp assigning the same each time) so I removed that setting, and then did the full restart and it finally worked. Also while doing the full restart I waited very long before starting the modem. USG-3p is slow at startup. It could have also made the difference vs the static IP, I do not want to spend time testing, but if someone has trouble, maybe this will help.
March 19, 2023 at 6:55 pm
Using Orbi I have a problem figuring this step:
Next you have to go to your router and set the WAN port to use DHCP. How you do that depends on the brand of router you have. So you should check your router’s instructions to get instructions on how to do this.
March 19, 2023 at 7:00 pm
You need to look at the directions for your Orbi to see how to set your router to DHCP. If you don’t have the instructions for your Orbi handy, perhaps their knowledge base can help: https://kb.netgear.com
March 20, 2023 at 10:35 am
Thanks for all your posts on this! Does the 10 gb port on the back of the Giga Hub/ HH4000 *work just like the other LAN ports*? I found one site that suggested that but it’s hard to find a manual or specs. I currently have Fibe over copper, into a Home Hub 3000, I just connect my Firewalla Gold+ router’s WAN port into one of the Hub 3000’s LAN ports. I use WAN over DHCP. I am planning to upgrade to Fibe 1.5 gb and want to know if I can basically do the same thing. But obviously I need to use the 10 gb port on the hub to get speeds over 1 gb. The Firewalla has 2.5 gb ports. I don’t care about the double NAT, I’ve been doing that for years. Given your posts about PPPoE speeds I am thinking I’d get better speed this way. Would this work? And does it work without turning on the DMZ settings? Basically, I don’t need to bypass the Bell router, just turn off all its wifi, and use it to connect me to the internet. But: does the 10gb port work for this purpose?
March 20, 2023 at 11:20 am
Yes. My ASUS XT8 has a 2.5 Gbps port and it worked just fine in a similar use case.
March 20, 2023 at 1:18 pm
Thanks so much, this makes it far easier to set up.
April 9, 2023 at 11:41 am
Thanks so much for the instruction posted here, simple, concise and straightforward. It worked very well on my newly installed Bell FTTH service. I have the Gigahub from Bell, with their 3gb/s service. Both PPPoE bypass and this DMZ method worked with my first attempt. Thank you!
April 26, 2023 at 6:08 pm
I been tried this Advance DMZ for a few months… But have you check your Network latency? I try to ping 8.8.8.8, the responds time is all over the map! Yea, I do get almost double my download speed without Double NAT when I do the speed test, but sometime when I enter a web address, my browser will just hang there for few seconds! before I see anything! I have gone back to PPPoE pass through! With Advance DMZ and this Latency issue, I feels it is lot slower!!! I don’t know when is Bell going to fix this!!
May 4, 2023 at 12:25 am
Hello, I have a question about asus router’s 10g port, if the 10g port support WOL? When I use 1g lan port, wol works, when use 10g port not work. Is this a hardware problem?
May 4, 2023 at 7:30 am
Hello. I have never seen any mention of Wake On Lan mentioned in any ASUS documentation.
June 1, 2023 at 11:48 am
[…] seem to have issue with Bell and the Advanced DMZ method of bypassing their […]
June 14, 2023 at 4:30 pm
I just want to say, I followed the above instructions but didn’t see any change. I have Bell Fibe 3.0 and download speeds were over 1Gbps while upload hovered around 500. This was on my ASUS ZenWiFi AX. I scrolled through the comments and then saw where I went wrong. I didn’t set the IP to Automatic as I was looking in the WAN section. Once I did that, I did another full reboot (3 routers (mesh)) and HH4K) and performed another speed test. My downloads got a bit better, breaking the 2Gbps threshold, but only slightly better. Now my uplaod speeds went from 400-500Mbps to over 1.1Gbps. Still not 3Gbps, but I’ll take it for now. Thank you for this.
June 14, 2023 at 4:33 pm
Question. Have you checked the speed that you are getting from the router via the router’s speed test? Also, have you also tested it via the HH4000’s speed test to see what Bell is giving you?
June 30, 2023 at 3:03 pm
I tried this, and yes my speed improve… But the Network Latency went out the window. I try to ping any website, out of 5 attempt couple of them will be timed out! I have no choice but to go back to PPPoE pass though…
July 30, 2023 at 1:05 pm
As you are using an xt8 my issue is that I run 5 of them for an air mesh system in my house. I use the 2.5Gb ports on 4 of the xt8 as the backhaul for the air mesh. They all go to a 2.5Gb switch. My question is doing your méthode can I connect the hh4000 wan port to the switch and have the 5th xt8 wan port connect to the switch and dial out Pppoe? My issue is that if not then I’m forced to use a 1Gb port on the router as the backhaul to the other xt8.
August 29, 2023 at 8:40 pm
Hello,
Just a quick question. I have followed your steps for setting up GT-AXE16000 (router) + 2 ZenWifi Pro ET12 Pro (satellites) to hope to receive the top performance via a 2.5Gbps wired back-hauling.
However, I am not sure if I missed anything as I am getting at best 500-600MBs on Wi-fi. Which is not bad but a far cry for getting 1Gg plus speeds on wi-fi. Which you alluded that one should get with the above setup that costs around 2K 🙁
So unless I am missing something – I am at a loss what else to do. So from the beginning. I am in Ontario so have ISP router (don’t have a choice ) and I am subscribing 3Gb Fiber internet connection (so 3Gb up and down) Since this provider (Bell) doesn’t have bridge mode, I am using PPPOe method to pass-through my credentials to pass internet to my Asus GT-AXE16000 (router) . I should mention that am connected from ISP modem/router to Asus via 10Gb out to Asus AXE16000 10Gb LAN port and then from Asus AXE16000 to Qnap 10Gb/2.5Gb switch which all my connection from the whole house come in via Cat 6a cables (house is fully wired) . So far so good, I don’t think I am double NAT as the Asus router gets public WAN IP address (not the public one) and Asus creates its own network with 192. 168.50.xxx subnet. And my desktop on the 3rd floor gets the full speed to it 3Gb (up/down) wired as it has 10Gb network adapter.
On the first floor, I have attached one of ZenWifi Pro ET12 Pro nodes and connected it via 2.5Gb LAN port and then through the wall (Ethernet jack) into my Qnap switch. And I see that node in the Asus iMesh section of the router interface no problem and I see that it is linked as 2.5Gb Uplink Type Ethernet so I am assuming that is using wired backhaul via 2.5Gb back to the Asus router. When I test speed close to the first node (using iphone 14 Max pro) I get the most 600-700Mbs but once again , not near the 1Gb plus speed that are advertised.
Now here is where things get really interesting 🙂 The second ZenWifi Pro ET12 Pro node, when I try to connect it using the same method as I did with the first one node but using 2nd floor Ethernet jack in the wall and connect to 2.5Gb on the node, and then via walls back to Qnap switch. What happens is that I actually do not see the second node in the Aimesh section of the router and I actually do not see any topology map for both nodes. When I disconnect the ethernet from the second node, I am seeing the both nodes under the topology map in the Aimesh section and they showing corrected : i.e. first one is connected via Ethernet 2.5Gb uplink and the second node is Wireless. Which is the way it should be but however, as soon as I connect the second node to 2.Gb Lan port, the both nodes are not showing under the topology in Asus, howver, it tells me that I have 2 nodes added. What seems to be the problem ? I have tried different Ethernet jacks in my house with this second ET12 node and even took the second node to the basement where the Asus AXE16000 is and connected it to it directly – still the nodes disappear from Asus topology map and I cannot set them up at all (even though it shows that I have 2 nodes added and detected) So can you please help me with figuring this one out 🙂 Am I doing something wrong here? And the outstanding issue is the Internet speeds that I am getting from this Aimesh setup are mediocre at the best. I was expecting around 800-1000Mbs wireless speed or higher. I think that you had a speed test in your post that showed 1.5Gbs wi-fi with the similar setup ? Is there anything I omitted , setting wise etc… that is preventing me from seeing teh 2 nodes and getting better wife speeds? I have read a few of your posts but cannot figure this one out ? I want to keep this setup but I am not gaining any advantages for mi wi-fi speeds utilizing that. I am thinking about returning ET12 Pro node ?
August 30, 2023 at 12:28 pm
I’m not sure what article of mine that you read (please let me know), but WiFi speeds are rarely (if ever) as fast as advertised. See here for more details:
https://itnerd.blog/2023/04/15/youre-never-going-to-get-the-wifi-speeds-that-are-printed-on-the-box-that-your-router-came-in-heres-why/
Also mesh WiFi introduces some other things to keep in mind. More info here:
https://itnerd.blog/2022/08/17/does-having-mesh-wifi-slow-down-your-access-to-the-internet-lets-find-out/
As for your issue with your nodes disappearing depending on how they are connected to the backhaul, that’s weird. I have never seen or heard of that before. It kind of SOUNDS like a cabling issue of some sort, or a bad ET12. You might want to take that up with ASUS (though their tech support is “less than optimal” from personal experience).
Finally, the only way I’ve gotten anything above 1 Gbps is on my wireless backhaul between my XT8 nodes. The first link above shows that I can get 1.4 Gbps on a band that should do in ideal conditions (which don’t exist BTW) 4804 Mbps. Is it possible that you are using a band that is limited to say 1 Gbps, which means you’ll get sub 700 Mbps?
September 2, 2023 at 12:26 pm
Thanks – the disappearing nodes issue only happens in the actual web version of the Asus router but in the Router app on iphone, shows everything OK for me i.e. 2 nodes are Ethernet 2.5Ghz up-linked. So must be a glitch with the Asus.
Which band are you getting 1.4Gb speeds on – is it 5GHz or 6GHz and how do you get that, with what wireless device ? It turns out that for me my 16000 Asus router it doesn’t even show 6GHz band as SSID because I dn’t have any 6E compatible devices – lol 🙁 I thought my iphone 14Pro Max was 6e but it is not – only 6 so that’s my bad. Until I get any device with 6E my 6GHz band will not be accessible or shown in the list of wireless networks , I assume .
Your thoughts please ?
September 2, 2023 at 4:32 pm
Unless you have 6E devices, you won’t see it. Also if you are using wireless back haul, it will default to using 6E for that. You might want to confirm that wireless back haul isn’t enabled. It would also borrow a 6E device and redo your testing.
September 2, 2023 at 4:34 pm
Also, I am getting 1400 Mbps on the second WiFi 6 band between the two nodes on my network only.
September 1, 2023 at 8:20 pm
Hello! Thanks for the article. I have 3gb up/down from bell and a asus raputure gt-ax11000 router. I have followed the above method and my download speed went from 750mbs to 500mbs but my upload went from 975mbs to 2000mbs. I was hoping you could advise how to boost the download speed as it certainly helped boost the upload speed
September 2, 2023 at 12:27 pm
Hi Andrew,
Are you running PPOE then with you bj credentials ?
Do you have a double NAT perhaps i.e. your WAN IP , is it private or public ?
September 2, 2023 at 12:34 pm
Andrew, do you have Giga Hub from Bell and how are you connecting it to gt-ax11000 router ? I am assuming that you are using silver 10Gb port out of Bell Giga Hub or HH4000 into 10Gb WAN port on gt-ax11000 router ?
September 3, 2023 at 10:46 am
Hello – regarding you reply “Also, I am getting 1400 Mbps on the second WiFi 6 band between the two nodes on my network only. ” – how do you even test speed between the two nodes – not sure how to do that ? My whole aiMesh is fully Ethernet back haul as each ET12 node is uplinked via 2.5Gb port to my Asus 6e 16000 router
September 3, 2023 at 9:43 pm
I go to System—> Wireless Log then I scroll down to the band name that is being used for wireless back haul. Then I look for Station List. You can the transmit rate (Tx) and receive (rx) rate.
September 7, 2023 at 10:37 am
Any issues encountered so far with this Advanced DMZ method? When I tried this yesterday on an ASUS ET12, the connection was abysmal. However, whenever it did work intermittently, the speeds were what I paid for.
September 7, 2023 at 10:46 am
If you check some of my posts after this one, you’ll see that I have had strange intermittent issues.But generally I have had no issues. Other people have had anything from no issues to never getting it working.
October 9, 2023 at 12:03 pm
[…] is an acceptable method of configuring the modem to act as a pass through device so I can manage my home network using my […]
November 28, 2023 at 11:40 pm
I’ve used both pppoe and ADMZ on my HH4000 here in Milton, ON and currently use ADMZ.
I noticed today that I can switch DMZ/ADMZ on and off any time, but the dhcp record for my inner device’s MAC address wouldn’t drop, it kept picking up the 192.168.2.x IP with ADMZ. A reboot of the HH fixed it but I couldn’t connect from the device. I got the public IP as well as DNS etc but still couldn’t connect.
I disabled ‘all home wifi’ and the next auto reboot of HH took some time. Spinning wheel on 192.168.2.1 page. It then came up and device is now connected. 15 min later I’m back to ‘not connected’ with my device’s route table cleared and home wifi enabled in the HH.
I’ll keep trying to disable home wifi so I can get ADMZ enabled… As of now on firmware 1.19.5, things aren’t stable with ADMZ for me.
December 4, 2023 at 9:44 pm
Hey I’m not very knowledgeable in this field of networking and hoping someone can help! I switched from Rogers 1.5gbps cable to Bell Giga Hub 1.5 gbps pure fiber. With rogers I used bridge mode to use my own TP-Link AX6600 (Archer AX90) router.
Now with Bell I followed this article to use advanced DMZ option and I’m not sure if it’s working. The AX90 router is providing a wifi signal and it works, however it’s still slower speeds than my rogers set up. Using the AX90 Router is still a bit faster than using the Bell Modem but not by much.
How can i verify that I’ve correctly set up this advanced DMZ method? Note: I’m not expecting full speeds as I’m testing using a wireless PC but with Rogers in bridge mode I would get around 150mbps download, with Bell Modem I’m only getting around 30mbs and now with the AX90 conneced with Bell Modem in Adv DMZ, I get about 70 mbps.
What I see in my router settings:
IP Address: 192.168.2.XX
Default gateway: 192.168.2.1
Primary DNS: 192.168.2.1
Internet Connection Type: Dynamic IP
DHCP Server: Enabled
Lease Time: 120 minutes
I’ve also tried the PPPoE method following your other article and no luck with that either. As soon as I change connection method to PPPoE and put login info, it just doesn’t work. I did the reboot and all and still doesn’t work. Only thing here is I don’t see any option in my router settings for PPP Authentication
December 5, 2023 at 9:19 am
I cannot speak to why PPPoE doesn’t work for you as I have not set up your specific router for this use case. But I do not see from your description any mention of an external IP address (example one that starts with 76.xxx.xxx.xxx or 70.xxx.xxx.xxx or something like that). From the looks of it, it is set up to do Double NAT which is not optimal.
Speed tests over WiFi are not helpful as no WiFi device will ever get the full speed that your connection may be capable of. See this for details:
https://itnerd.blog/2023/04/15/youre-never-going-to-get-the-wifi-speeds-that-are-printed-on-the-box-that-your-router-came-in-heres-why/
To get a better idea of what your speed is (or isn’t), plug a laptop into the router via Ethernet and run a speed test. Or ideally, if the router itself has a speed test client, run that and see if it matches or is close to what the Bell hardware does.
December 6, 2023 at 10:11 pm
Appreciate the reply. Is PPPoE supposed to work with the new Bell Giga Hub modem?
I’m not sure where to find external IP address. I see the following in router settings:
Subnet Mask: 255.255.XXX.X
Secondary DNS: 207.164.XXX.XXX
IPv4 LAN IP: 192.168.X.X
Client Devices connected: 192.168.X.XX
External IP (from ookla speed test): 70.51.XXX.XX
So I ran a Cat 6 cable from my router to my PC today and got 942 Mbps Download / 710 Mbps Upload (I have bell fibe 1.5gbps/940mbps). I am plugged into the 1gbps port in the router so I’d guess this is why I can’t get more than 1gbps. I’m happy with the speed. Does this mean I’ve set up this advanced DMZ correctly?
How can i check double NAT? I have an option in router settings to enable or disable NAT. Bunch of other router settings below:
‘Internet Port Negotiation Speed Setting’ option that I have set to ‘Auto Negotiation’. Should I select ‘2500Mbps Full Duplex’ for this?
There’s also settings to close MAC address or use default.
DCHP Server – enabled
Address Lease time- 120 mins
OFDMA – off
TWT – off
RTS Threshold – 2346
Upnp – enabled
DMZ – off
PPTP Passthrough – on
L2TP Passthrough – on
IPSec Passthrough – on
FTP ALG – on
TFTP ALG – on
RTSP ALG – on
H323 – On
SIP ALG – on
Sorry for bombardment of info, just thought I’d give you more instead of not enough. Really appreciate the help from anyone!
December 7, 2023 at 8:28 am
Appreciate the reply. Is PPPoE supposed to work with the new Bell Giga Hub modem? —> Yes. I have clients who have paid me to set it up for them and it works fine if they have a router that not only supports PPPoE connections (most do) and have the ability to process PPPoE traffic efficiently (most don’t).
So I ran a Cat 6 cable from my router to my PC today and got 942 Mbps Download / 710 Mbps Upload (I have bell fibe 1.5gbps/940mbps). I am plugged into the 1gbps port in the router so I’d guess this is why I can’t get more than 1gbps. —> Correct.
Your settings that you posted IMPLY that you have an External IP address on the router. This is where I would normally look at one of TP-Link’s router simulators to see where you could check that, but they don’t have one for the TP-Link AX6600. So I can’t help you there. You shouldn’t mess with any of the other settings that you listed unless you have a specific edge case that you need to address with the exception of UPNP which you should turn off as it is a massive security risk. See this link for more details: https://itnerd.blog/2018/05/16/if-you-care-about-security-on-your-home-network-turn-off-upnp/
December 7, 2023 at 10:39 pm
Could you please advice how I can eliminate the double NAT? I opened command prompt and ran ‘tracert 8.8.8.8’.
the first two hops seem like private ip addresses which i believe means i have a double NAT problem.
1st IP – 192.168.X.X
2nd IP – 192.168.X.X
Thank again in advance!
December 8, 2023 at 8:26 am
To be honest, you’ve posted conflicting things that make it impossible for me to give you a definitive answer one way or another. Either I would have to look at this in person, or via a remote session. Both of this would require me to bill you.
December 26, 2023 at 2:29 pm
Hi There,
I have same issue here, I have set up advanced DMZ while my router Asus wan IP is still showing as 192.168.2.X, is it possible to have a public IP in router
December 15, 2023 at 8:08 pm
Thank you for your description on setting up a Gigahub HH4000, both methods PPPOE and DMZ worked flawlessly with my Synology RT2600ac. I’ll stick with the DMZ approach I’m seeing better latency values when running speed tests and higher than expected up/down speeds, around 10% higher.