Replacing a HG612 ?

I have an unlocked HG612 that was originally supplied with BT Infinity probably in late 2012. I actually have another one in a box, in the cupboard. I use DSLstats to log the status of the VDSL line.

I want to replace with something newer - however I want the same features if possible. Access to VDSL stats (out of band) and Ethernet connection to my main ASUS router which handles the PPPoE login to the ISP.

I've read a couple of other threads, but most people want all-in-one devices. The obvious option seems to be the Draytek 130, but I read that it isn't a Broadcom chip?

Depends what your budget is. But, you could purchase one of the Billion 8800 models (NOT the NL R2), or one of the ZyXEL's (the VMG8324/8924 are quite good, as well as the VMG1312-B10A). The problem with the ZyXEL's is the firmware is very buggy, compared to the Billion's. Do you require 5GHz AC WiFi? If not, then the ZyXEL VMG8324 or Billion 8800NL R1 would be perfect (though the NL is hard to find new, but they are sold on eBay fairly frequently).

If you still want to use the Asus router, then you will have to setup the other router in bridge mode. Some people like having one device doing the routing, and one as the modem, but AIO's obviously reduce the amount of wires etc.

Edited by deleted (Sat 15-Dec-18 17:06:36)

I have replaced my HG612 with ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A running in bridge mode - so "poor" wifi isn't an issue as my router does that side of things. Connection has been up for more than 6 months now with G.INP enabled and 3dB noise margin. Works out of the box with HG612 modem stats (set modem type to VMG8324-B10a). Also works with Dslstats using the same settings.

Wall mountable just like the HG612, and almost the same size, with the benefit of a USB port for a 3G dongle.

I replaced my HG612 with a VMG3925-B10B.

Yes it needs the firmware flashing to V5.13(AAVF.10)C0 and you will need to crack the supervisor password to turn of TR069 phone home but the Kitz forum has all the details.

I have it in bridge mode connected to my ASUS RT-AC86U. Cables are from the master socket to the Zyxel, Zyxel LAN1 the ASUS WAN port and Zyxel LAN4 to my switch. The modem is set to 192.168.1.1 and the ASUS is set to 192.168.1.254.

I can use DSLstats to monitor the connection on my long rural line (3300m from cabinet) and the Zyxel is able to hold the same (or occasionally slightly better) speeds than the HomeHub 6 could. I am on a 40/2 connection and routinely get sync speeds of 8600/1120 to 9000/1120 on the Zyxel. It compares very well to the HH6.

I have a Billion 8800NL R2 which worked fine but does clock up quite a lot of FECs, (non-critical on my line), and the SNRM varied noticeably but not dramatically.

It sync'ed at roughly the same speed as my AAISP-supplied VMG1312-B10A, which was a bit buggy as WG says. I flashed with the latest firmware from ZyXel, not from AAISP, and ran it in bridge mode into my ASUS RT-N66U. for many months, maybe a year. I didn't encounter any bugs.

FECs were hugely lowered compared to the Billion, down from 10s of thousands per 5 seconds on MyDSLStats normally below a hundred, and SNRM varying by steps of 0.5dB over a range of 1,5-2.0dB over 24 hours.

I've only stopped using it in that configuration because I have now ditched FTTC completely and am now tethering my mobile to my system either via the ASUS powered USB or as a wifi hotspot or USB into my laptop. Depending on needs.

The only real difficulty with setting up the ZyXel is that the instructions for bridging are very garbled. In fact IIRC written for it to be bridged into, not being the bridging unit. Even the DSL setup, which is closely connected, is a nightmare at first.

If you happen to go that way I can soon power it up and try to send some screen shots of it as when I was using it.

Banger also uses the same ZyXel with the same firmware as myself, bridging to whatever his router is.

Edit: I was able to turn off TR-069, but whether or not you can on the other (later) models, which others say you can't, I don't know.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 15-Dec-18 20:40:22)

You normally need the supervisor password to turn off TR069 I think but that can easily be found and then changed on a 3925.

In reply to a post by DanielCoffey67:

You normally need the supervisor password to turn off TR069 I think but that can easily be found and then changed on a 3925.

That isn't what I would expect . If easily found from the normal password it ceases to be a Supervisor one.

But I have not even looked for a Supervisor password on my 1312. I wonder if it had one?

It would be remarkable indeed if a purchaser of a retail ZyXel 3925 from an authorised dealer of such were not to know the Supervisor password. It would be in the documentation. Otherwise the purchaser does not have control of their purchase. Only ZyXel does.

I suggest that ISP-supplied instances have been adulterated by them, or by request to ZyXel as a bulk purchase, to make it known to the ISP but not the purchaser.

Flashing in the native firmware may or may not alter the "current" Supervisor password of course. But that the owner cannot know it if supplied as above makes no sense at all.

It would also be legally questionable for it to be withheld by whoever altered it before sale to the owner.

Provided as a loan or under lease from the ISP, as many routers were in the past, is of course a completely different matter. The end user isn't, and never was, the owner. As per the T & Cs "read and agreed to LMAO" before sale.

A buyer of a pre-used one from its current user/owner of course is unlikely to know the position of the kit in this respect.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 15-Dec-18 22:23:02)

Hi, I had a similar setup, HG612 to Asus running Merlin on Sky Fibre. I tried 3 different devices to replace the HG612, I bought the Vigor 130 and didn't like it, was unstable on my line, I then tried the Billion 8800 NL R2, but as mentioned earlier I too had many errors on my line stats, I then tried the cheap TP-Link W9970 in bridge mode and it worked away fine....in the end I put my HG612 back in as it was super stable and just worked.
I moved home and no VDSL available so Virgin is now my ISP and I use a different setup now.

My line got very upset by a Vigor 130 as well. Also getting stats from it was a pig. It was sent back very quickly.

Both my HG612s sync�ed a few Mbps lower than the Vigor, Billion and ZyXel.

My VMG8924-B10A bought on ebay works fine and can be used in modem (bridge) mode. I run the latest firmware and am not troubled by firmware bugs. The Zyxel routers are much discussed on the Kitz forum.

Try viewing the UI on a phone, now you'll understand.

Why would you need to?

Because you may want to view the stats on a phone?

Haven't you got homework to do William?

If you have access to a desktop, dslstats is a nice tool to view the modem stats... and is why I have the second LAN cable from my switch back to the modem.

If I really want to know what is going on I use telnet.

DSLStats is good for a quick glance to see all is well, and to either scroll back to see when a significant change happened, and can of course give a straight telnet page as well. But that bugs me when I'm looking in detail at them as it refreshes with each sampling.

Another goody in DSLStats is of course the logging of the samples if you turn that on. Scrolling through it can be easier than trying to find the graph where the change happened.

Post deleted by WilliamGrimsley

Edited by deleted (Mon 17-Dec-18 08:32:30)

Yes, already got that setup. It's just handy to have the ability to read stats on a mobile device, IMO.

In reply to a post by WilliamGrimsley:

Try viewing the UI on a phone, now you'll understand.

I use mine on my Android phone daily and it works fine.
There are known issues with Safari on mobile.

Zyxel are in the process of rolling out a new GUI to some other models that's more mobile friendly.

You keep saying firmware is buggy in every single Zyxel thread without ever stating what 1 of these bugs is.

Apart from being a bit cumbersome on a mobile phone, can you name me a single bug on the VMG1312-B10A or VMG8924-B10A firmware.

Edited by j0hn83 (Tue 18-Dec-18 12:47:22)

Running the "dumpmdm" in a telnet session of the 1312-b10a will spit out a few hundred lines.
A search of this for the word Supervisor We'll find the password in plain text.

Some other ZyXEL devices the pass is encrypted and needs cracked with Hashcat.

There are a few I can name. The one I mentioned, pages are broken/glitchy, the line stats are broken (missing time counters etc). I also found the UI was confusing and hard to navigate, compared to the Billion's, too!

I was using Google Chrome on my iPhone 6, not dreaded Safari. Not really what you expect from a device that costs a fair bit!

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Zyxel are in the process of rolling out a new GUI to some other models that's more mobile friendly.

That just says it all about Zyxel, how long did it take them to start that?!

Edited by deleted (Tue 18-Dec-18 13:24:41)

But I turned off TR069 on my 1312-10a in the GUI? I got fed up with AAISP continually reverting it to the settings they supplied it with.

Then I flashed it with the latest native one from ZyXel and did the same. I didn't even know there was a Supervisor password or obviously what extra settings it gives .

The fact Zyxel have added a huge amount of XDSL statistics to the GUI that many other modem manufacturers don't bother to add, and you think it's a "bug" because they choose not to add timing counters to the error stats.

I asked for a BUG that wasn't related to viewing the WebUI from an iPhone.
It works perfect on Windows, Ubuntu and Android.

Perhaps instead of popping up in every single Zyxel thread and saying the firmware is buggy, when it isn't, you should simply add that YOU have issues loading the WebUI from an iPhone.

That does not a buggy firmware make.

Chrome on an iPhone uses exactly the same browser rendering as Safari. Apple have decreed that no other rendering engines are allowed - all other browsers are just different skins/functions on the standard rendering engine.

Post deleted by WilliamGrimsley

Thanks for explaining, Ian! I appreciate your kinder attitude unlike others here.

Post deleted by jchamier

I've ordered a VMG1312-B10A which should be here at the weekend. Will be interesting to see if it makes any visible difference. I realised my HG612 is 6y 5m old; so worth trying a swap out.

Don't forget to download the latest firmware from the Zyxel website and flash it offline before you want to use it.

I forget, will you be using it in modem mode or modem/router mode? To set it to modem mode, what we conventionally call bridged mode, ask here for the settings! Perhaps also best done offline before connecting it. The Zyxel manual describes the setup for bridged mode as router-only .

Using it in modem/router mode will screw up IPv6. Using it in modem mode feeding a router will be fine - depending of course on the router.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Don't forget to download the latest firmware from the Zyxel website and flash it offline before you want to use it.

Thanks, just grabbed that in case!

I forget, will you be using it in modem mode or modem/router mode? To set it to modem mode, what we conventionally call bridged mode, ask here for the settings! Perhaps also best done offline before connecting it. The Zyxel manual describes the setup for bridged mode as router-only .

I'll want it as a bridge / modem only as the PPPoE will be on my existing router. Yes, I was going to have a good look around at all the settings before attempting to connect, including DSLstats type stuff.

Using it in modem/router mode will screw up IPv6. Using it in modem mode feeding a router will be fine - depending of course on the router.

I'm still with Plusnet and as they don't do IPv6 (yet / ever?), so not something that will currently affect me. Moving to another ISP is not currently worth it to me (increased costs) as I use too much data per month for a sensible priced AAISP service.

DSLStats simply works . The same way as I used an HG612, a separate ethernet cable between router and it as well as the data internet-link cable.

I had both on the same subnet, one at .1 and one at .254, whichever way round you are used to.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 02-Jan-19 23:34:20)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

DSLStats simply works . The same way as I used an HG612, a separate ethernet cable between router and it as well as the data internet-link cable. I had both on the same subnet, one at .1 and one at .254, whichever way round you are used to.

Excellent - will be an interesting test. new PSU, new DSL cable, and maybe my neighbours will turn off their Christmas lights this weekend too !!

Had brain-fade. The data interlink cable is of course the WAN Ethernet cable .

https://support.zen.co.uk/kb/Knowledgebase/ZyXEL-VMG...

Article on how to configure bridge mode on the ZyXEL.

In reply to a post by Banger:

https://support.zen.co.uk/kb/Knowledgebase/ZyXEL-VMG...
Article on how to configure bridge mode on the ZyXEL.

Cheers, also found one at Kitz.

X-mas lights probably not an issue.

With Vodafone I have to set 802.1p to 2 when my VMG8924-B10A is in bridge mode, otherwise I can't establish the PPPoE connection. PPPoE did then work from my W10 laptop connecting via the routers wifi.

Okay, just original timing of the drop is bizarre around time when neighbours put up lights. Random guess.

Hi

It is possible it will provide some improvement as usually domestic modems start degrading after a year or two as the capacitors start to wear and dry out. Capacitor lifetimes are measured in just thousands of hours when they run warm and some are poor quality to start with and are baking in a warm case 24/7 they stand little chance.

It is entirely possible you'll see little difference as well. Typically when the modem starts failing you will notice with decreasing speeds and instability and eventually it will not turn on. The HG612's are better built than most so I would not be too surprised if that is still working 100% even after all that time.

Always good to have a spare modem anyway in case the connection goes funny and you can then rule out your own equipment.

Regards

Phil

ZyXEL now connected, have gained about 5mbps download sync, lost about 1mbps upload sync.
Stats and details in the Plusnet thread:
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/t/4610500-p...