ECI modem v HG612 on Huawei Cabinet

Recently been connected up with FTTC but have been given an ECI modem on Huawei cab. As far as I can tell from the router (Asus RT-N66U) it hasn't been disconnected since the OR came to sort our star wiring out and reposition cabling, which was on 19 Aug. I am assuming that if the modem were to lose sync, that it would show in the up time of the RT-N66U and that once the modem re-syncs the up time on the router would start again from scratch? If I am correct we have been connected for just over 3 days with no drop outs. Over this time the BT Wholesale speed test has given the same sync number. The ECI modem on our cab would appear to be stable so far. The reason for asking is that the OR engineer sync'd at 21.74 Mbps using his equipment and according to Zen's Line Rate Data for 19 August, sync is 17390 Mbps with the ECI modem.

1. Would there be any speed increase using the unlocked HG612 on the Huawei cab and is it likely that it would be stable?

2. Have no idea whether g.inp has been implemented on our cab but if it were would the unlocked HG612 be updated accordingly and would we see any speed increase?

3. Will I mess anything up if I change the modems over on the 4th day of being connected or should I leave well alone?

I have read so much on g.inp, modems and such like that my brain is somewhat scrambled, so if anyone could give me a bit of help with this, I would be grateful.

1. Maybe, maybe not. It is likely to be stable, but I'm not sure anyone could say anything about the basic speed.

2. Retransmission has probably been activated by now. When you change modem, it might take a few days to switch, and that probably will happen. If DLM had acted on your line, then you'd probably see increased speed ... but it doesn't sound like DLM has intervened. Probably better to assume similar speeds, possibly possibly possibly higher.

3. No. Just don't disconnect too many times in a day. Best practice is to power off before disconnecting phone line, and to wait 30 minutes before reconnecting.

I would recommend using a HG612 or other broadcom dsl chip based modem/router !

I just did a new post about the DLM but have deleted it thinking it might be better added here.

Isn't DLM supposed to act anyway i.e. dropping line, re-synching etc to find best speed. Ours just seems to be stuck at the same speed. For the first two days after the Kelly install we barely got anything over 4Mbs! Wasn't the DLM supposed to be reset after OR's visit once he did the proper install? I am a bit surprised that the DLM is not doing anything.

Going to swap the ECI with the HG612 tomorrow morning. We'll see what happens. Probably nothing knowing our luck!

Well make sure the HG612 have the correct firmware for full compatibility with ReTX (G.INP) and also as mentioned already, it may take a few days to couple of weeks for DLM to change your lines profiles accordingly.

I would of though Openreach wuld have clamped down on ECI modems being dished out to customers on Huawei cabs... specially after the calls up earlier this year with G.INP!

The Kelly engineer bought the ECI modem on the first install and said that was all he had on his van but from other posts it looks as though OR don't supply the HG612 anymore.

well the statement issued by Openreach when the G.INP issues first arose due to incapable equipment was that Modems and DSLAM's where supposed to be matched...

Not that I'm saying that statement wasn't a load of rubbish of course, I'm sure it was... but to let it continue is just laughable really!

I'm sure the rumours about HG612's is not true though I wouldn't be surprised if they where stocking a lot less of the HG612's compared to the "supposedly" much cheaper ECI's

It was my experience, from using a hacked ECI modem on a Huawei cabinet, that the ECI modem synced approximately 7Mbps slower than Broadcom-based modems.

Broadcom-based modems all seem to perform quite similarly on my line at least. The ZyXEL VMG8324 produces more CRCs and ES than the Huawei HG612 and Billion 8800NL that I have also used.

Was that when G.INP was enabled or before ?

I believe it was afterwards although I will check again to confirm.

The firmware I am running on the ECI is fully G.INP compliant so in theory should perform similarly to the Broadcom-based modems but in my experience Broadcom-based modems always perform the best on Huawei cabinets.

OK, Yes thats true.. the only reason ECI's freaked out (i think) was because of upstream G.INP which the ECI don't understand!

I assume your taking the max attainable figure and comparing them or is it the actual sync that your comparing!

I am comparing the actual sync rate

OK cool

Well spent nearly 2.5 hours trying to connect to the internet using the HG612 and just couldn't do it. It looked like it had sync'd to the cabinet as the sync rate was 21.6Mbps and the max attainable was a little bit higher, very similar to the readings the OR guy had. Had trouble getting into the HG612 as our router was on the same IP address, so changed that IP and still had trouble. Finally got in to the gui and couldn't find anywhere to put the ISP details. The firmware on it is the one ending 08. I don't think some of the readings were correct anyway, under SNR it had 30.5 and under attenuation it had 11.5 - pretty sure those figures are switched. There must be something I am missing but really don't know what it is. So switched back to the ECI which ended up synching at just over 18Mbps, slightly higher than it did before. Have I missed something? Well, am off to make dinner before hubby divorces me! Thanks for help.

In reply to a post by whisper:

Finally got in to the gui and couldn't find anywhere to put the ISP details.

That's because you don't - your router does the PPPoE (Your ASUS) and the login information is in your router, the HG612 and the ECI are just dumb modems converting the Ethernet to the VDSL.

So I don't have to do anything? Still didn't work though. It's a long time since I have had a modem and router, actually way back 2005 when we got adsl at our last house. Normally have a combined modem/router.

The GUI isn't reliable for anything except the sync and attainable - both of which it gets right down and up .

Re the settings, as has been said, it should just have been a straight swap-out of the ECI and swap-in of the HG612 to get it to work. However to access the GUI or telnet you do need to have the router and the HG612 on a different IP address, which you seem to have sorted out.

It might be an idea to tell us how you have those two IP addresses set now, and also what the DHCP range in the ASUS is set to.

Do you know how to use telnet? That's how you get full stats that are reliable. Mine:-

Login:
Password:
ATP>sh

BusyBox v1.9.1 (2014-01-21 16:44:38 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# xdslcmd info --show
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status:   0
Max:    Upstream rate = 13746 Kbps, Downstream rate = 56440 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 13958 Kbps, Downstream rate = 57970 Kbps
Bearer: 1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Link Power State:       L0
Mode:                   VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile:          Profile 17a
TPS-TC:                 PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis:                U:ON /D:ON
Line Status:            No Defect
Training Status:        Showtime
                Down            Up
SNR (dB):        5.9             6.0
Attn(dB):        19.8            0.0
Pwr(dBm):        13.5            7.4
                        VDSL2 framing
                        Bearer 0
MSGc:           -6              26
B:              243             237
M:              1               1
T:              0               60
R:              10              16
S:              0.1340          0.5423
L:              15161           3747
D:              8               1
I:              254             127
N:              254             254
Q:              8               0
V:              0               0
RxQueue:                45              0
TxQueue:                15              0
G.INP Framing:          18              0
G.INP lookback:         15              0
RRC bits:               0               24
                        Bearer 1
MSGc:           122             -6
B:              0               0
M:              2               0
T:              2               0
R:              16              0
S:              8.0000          0.0000
L:              32              0
D:              1               0
I:              32              0
N:              32              0
Q:              0               0
V:              0               0
RxQueue:                0               0
TxQueue:                0               0
G.INP Framing:          0               0
G.INP lookback:         0               0
RRC bits:               0               0
                        Counters
                        Bearer 0
OHF:            0               145984
OHFErr:         124             176
RS:             810338128               635899
RSCorr:         1262179         1842
RSUnCorr:       0               0
                        Bearer 1
OHF:            37674957                0
OHFErr:         0               0
RS:             301399159               0
RSCorr:         670             0
RSUnCorr:       0               0

                        Retransmit Counters
rtx_tx:         229862059               0
rtx_c:          27943           0
rtx_uc:         2455            0

                        G.INP Counters
LEFTRS:         472             0
minEFTR:        57949           0
errFreeBits:    534946968               0

                        Bearer 0
HEC:            0               0
OCD:            0               0
LCD:            0               0
Total Cells:    3037658127              0
Data Cells:     95694451                0
Drop Cells:     0
Bit Errors:     0               0

                        Bearer 1
HEC:            0               0
OCD:            0               0
LCD:            0               0
Total Cells:    0               0
Data Cells:     0               0
Drop Cells:     0
Bit Errors:     0               0

ES:             35              58
SES:            0               0
UAS:            23              23
AS:             605169

                        Bearer 0
INP:            47.00           0.00
INPRein:        0.00            0.00
delay:          0               0
PER:            0.00            8.16
OR:             0.01            31.34
AgR:            58029.76        13989.22

                        Bearer 1
INP:            2.00            0.00
INPRein:        2.00            0.00
delay:          0               0
PER:            16.06           0.01
OR:             63.75           0.01
AgR:            63.75   0.01

Bitswap:        378417/378417           7294/7318

#

As it is showing the 21.6Mbps sync, you would be best to use it . To be able to get easy access to the stats, connect the HG612 Lan2 to a spare Ethernet port on the ASUS, with Lan1 feeding the AUSU WAN port just as with the ECI.

You hadn't posted that when I started my reply just posted.

Please can you tell us what you have set the IP addresses to, as I request in there .

In reply to a post by whisper:

So I don't have to do anything? Still didn't work though. It's a long time since I have had a modem and router, actually way back 2005 when we got adsl at our last house. Normally have a combined modem/router.

All you have to do is attach the modem via the DSL socket to the phoneline and attach the router via the WAN socket to the modem LAN1 socket, and power them up.

I'm on a huawei FTTC cab and was supplied with an ECI modem by the BTOR engineer who did the install task , It obtained the full 80/20 according to what my BT IP was set to,
77.44 prior to G.inp being rolled out , and 77.35 after that, which are more or less the same as when i connected the HG612 which i unlocked gave an ip profile of 77.42 prior to G.inp and gives the same 77.35 IP profile now g.inp'd

I did find that latency was around 1ms lower using the ECI and the average latency when uploading maxing the upstream multi threaded FTP was a lot lower than when using the HG612 , downstream showed a similar pattern but the difference was smaller
Throughput downstream was the same, but the upstream was a little lower on the hg612

IIRC i read somewhere that the ECI processor is faster than the HG612, so maybe that is the reason behind the differences in latency and upstream throughput

**It might be an idea to tell us how you have those two IP addresses set now, and also what the DHCP range in the ASUS is set to.

Do you know how to use telnet?**

Under the DHCP Server on the Asus the IP range is set to 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.254. Changed the Asus to 192.168.1.200 and on the HG612 is set to 192.168.1.1. Should the HG612 be within that range or outside it?

Years ago I used Telnet under both DOS and Windows but I haven't had to do it for so long, can't remember.

Best is to keep your HG612 on 192.168.1.1 and set the ASUS to 192.168.1.254. Then the allocatable range to pretty much anything in-between with plenty of scope for your devices. 2-253, 2-100, 10-64, anything at all, so long as both the modem and the router itself are outside the range.

DHCP doesn't seem to be clever enough to avoid the fixed ones when allocating .

To enable telnet in Windows, these days it's in Control Panel >> Programs and Features >> Turn Windows Features On and Off. Scroll down the list and tick Telnet Client, (not Telnet Server). Save that.

To use it you need to get to the C:\ prompt, these days call the Command Line Interface or Interpreter. Easiest I find is to right-click the Windows icon in the Taskbar then click Command Prompt.

When it opens it may be a small window with a small font. Right-clicking the icon in the top left corner of it gives you access to the Properties. I have set the width to 158 and depth to 50. Font to 36. But what you use depends on your screen resolution. Just make it a size and font size you like.

Instructions, using the HG612 username and password:-

telnet 192.168.1.1
username
password
sh

xdslcmd info --show

Another one you may be asked for is:-

xdslcmd info --pbParams

Take a look.

Good luck.

RobertoS, thank you so much for your help. Will leave it a couple of days then have another go.