Billion Bipac 4500nz Update.

So finally after having it here for 2 weeks and not setting it up i finally unboxed the item in question.

First thoughts for a product that cost £220 notes ...Cheap feel and cheap look and far prefer Netgears based on what I'm touching.

Anyway to cut a long story short and having spent the best part of 90 minutes with Billion tech support ,neither him or me could get this to connect to the internet, constant red internet light regardless of what we did and what setting/passwords/ect was changed.

Found the Billion Interface horrible and not user friendly,slow and sluggish in changing pages which sort of just hangs for a minute if you know what i mean, save changes and you are just starring at the same page you changed with no indication its doing what you asked.

Anyway its boxed ,going back to Amazon as im totally frustrated with what should be a simple procedure and a few minutes of set up, not convinced its faulty it just seemed not to find the IP Address and i do hope this is not EE blocking it.

And just yo add insult to injury when chatting to the Billion guy about Type 3 Nat and setting up a VPN,told him i was achieving download speeds of around 90/100 with this 4g Connection for him to tell me he had tested the 4500nz and i would be lucky to achieve 10 download when using a vpn on this device after routing traffic.

So that put another dampener on it, anyway now in the market for another product [Not billion ] Really was not in processed with the quality of this for the money, seemed very cheap and nasty, i know generally most routers are just plastic but the weight and the feel of this did not scream out to me this is worth £220.

Complete pain from start to finish, convinced it still some setting that nether myself or the tech guy at Billion had figured, at one point i had to disconnect the 4500 and reconnect the 4g router to see if that would connect because he thought the sims pin was blocked [not the case].he even sent me his settings for his router and a ee4g connection and that did not work either.

I know i keep saying this and repeating myself but that has to be the worse router and interface i have ever come across, i have always had Netgears and i know they are not perfect ,but compared to Billion routers in my opinion in looks and feel and interface and ease of use they are far superior.

So anyone with any other options would be cool, would be nice if there was one that used the EE external Ariel i had fitted for starters' [twin feed] new this one did not but i have read there are others that do.

Oh and this is not having a go at you guys that recommended certain routers, if this had worked and i was not so frustrated i doubt i would be dishing the dirt on it.

Daft question but I'm asking, if this type 3 Nat is solved by a VPN then is it not possible to set this up on the EE4G router without buying a 3rd party router.

Edited by time2die (Thu 01-Nov-18 17:08:15)

In reply to a post by time2die:

Daft question but I'm asking, if this type 3 Nat is solved by a VPN then is it not possible to set this up on the EE4G router without buying a 3rd party router.

You just need a router that can do VPN that plugs into the EE router. Unless you must have a one-box solution, the router you buy does not need to worry about the 4G connection.

Very surprised to hear the Billion didn't work, either it was faulty or isn't compatible with EE's 4G service.

As you're already familiar with Netgear routers, go for the Netgear R7100LG. If this doesn't also work then its fair to say EE are probably blocking the 3rd party router and your only option is to use a 2 box solution, ie plug any 3rd party router (which supports a L2TP VPN connection) into the EE supplied router.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-R7100LG-100EUS-Nigh...

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

then its fair to say EE are probably blocking the 3rd party router

Why would you suspect this? When you can buy EE data SIMs and put them into a mobile hotspot, or tablet, or laptop of your choice? EE don't need to block routers.

I suspect the Billion does not have hardware accelerated VPN, which would be a reason for the throughput to be slow. AAISP don't use encryption, but the L2TP wrapper needs to be handled.

A cheaper solution is a router without any 4G/LTE support. Since the point is to create a VPN outbound, then it doesn't matter plugging a VPN box into the EE supplied 4G modem!!

Edited by jchamier (Thu 01-Nov-18 20:38:46)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

then its fair to say EE are probably blocking the 3rd party router

Why would you suspect this? When you can buy EE data SIMs and put them into a mobile hotspot, or tablet, or laptop of your choice? EE don't need to block routers.

I suspect the Billion does not have hardware accelerated VPN, which would be a reason for the throughput to be slow. AAISP don't use encryption, but the L2TP wrapper needs to be handled.

A cheaper solution is a router without any 4G/LTE support. Since the point is to create a VPN outbound, then it doesn't matter plugging a VPN box into the EE supplied 4G modem!!

Yes I'm aware that an EE data sim should work in any device but if the OP was to buy the Netgear (or any other 4G router) and it still didn't work - then its clear its an issue on EE's side rather than the hardware being used. Reading his opening post he wasn't able to get any sort of internet connection on the Billion, never mind a slow VPN connection. And if the same was to happen again on another 3rd party router...

Edited by deleted (Thu 01-Nov-18 21:02:44)

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Yes I'm aware that an EE data sim should work in any device but if the OP was to buy the Netgear (or any other 4G router) and it still didn't work - then its clear its an issue on EE's side rather than the hardware being used. Reading his opening post he wasn't able to get any sort of internet connection on the Billion, never mind a slow VPN connection. And if the same was to happen again on another 3rd party router...

Or the OP could use the EWAN port on the Billion.

The configuration of cellular connections is not obvious and not something there is lots of generic advice about.

I have a netgear nighthawk router that i used on our fibre connection before we moved here and had to go for EE4G as fibre is terrible.

You saying just use one of the ethernet sockets and plug that into the EE router.[then what ?]

How exactly would i get this to work, what do i do once i connect the netgear router, what settings need to be changed.

Step by step guide would be useful please.

In reply to a post by time2die:

You saying just use one of the ethernet sockets and plug that into the EE router.[then what ?]

Only if your netgear has an Ethernet WAN connection (as used for cable connections). If it only has a DSL (phone line) connection then this won't work.

On your Netgear router plug a LAN cable into its WAN/internet port from the EE router.

Then do a hard reset on the Netgear to remove your previous settings, there should be a tiny 'reset' hole on the back of the router.

In your web browser go to 192.168.1.1 and then 'internet' on left pane and where it says 'does your internet connection require a login?' select yes and then on the next box select 'L2TP'. Then enter your AAISP L2TP supplied login details in the subsequent boxes - at this stage I would give AAISP a call to ensure you're entering everything correctly.

Have a look at this sample Netgear emulator, it should be similar on your Netgear:

http://nickb.name/genie_emulator/192.168.1.1/start.html

Edited by deleted (Fri 02-Nov-18 09:07:06)