Business Broadband Static IP
 

Currently I have 150meg Virgin Media Business Broadband with a dynamic IP at our office, I "upgraded" to this after all the issues with the original Suberhub on the 50meg service crashing after a few hours with a the 5x static IP's.

Currently the SuperHub 2 (VMDG490) is configured in modem mode with a pfSense box doing the routing for various VLAN's on our network.

I now see Virgin Media are offering static IP's again on some new tiers, however i'm not sure if its worth switching over to this based on customers experiences on the VM forums.

From what I gather we would be given the Hitron router, however if you put the Hitron router in modem mode you can't use your static IP addresses, the Hitron has to do a GRE tunnel for your static IP's wich people are apparently finding unreliable. pfSense would not be able to do the GRE tunnel i'm lead to believe.

Someone also seems to mention the SuperHub 2 can do a single static IP and modem mode on the 150mb plan (mentioned here), which to be honest would be perfect if true. All we really need it for is for people to VPN / RDP in to the office, the 20meg upload would be a bonus, however not essential.

Our SuperHub 2 is rock solid and the dynamic ip has only changed once in the last couple of years. I've setup a script which update's a DNS record with our new IP if it happens to change again. I guess i'd just feel better knowing we actually had a static ip, however based on past experiences with VM i'm thinking it might be better not to fix something which ain't broken.

I guess what i'm asking is can I get a single static IP from Virgin Media and keep using modem mode as I currently do?

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

the answer is yes. The option for static ips afaik is independent of tier with regards to speed. For the package you are on the single routable ip will be allocated to the first device on your network which will be your router if the shub is in modem mode and everything behind the router (i.e. your lan) will still have a local address and your router will have to do nat. There is a 5 ip subnet option if you need servers or other clients on your network to have a routable ip and again, I am sure this is independent of tier/speed. I am sure I have seen other posts in the forum where people have done this with their own router and set up the l2tp tunnel.

There is a forum user who knows this stuff inside and out, I'll send him a pm and hopefully we'll be graced with his words of wisdom soon.

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

There is no static ip option for the sh2

---------- Post added at 18:33 ---------- Previous post was at 18:32 ----------

And you won't get a static ip with modem mode on a hitron

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

it is all coming back to me now. I think the static ip option is only available on the 5 ip package and you can still use your own router as the first ip will go to the hitron and the second ip will go to your 3rd party router. I pm'd ccarmock earlier so hopefully he'll reply at some point.

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

vm_tech is correct, if you take any of the static IP option - ie 1 , 5 or 13 addresses this will prevent you using modem mode on the Hitron, which is now the only device used for business installs.

However I am assuming you want modem mode to have a static public IP address on the device behind the Hitron?

That is possible, and exactly what I do now.

If you take the 5 IP address option (which is available with options 2 & 3) you can have the first IP in the block assigned to the Hitron and the next (and subsequent) assigned to the device behind the Hitron.

In this mode the Hitron will automatically have NAT disabled, and WiFi disabled. While it's not actually in a modem mode, it behaves as close to being in modem mode as it can with fixed IP options.

I have been running that way since last August as I was included on a pilot of the fixed IP solution on the Hitron on the 200 Mb/s service.

I've recently upgraded to the 350/20 Mb/s service. My fixed IP block did not change, and all is working very well.

I didn't have many issues with the older SH1 based fixed IP address service, but the Hitron is a more stable and robust device. There were reports of performance issues with it in fixed IP address mode, but these have long been addressed with the firmware updates.

All in all it's a very good, stable service.

So in summary don't worry about modem mode is my advice - get a 5 IP block and configure it as I mentioned and you should be fine.

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

Hi ccarmock, after a long wait, we are having a Hitron installed on Monday with the 5 IP address option. We intend to use it with our main router on one fixed IP address.

Do you have any tips for the setup of the router, e.g. MTU size and any specific firewall settings.

In the past when we changed to the 50 Mb service we had to reduce the MTU size to match the tunnelingprotocol they use and change the firewall to let some specific packets go out otherwise the connection was dropped.

Any help will be gratefully received!

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

I have my router (Draytek 2960) with an MTU of 1462 and seem to be fine with that. I have a few router to router IPSEC tunnels built too.

There are no specific firewall rules to set on the Hitron - it just works with the default settings for me. I use my own router for the inbound firewall rules, and have a few ports open for devices behind the Draytek.

An advantage of using a Draytek is it's a router that will support secondary IP addresses on it's WAN interface - Draytek call it Multi-NAT, so you can make use of the other fixed IP addresses in your block.

You will see that when in fixed IP routed subnet mode the Hitron will disable it's own WiFi and NAT will be disabled on it, so you will need to provide this on your own router etc behind as required.

Recently the firmware of the Hitron has been updated, so when yours is installed suggest you verify it's on the latest 4.5.10.161-SIP-UPC.

I think I remember you posted about the issues you suffered with the Netgear based SH1 dropping the L2TP tunnel used for the fixed IP option, and lockups? I haven't had any stability issues with the Hitron at all.

Obviously performance is governed by the VM network in your area, but so far I get close to 360 MB/s download. Upload still often falls short of the 20 Mb/s - often topping out at about 14 Mb/s.

Is the option of using 5 fixed IP addresses with one assigned to the Hitron considered stable?

I'm currently deciding between the Voom Fibre Option 2 with 5 IP addresses or the consumer 300mbps. If the 5 fixed IPs isn't stable then the consumer option is probably the best way to go as I'll probably need to revert the fixed ip back to dynamic.

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

You could get the 350mb business service with a dynamic? Then you'll have the business SLA

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

yes it's stable. I have had this option running on a Hitron for a while first on a 200 Mb/s service (trial) and now on the 350/20 service.

The static IP address service and the Hitron are fine. There were some early firmware issues, now resolved. There is a further network issue they are working on this month that has affected performance for some people.

Good service - very pleased with it. Also the new Hitron firmware has the Puma6 fix - I am on 24 downstreams and do not get the latency spikes

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

I am sorry but I will have to disagree with ccarmock. We are one of many (I am told) that is affected by an issue with corrupted packets and consequent very poor performance that is a known network issue and which only affects the fixed IP option on the 350 Mb service.

This is supposed to be being fixed in July or August or it could be September, depending on who you speak to. I have been offered a refund for the poor service to be paid once they have fixed the problem (their terms not mine).

The only known fix, it seems, is to downgrade to dynamic IP addresses. This is not an issue that is anything related to the modem or the local network, all of which have been checked out several times for us. It seems the problem only became apparent as they took more and more users onto the new fixed IP offering.

I am guessing that ccarmock may not be seeing the problem either because of his locality or because he was on a beta trial of the service data may enter the network via a different route and perhaps he is also on a beta trial of the new network firmware without knowing it.

If I were you I would only sign up if they can give you a guaranteed date for the fixed to the known broken packet issue.

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

Understood you have had this issue. My experience is different. I have not suffered the poor performance you mentioned, and I do wonder if it was because I was on a trial, whether my GRE tunnel terminates on a different node within the VMB network.

You could also be right about a different version of the firmware at the network end.

the Hitron I have is running 4.5.10.161-SIP-UPC

I note there was notification of a planned outage over three nights last week. I didn't see a firmware change my end during that time.

---------- Post added at 21:34 ---------- Previous post was at 21:10 ----------

just out of interest APS - what sort of performance issues to you get?

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

The problems are still as reported in this thread by me and others: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...php?t=33704791

Basically we get very slow download speeds (20-60 Mb/s) and page timeouts during core business hours. This is now a well known issue for the fixed IP service known about by some field engineers, 2nd level support and business customer service.

Apart from the main problem VM also seem to be unable to promise to notify us when it is fixed and insisted on clearly down the fault ticket as there is a known work around - which is to move to the dynamic IP service! We will have to keep testing it every few days to check performance it seems as we are not using the line actively, except as an emergency backup, in its current state.

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

Interesting - is it all OK during evenings etc? I have never suffered that. You maybe right in that because I had 5 fixed IP addresses with the 200 Mb/s service as a trial maybe there is different place in the VM network my GRE tunnel breaks out on, or maybe less users on that part if that's a factor.

I had reason to talk to support today about an open SNR ticket in this area and initially the engineer referred to this issue you are talking about with Fixed IPs and was convinced that's my problem and then realised what I said was right there is an area wide SNR fault.

I asked when the Fixed IP issue will be resolved. He said expected to be resolved mid August.

Re: Business Broadband Static IP
 

We have also been a victim of the network packet fragmentation issue in the static IP since installation of the 350 service at beginning of June. I was called yesterday to confirm that it would be OK for them to use us as a trial for the new firmware, and that they are currently aiming to do a limited trial starting 2nd August.

Let us hope that it is relatively stable, although anything is going to be an improvement as most of the time downstream here is now between 35 - 45 mb, so actually not as good as the service we upgraded from.