This topic

IPTV settings on ER605

mhoam — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 13:24:13 GMT

Anybody from the community explain why can I NOT access this link

https://community.bt.com/t5/YouView-Boxes/Using-a-3rd-party-router-for-Multicast/td-p/1048582

it states I "do not have enough resources" which is presumably an access level issue. I am signed in.

I have BTTV and BTSport with my BT FTTP but cannot get a TP-Link ER605 to access the IPTV Channels for BTSport 9channel 430)

The router is connected and working fine apart from the IPTV channels on the Youview box.

I have enabled IGMP and tried setting IGMP V2 and V3 without success.

The above link may be help but I cannot access it 😞

Thanks

Ron

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 13:29:39 GMT

For whatever reason, that thread has been permanently archived, so only the Mods can see it.

If the TV service works with a BT Hub then this is something you need to take up with TP-Link.

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

mhoam — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 13:35:42 GMT

Hi @Anonymous

Thanks for the swift but disappointing reply!

I understand that BT (or its community) cannot support all the possible third party routers, HOWEVER it should provide the information regarding its own services to enable them to operate on other kit.

Could the information in this thread be made public? It may or may not help me but it seems unreasonable to withhold it.

Thanks

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

licquorice — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 13:42:29 GMT

I suspect the only information in that thread would be to enable IGMP snooping. There are no other settings that can be made.

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 13:50:52 GMT

I understand the frustration, not least because I have the same issue with my Fritzbox router. But we have the information we require from BT in that IGMP must be passed to the receiving device unhindered. The fact that it isn't can only be addressed by the router manufacturer.

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

mhoam — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 14:15:31 GMT

OK Thanks @licquorice and @Anonymous

There are other custom settings available in the ER605 for IPTV, I suspect these are many variations across the globe.

One of the reasons I chose the ER605 was that it appeared to handle IGMP,

I have raised the issue in the TP-Link Forum but it seems very "quiet"

Thanks again for your confirmation that IGMP is all that is required.

Ron

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

mhoam — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 10:19:44 GMT

Hi,

Would any of the Moderators on this board be willing to defend BT's decision to HIDE any information that may help it's customers use a different router?

It appears that IGMP on its own is not sufficient to view the IPTV channels and further information may help. However BT appear to have taken a specific decision to obstruct the use of third-party routers. Even if this is legal, it certainly is NOT customer-centric.

I can see no benefit to BT by hiding these posts which may provide assistance on how to configure third-party routers, however it means they will lose this customer when my contract ends.

Anyone willing or able to defend BT's approach or better still actually help a customer?

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

Keith_Beddoe — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 10:47:10 GMT

BT do not stop you using third party routers, they just do not provide any support for them.

Have you asked on the TP Link forum?

Basic TP link routers do work with BT TV multicast streams, without any configuration. There are plenty of forum members using them.

Models like the TP-Link ARCHER VR400 AC1200 Wireless VDSL/ADSL Modem Router, and even the cheapest TP-Link TD-W9970 work without any change of settings.

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

mhoam — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 10:54:01 GMT

Thanks @Keith_Beddoe

Yes I have asked on the TP-Link forums, but they are very quiet so far.

I understand that BT do not support third-party routers. However they are also hiding posts on this Community Forum that have been created by their customers which could provide possible assistance. This seems to me to go beyond just "not supporting" to deliberate obstruction.

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

Keith_Beddoe — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 10:59:59 GMT

Those deleted posts were many years old, and were provided by forum members, not BT.

They only covered a small number of third party routers, many of which are now obsolete. That thread was idle for a long time, as there were no new contributions from forum members.

The thread was archived for a while, and then deleted by the moderators, which is why you get an error message.

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

mhoam — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 11:10:36 GMT

Thanks @Keith_Beddoe

It appears you have access to that thread?

The thread identified above is just one of a number of similar threads which are referred in other posts, all of which have been locked. I understand that they have been created by customers not BT, which is why it is unreasonable to hide them away

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

Keith_Beddoe — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 11:18:21 GMT

No, I do not have access to that thread, but I do remember it from a long time ago, as I referenced it from my own website which I used to run.

It covered mostly Netgear routers.

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

mhoam — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 11:26:52 GMT

Ok, understood and thanks for your contribution

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

licquorice — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 13:31:10 GMT

I can assure you BT are not hiding any information, why would they? There is no reason whatsoever to do so.

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

mhoam — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 11:12:52 GMT

@licquorice @Keith_Beddoe

I appreciate your assistance and apologise for my paranoia re BT.

I have now succeeded in that the YouView BTTV IPTV channels are now working successfully via the TP-Link ER605 Router.

The key info is that the IPTV streams themselves are not encapsulated in PPoE but delivered via PIM. So the PPoE interface defined on the Router is necessary but not sufficient. I also needed a secondary connection identified with any IP address (preferably an RFC1918 ) to receive the PIM packets (UDP I believe). Once this secondary connection is defined on the WAN connection you may need to add a Route to take the packets across to the LAN side and maybe a Firewall rule to let them through.

Of course IGMP is also required to ensure that those multicast packets don't flood the internal LAN.

The modems in the ADSL/VDSL routers probably combined these two connections but FTTP delivers the packets exactly as despatched from BT Servers hence the need for a Router capable of handling two connections from the ONT.

Hopefully this info may help others who wish to use a third-party Router on BT's network.

cheers

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

licquorice — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 11:26:06 GMT

Thanks for updating the thread with very useful information.

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

NeilO — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 11:27:59 GMT

@mhoam many thanks for sharing your solution.

Neil

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

licquorice — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 12:26:10 GMT

@mhoam I'm still a little confused by this as I would have thought this would have been brought up on the forum before now (this is the first mention I recall seeing) as there are many customers with third party routers with FTTP and BTTV.

Surely PIM must be carried by PPPoE in some fashion as it is a higher layer protocol. Perhaps there is something unique to the ER 605 that doesn't automatically extract the stream.

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

mhoam — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 14:43:37 GMT

@licquorice

You may be right, I am not a networking expert. However, I make two observations:-

I searched the BT community forums with different search terms regarding other routers and Youview IPTV channels and found nothing of use. All those found by Google on these forums were already archived as described earlier in this thread, it seems unlikely that these relate to FTTP connections if they were old and out of date.

The information regarding the use of a second interface (not using PPoE) was established by much cleverer people than me who were trying to use BT YouView behind Opnsense (open source) routers on various hardware. They had used detailed logging and tracking apps like WireShark to establish what was going on. I based my attempts on the OpnSense configurations they found successful.

Perhaps someone from BT could confirm, and perhaps even publish, the networking requirements for accessing their IPTV channels?
Regards

Re: IPTV settings on ER605

licquorice — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 14:50:12 GMT

Thanks again, for the information. This forum is as good a source of information for BT settings and requirements as anywhere. Hopefully this thread will be of use to others.