Digital Voice with different Router

[Mrlewisuk]

I have since turned lpv6 off and things have improved so far, so fingers crossed

[tmarsh12345]

Is it a proprietary BT thing that digital voice is tied to the SH2?

[licquorice]

Yes

[Magrox]

BT’s description of the ONTs that Openreach supply suggest that Digital Voice customers can plug directly into the ONT for Digital Voice so avoiding the SH2 for phone calls. I was wondering if anyone had tried this? Below is some of the text from BT describing the ONTs.

Openreach modem (ONT) explained: Ports and models available

If you are a fibre customer, it’s likely you’ll have an Openreach modem (or ONT) installed. This white box connects to a fibre-optic cable that runs to your house and enables you to access our FTTP fibre network for broadband and voice.

There are several lights on the ONT, when these lights change colour or flash, it means something is happening.

Openreach modem ports

• Optical: This hosts the fibre optic cable that comes from the exchange to your house.
• PORT 1: Here you plug in an Ethernet cable that runs to your BT Hub. Some modems have multiple ports.
• TEL 1: Digital voice customers can use this to plug in a telephone.
• BBU: This port attaches to the battery back-up unit, if there is one.  
• DC: Depending on your modem, this connects to the power supply or the BBU unit

[imjolly]

@Magrox 

that is an old style ONT which is no longer used and when moved to digital voice the TEL 1 port no longer works and not true digital voice as it suggests

this is new ONT

[licquorice]

That is old and now incorrect information. That port was for the now discontinued FVA (Fibre Voice Access) supplied by Openreach, not Digital Voice.

[bradshaw]

Hello, I’m new to this forum and new to BT broadband after cutting a 20 year tie with Virgin Media. I’m posting here because of the invaluable discussions and details provided in this thread. I’ve adjusted and adapted comments and suggestions to fit my own needs. Here’s my experience after 4 wks with BT.

1. Hope I’m not giving hostage to fortune but I’ve been generally impressed so far. I’m on the FTTP 900 service with Digital Voice and BT TV box pro. Everything promised by BT sales has been provided, the engineers arrived as scheduled and the install was smooth and neat. There was a slight technical hiccup with the account triggering process but this was resolved very quickly.

2. Firstly, I’m not technically trained and my knowledge is limited but I do like to dabble! So, using the details from the various contributors to this thread, for which I am most thankful, here’s my modified setup, which seems to be working just fine though I stand to be corrected where you think I’ve gone wrong.

3. In my previous setup with Virgin Media I had their Hub3 in modem mode leaving my ASUS RT86u router to take care of everything else. I wanted to replicate this arrangement with my BT Smart Hub 2 but found that this could only be partially achieved. I came here looking for answers and was not disappointed. So, based on thread discussions, here’s what I’ve done to keep my current DHCP enabled LAN ASUS setup which uses address in the range 192.168.0.10 to 250. The setup means maintaining two separate networks both sharing the same internet connection.

DEVICE LOCATIONS AND CONNECTIONS
SH2 and ASUS 86u are in 2 separate rooms, some 10-12 metres apart with a brick wall in between. Digital Voice and BT TV box pro are plugged directly into SH2 in accordance with the BT user manual. The TV box pro is setup to stream direct from the internet. I already have CAT 6 cable running between rooms so wired connection between SH2 and ASUS is sorted.

SMART HUB 2
Disabled Smart Rules
Disabled WiFi (guess this could be left on with no conflicts [?] as SH2 and ASUS are on separate networks but disabled for now as not needed)
Kept SH2 on default IP address 192.168.1.XXX
Enabled DHCP (seems to be required by BT TV box pro but again will not cause any conflicts as SH2 and ASUS are on separate networks?)
Enabled Firewall (to protect devices connected directly to SH2, no problems noticed so far)
Enabled UpnP (seems to be required for BT TV Box Pro to show and stream all Freeview channels and apps. Box is wire connected to BT Smart Hub 2)
Enabled extended UpnP (not sure if necessary but it’s BT recommended)
Added port forwarding rule on the Smart Hub 2 called ANY-ANY, from ports 1 through to 65535, TCP/UDP, to the address of my own firewall ASUS router (192.168.1.YYY)
Enabled DMZ and entered the static IP of my ASUS router (192.168.1.YYY)

ASUS RT-86U ROUTER
WAN connection type changed to Static
Enabled IPv6 Passthrough
Under WAN IP setting:
Set IP address to static address 192.168.1.YYY (this IP is within the SH2 address range)
Set Default Gateway to 192.168.1.XXX (SH2 IP address)
Set DNS on ASUS using the settings copied from SH2 (81.139.56.100, 81.139.57.100). This seems to work fine but will revert to Google 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4 if I later notice any problems.
Connected Ethernet port 2 on Smart Hub 2 to the WAN port of ASUS router

SMART HUB 2
Finally, after completing all of the above, I then returned to the SH2 IPv6 configuration and created a pinhole for my ASUS router (which was now visible on SH2 and easy to select) using the port forwarding rule ( name ANY-ANY, from ports 1 through to 65535, TCP/UDP)

So far this setup seems to be working well but it’s early days! In conclusion, the BT setup requires a a tad more faffing around compared to my previous straightforward modem mode arrangement with Virgin Media Hub3. I’m now committed to BT for the next two years, which is fine. It is however a competitive market and I guess most people would prefer a more straightforward way of using and connecting pre-existing devices to any given internet service provider. It will be something I pay more attention to at contract end. Perhaps BT will see the light!

[juiceof2limes]

Nice write up. On the SH2, you shouldn't need to have DMZ enabled especially as you already have a port forwarding rule in place. I previously had DMZ active but disabled it quite a while back without any issues. Touching back on port forwarding from SH2, I only add specific ports when required rather than forward all ports.
IPv6 Pinholes, I didn't added one as I found it works without.

[Mrlewisuk]

Just use IPv4  shut off IPv6 as IPv6 causes problems

[licquorice]

Bit tricky reaching IPv6 only sites with only IPv4