(BT) EE TV Box Pro and 3rd Party Router FTTP 900

[naylor2006]

Hi.

Recently I joined BT and am using my Ubiquity ER-X as my router connected directly to the ONT, works great not an issue at all. The 900 service is absolutely smashing!

I also signed up to Big Sport Package which is delivered through NowTV and and Discovery Plus, great this all works easily as I use the apps but there is the option with this package to also have a TV box, the box they are offered is the EE TV Box Pro and I note the following:

• EE TV Box Pro is only compatible with Smart Hub or Smart Hub 2 – if you don’t already have a Smart Hub, we’ll send you one with the box.

Im going to assume there is some other thing going on the default router which helps pass the TV packets through and it wont just be a case of hooking up ethernet from my network.

Does anyone know anything about this and 3rd party routers who can help me? The ER-X is a very customizable router so im sure there is a way to config it just I dont know!

Thank you.

[rbz5416]

Subscription channels are provided to the box by multicast/IGMP. You would have to research whether your router can pass that through.

[Les-Gibson]

As long as the Ubiquity supports Multicast (AKA IGMP) there shouldn't be a problem

[naylor2006]

What do you mean by subscription channels? NowTV and TNT Sports?

I wont watch those on the box, well its unlikely I will continue to just use the tvOS apps on the my Apple TV for that. I mostly want the box to be able to watch Freeview channels and be able to record them in Internet Only mode.

Looks like it does support what is required and I need to digest the following:

IPTV/IGMP/Multicast Solution for Edgemax Router | Ubiquiti Community

[Les-Gibson]

All channels selectable from the EPG are delivered using Multicast, therefore to view Freeview channels whilst in IP mode; Yes you will need to enable Multicast

[rbz5416]

All content in the EPG is supplied by multicast, including Freeview when supplied in IP mode. So in the context that you can't have Freeview over IP without a subscription, it too is a "subscription" service.

If you can't get it to work with your router you'd need to use an aerial. Or make the SH2 the router with the box connected to that & hang the Ubiquiti off it for the rest of the network.

[naylor2006]

Okay thanks so much.

Looks like it’s totally possible judging by the Ubiquity forums, thanks for the info about Multicast terminology. I’ll get it sorted. I’m not that fussed about the box but would be good to get it running if possible.

[naylor2006 · Accepted solution]

Just wanted to post to mark this as solved.

On my ER-X I setup a IGMP proxy but to make things a little more straight forward I isolated everything to one interface. I took (eth4) which was just part of the default LAN subnet switch0 and gave it a new IP on a different subnet, I then created an addition DHCP server just for that subnet on (eth4). This meant that when I setup the IGMP proxy I could tell it to just hook up from my WAN interface (eth0) and punt it out via (eth4), rather than sending Multicast packets to my entire network.

On the ER-X to create the IGMP Proxy I issued these commands:

configure

set protocols igmp-proxy interface eth0 role upstream
set protocols igmp-proxy interface eth4 role downstream

set protocols igmp-proxy interface eth0 threshold 1
set protocols igmp-proxy interface eth0 alt-subnet 0.0.0.0/0

set protocols igmp-proxy interface eth4 threshold 1
set protocols igmp-proxy interface eth4 alt-subnet 0.0.0.0/0

commit ; save 

Connected up the EE TV Box Pro to the eth4 port on the Edge Router and it picked up its own DHCP IP and Live TV works perfectly.

With a PPPOE interface there is a quirk you need to solve, the IGMP proxy will not work if the specified Interfaces do not have an IP address and you cannot setup IGMP proxy to use the PPPOE interface on the upsteam. Your downstream interface will always have an internal IP, it'll be your LAN for example 192.168.0.1/24, but the problem with PPPOE is that the WAN interface (in my case eth0) does not hold an IP, the IP is held against the PPPOE interface.

To solve this simply assign the interface you are using WAN for an IP you will never use elsewhere, you can do this from the GUI or CLI, I just gave my 192.168.255.1/24. Some providers dont use PPPOE and your WAN will just pick up an IP via DHCP which solves this issue anyway, however if that IP is dynamic it can break the IGMP proxy when it changes.

Anyway, with that all done you can issue the following commands and check for the traffic:

Ive read a ton of times over on the Ubiquity forums that you then need to setup firewall rules to direct the traffic, these posts were quite old however and either you dont need to now or I dont need to because of the way I isolated the EE Box on its own interface and subnet.

I hope this post helps someone else and any questions let me know.

Its totally possible to use an ER-X for BT Full Fibre 900 and EE TV with any performance issues at all.