Vigor Wireless Router as a Mesh Root

When setting up a mesh root on a mesh network for VigorAP mesh nodes to connect, not only can a VigorAP be used, but Vigor wireless routers such as Vigor2865ac (from version 4.3.0), Vigor2862ac and Vigor2926ac, can also be used. Please see the steps below to configure a Vigor2926ac to be a mesh root.

Before setting up a Mesh Network with a wireless router, first check the Mesh support list on the router. Please go to Mesh >> Support list, and here is a list of compatible VigorAP models for a Router Mesh.

1. Go to Mesh>>Mesh Setup, click Enable Mesh.

2. At the Add Mesh Node section, by clicking Search, the router will search the node (VigorAP) which takes a few seconds. 

3. When the router finishes searching, you can see the VigorAP on the search list. Enter the device name and click Apply.

4. Now, you can see the VigorAP has been added to the Mesh group.

5. Go to Mesh Status and check the connection status. If the status shows a yellow light, the VigorAP is still in the process of synchronizing.

Bell Fiber Optic

Please Note: Information provided here is as-is and without warranty of any kind. If you are unsure or not prepared to accept the risk of making changes to your Bell Fiber optic service or HomeHub 3000, do not proceed with any changes.

DrayTek models with SFP ports (2926F, 2952, 3900, 3910) can operate with the Bell fiber optic service as follows:

Note Your Bell Login Details

You will need your Bell internet login user id (starts with ‘b’) and the login password. If you do not know these, log in to the HomeHub 3000 and retrieve the username from these; you will need to reset the password via the Bell customer account page and then make sure you update the HomeHub 3000 to use this new password and verify you still have internet connectivity.

Remove The GPON ONU module from the HomeHub 3000

Locate the GPON ONU module on the HomeHub 3000 and remove the fiber optic cable.

Now rotate the release catch (green sleeve in this picture) past 90 degrees to release the module and gently side it out.

Bell GPON Module

Insert module into DrayTek

The module should slide directly into the SFP port on your DrayTek fiber compatible router.

Configure DrayTek WAN

Turn on your DrayTek router (hot-plugging the SFP may not be detected if you are using a shared SFP/WAN port model such as the 2952).

Firstly configure the SFP port for VLAN tag 35 (internet service)


Configure WAN Bell Fiber VLAN Tag Insertion

Now configure the user ID and password for PPPoE login:

Bell Fiber Configure PPPoE User ID and Password

Optionally Configure IP-TV

IP-TV operates as a second VLAN, tag 36 [sometimes tag 34] and this can be configured as a VLAN using the multi-VLAN option

Bell Fiber TV VLAN Configuration On DrayTek

Configure IP-TV Routing

The Bell IP TV subnet on multi-VLAN 5 (VLAN5) requires a specific routing table rule to ensure traffic to the Bell IP-TV network is correctly NAT’d.

In the Routing menu, select Load-Balance/Route policy and add a new route to force NAT traffic intended for the 10.0.0.0 network where the Bell IP-TV services are provided (Check your online status to verify the network subnet mask to use – we’ll use an example of 10.44.0.0/16 here but see your specific settings).

DrayTek Bell IP-TV Routing Rule

Enable IGMP Snooping For Multicast

Please ensure multicast is also enabled to allow IP TV playback – the initial setup is through direct communication but continuous streaming requires multicast reception which is enabled through IGMP snooping.

Please see article https://go-draytek.ca/knowledge-base/supporting-ip-tv-services-with-multicast/ Please note that the WAN interface for the IGMP will be the multi-VLAN interface (WAN5) in our example here, instead of WAN1.

3910 Model – Enable 2.5G WAN

The DrayTek 3910 supports 1G, 2.5G and 10G speeds for the SFP port and the Bell ONT module should be set to operate at 2.5G in order to obtain full download speed (in 1G mode, download speeds will be approximately half). To ensure full operating speed, please enable the 2.5G speed mode.

To connect a device and use speeds over 1Gbit, you will either need to connect to the 2.5G copper ports (Ports 3 and 4) using a 2.5G compatible network interface, or, alternatively use a 10G SFP+ module in port 1 or 2 (whichever is not used by the passive fiber module).

DrayTek 3910 Bell Fiber Speed Test

2926L/2926Lac LTE Modem Setup

The DrayTek 2926L and 2926Lac models have a built-in LTE modem which provides a reliable fail-over connection or can even be configured as the primary internet connection.

Configuration is straightforward and involves just a few steps :

Enable The LTE Modem

Enable LTE modem on DrayTek 2926L

Set The Provider Name And Select Connection Type

We are using an always-on configuration here :

Select always on LTE modem on DrayTek 2926L

Configure Modem Connection Properties

Typically LTE connections use DHCP:

Enable DrayTek 2926L LTE modem with DHCP

Configure APN In Details Page

We’re using Freedom Mobile, so the APN is internet.freedommobile.ca

Freedom Mobile with DrayTek 2926L

Reboot To Activate Settings

And you’re done !

Link Failure Detection

Fail over between available WAN links is triggered by a link failure detection. Correctly configuring reliable link failure detection is key to ensuring this feature works as expected.

Link Failure Types

Typically there are two different ways that a WAN link can fail.

  • Underlying WAN route fails (e.g. internet service is down)
  • WAN device failure (power failure of the WAN modem device)

The most common type of failure you want to detect is the underlying WAN route failure, so this is what you should always configure when you want high availability of your internet connection. Configuring this correctly will also detect the WAN device failure, which ensures reliable fail over in all circumstances.

Configuration of only WAN device failure can result in a loss of connectivity not being detected unless the WAN device itself has failed or it actively disables the ethernet link when the WAN link goes down – because some devices do this, this is the default configuration unless the WAN setup is changed.

Ensuring WAN Link Failure Detection

DrayTek routers can send a ping request to a known external IP address and wait for a reply. If the reply is not received within the timeout period and this fails repeatedly, the link is considered to be down because traffic is deemed to have stopped flowing on the link.

When the link begins to receive echo replies again, the link is detected as resumed and fail-back, if configured, is activated.

Configure Ping Link Failure Detection

The WAN connection detection settings should be configured with an external IP address which will respond to a PING, such as the Google public DNS server, 8.8.8.8.

It is also recommended to ping the link gateway IP address (depending on your configuration) as this is the ISP’s gateway IP which routes all your traffic. Provided this IP does permit a PING required (typically it does, but it does depend on the ISP). If this is enabled but does not respond, the WAN link is almost certainly down.

The TTL should be set to a high number (the default 255 is sensible) to ensure the packet is not expired due to the number of network hops required.

The ping interval should be reasonably high so you do not send too many nuisance packets to your echo destination. However, the higher this delay is, the longer it can take to detect a link failure. A figure between 8-16 seconds is normally considered reasonable.

The ping retry requires 2 (or more) consecutive failures. Keep this at least at 2 as otherwise occasional packet drops could cause unnecessary link fail-over.

Supporting IP-TV Services With Multicast

With strong support for advanced multi-media services, your DrayTek router supports both Voice-over-IP and IP based television services (IP-TV).

Canadian content providers (such as IPTV from Fibe TV from Bell, Rogers Ignite, Telus Optik etc.) typically provide their IP-TV services via a set-top box connected to your internet service.

If you upgrade your internet connection to use a DrayTek router, you may find your IP-TV service will play for a short period of time (say, 30 seconds or so) and then stop working. Don’t worry – there is nothing wrong with your DrayTek router and nothing wrong with your IP-TV service. To get everything working, you just need to enable one of the advanced features on your DrayTek router – Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) .

Image showing the IGMP proxy checkbox enabled and the WAN1 interface selected as the external interface which will send multicast packets in to the network. Image also shows IGMP Snooping checkbox enabled to limit multicast packets to only the router ports where devices wish to receive the packets.

Select IGMP from the applications menu and then turn on the IGMP proxy setting and select the interface which is connected to the content service provider (normally this is your internet connection – WAN1 or WAN2).

Also enable IGMP snooping. This will allow the DrayTek to send multicast traffic only to the ports where a device wishes to receive the multicast traffic. This option helps reduce the traffic volume on ports which do not need to receive the IP-TV or multicast packets.

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