AT&T Uverse

[pete_c]

Thanks Paul.

So your replacement telephone line via the RJ11 cable comes from the U-Verse router eh?

On the outside I have another device which the Verizon tech used to connect to the exterior phone demarc. This box needed a backup power supply. The UPS and 120VAC for this box caused a bit of an issue. I ended up installing a new 120VAC outlet in one of the bedroom closets to feed this device.

I had both Cat5 and RG6 run to all of the TV locations from the HA/Comm closet and the Verizon tech decided to use the RG-6 instead of the Cat5.

 

[PaulD]

Thanks Paul.

So your replacement telephone line via the RJ11 cable comes from the U-Verse router eh?

On the outside I have another device which the Verizon tech used to connect to the exterior phone demarc. This box needed a backup power supply. The UPS and 120VAC for this box caused a bit of an issue. I ended up installing a new 120VAC outlet in one of the bedroom closets to feed this device.

I had both Cat5 and RG6 run to all of the TV locations from the HA/Comm closet and the Verizon tech decided to use the RG-6 instead of the Cat5.

The 3800HGV-B manual can be found here if you want to see mor about the RG.
Since you need power outside the house, you must have fiber to your house. My Uverse set up is copper to my house. If I had fiber to my house, they would install an outside box to connect fiber to my copper. That outside box requires a UPS. They would then run Cat5 to the RG inside my house which would also need a UPS. The UPS is needed to keep the line power up in case of a power outage. Since the system gets power from my house, if we had a power outage in my area, the line would be dead with no ability for a 911 call or my security system to dial out.

 

[pete_c]

Thanks Paul. I apologize for asking so many questions.

Just read the difference between fiber to a node ===> copper to house versus fiber to a house.

Yes what I had installed is all fiber to the demarc (house). I actually took it all apart after it was installed to get a better view of the connectivity.

I assumed (and should have read a bit) that the transport (U-Verse) was all fiber.

 

[Steve]

Actually, U-Verse is currently designed for copper to the house. If you have fiber all the way to the house you cannot even get U-Verse at this time.

 

[shenandoah75]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the DMZ restriction - dmz has to be enabled on a box receiving DHCP (not good for elk or J9AE server, etc) or am i missing something

You may find this long, but here's my review of it with feedback on several things related to my views on home automation (there's a ton of typos for which i apologize but the i've fixed and the thing won't let me paste the correction without telling me i have badly formatted html - too lazy to figure out which line is causing it).


http://www.epinions.com/review/AT_T_U_vers...nt_490240970372

 

[Monk]

Are you getting only the one HD stream, being that far from the telco?

 

[mstarks01]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the DMZ restriction - dmz has to be enabled on a box receiving DHCP (not good for elk or J9AE server, etc) or am i missing something

Not sure what you mean. I have a 2wire with no DMZ functionality enabled. And I have a firewall behind the box with hosts on both networks.

 

[PaulD]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the DMZ restriction - dmz has to be enabled on a box receiving DHCP (not good for elk or J9AE server, etc) or am i missing something

You may find this long, but here's my review of it with feedback on several things related to my views on home automation (there's a ton of typos for which i apologize but the i've fixed and the thing won't let me paste the correction without telling me i have badly formatted html - too lazy to figure out which line is causing it).

http://www.epinions.com/review/AT_T_U_vers...nt_490240970372

I am curiouis about the DMZ issue. Prior to installation, I was expecting that I would need to put my router in the DMZPlus to make it work. In the end, that is not how mine is set up. To make my router work behind the RG, I had to set my router to receive an IP via DHCP (vs original PPPoe when I had DSL) and the installer removed a check mark for the "Display alert when another router is connected to this router" in the MDC menus. Although everything seems to be working OK, I have not fully tested access from the outside world and I am not sure if I should be moving my router to the DSMZPlus arena. I suspect I should but have not tackled that topic yet.
I don't understand your comment about DMZ being bad for the Elk. The way I understand it, if you activate the DMZPlus zone, the RG routes selected traffic to selected devices (aka...TV's) and then passes all other internet traffic straight thru to the single device sitting in the DMZPlus zone. In this situation, your router sees the internet as if the RG was not there and sees the puplic IP address and you can then you can manage your network as ususal with port forwarding/etc as needed to get traffic to the right devices.
Although mine is not set up (yet) to use the DMZPlus zone, I think I need to set it up that way. I suspect my current setup is introducing some lag time in routing traffic from RG to my router because it does not see my router as anything different from the TV's. I also think this issue was masked when the installer removed the check box which was intended to alert me that I had a router behind a router. It works as is but I suspect I could get improvements if I put my router in the DMZPlus.

I read your review and have not experiences some of the issues you noted. I have the Elete service (6Mbps). I just checked and am currently getting 5.7Mbps down and 960Kbps up so I am getting the service I am supposed to. However, on the TV side, I do not use TV as much as many people thus I have not explored all the nooks and crannies of the service limits like you have.

 

[PaulD]

Are you getting only the one HD stream, being that far from the telco?

Have not tested that yet but I should based on what installer told me. During installation, he said I need the "2500 profile" to be able to get 2 HD channels at same time. 2500 referres to the available bandwith in my service. Initially, he was having trouble getting my service to sync up at that level. He said it would not sync up unless the service demands were under 90% of the capacity of the line. He called in another service guy and they did something at the VRAD as well as my outside service box to improve the signal such that they were able to get it to sync up at the 2500 level. If they were unable to make that happen, they would only be able to install me at the 1500 level which meant that I could only get one HD channel at a time. I was concerned that they would get it to sync up one time and then it would not sync up the next time service would be interupted. During the final installation, they disrupted service several times and it always sync back up with no problem

I suspect the 3000 ft number is quoted based on wiring expectations in most situations. That number may vary based on quality of wiring in your area. I do not know what they did at the VRAD to make mine work but I am happy with their effort to work out the details.

Currently we are in the middle of an ice storm in my area and everything is working OK.

 

[shenandoah75]

I am curiouis about the DMZ issue.

My understanding was that DMZ only allows you to assign to a named device which is receiving its IP via DHCP. My frustration is that i want such a device be it the elk or an H/A server to have a static ip in the lan so i don't have to rely on name translation. Devices like the elk don't have a "windows" name, so they show as that archaic naming i mentioned in the review. I could be missing something, but bottom line i want a static ip on the uverse gateway and a static ip inside on my lan and i was pretty sure that was a nono

 

[mstarks01]

I am curiouis about the DMZ issue.

My understanding was that DMZ only allows you to assign to a named device which is receiving its IP via DHCP. My frustration is that i want such a device be it the elk or an H/A server to have a static ip in the lan so i don't have to rely on name translation. Devices like the elk don't have a "windows" name, so they show as that archaic naming i mentioned in the review. I could be missing something, but bottom line i want a static ip on the uverse gateway and a static ip inside on my lan and i was pretty sure that was a nono

Can you reserve a lease? Even if you can't, I think it's unlikely to be an issue. Systems that stay online (such as the Elk) will usually get the same IP as the last time when the lease expires.

 

[PaulD]

I am curiouis about the DMZ issue.

My understanding was that DMZ only allows you to assign to a named device which is receiving its IP via DHCP. My frustration is that i want such a device be it the elk or an H/A server to have a static ip in the lan so i don't have to rely on name translation. Devices like the elk don't have a "windows" name, so they show as that archaic naming i mentioned in the review. I could be missing something, but bottom line i want a static ip on the uverse gateway and a static ip inside on my lan and i was pretty sure that was a nono

Are you trying to hook your elk directly to the RG LAN so it gets it's IP address from the RG? If so, you are stuck with the DHCP issues of the RG because you do not want to put your Elk in the DMZ and expose it to the outside world. With your own router behind the RG, you can operate your own private LAN and assign a static IP to your Elk

 

[shenandoah75]

ok - i'll buy that... so basically, let the DMX on the RG resolve to the router's wan IP which inturn opens either dmz or port forwarding to static on the elk?

 

[PaulD]

ok - i'll buy that... so basically, let the DMX on the RG resolve to the router's wan IP which inturn opens either dmz or port forwarding to static on the elk?

Here is how the "non DMZ" approach works. As I noted earlier, I may move my router to the DMZ zone. From what I understand, the DMZ only allows a single device in the DMZ and it routes all non TV traffic directly to the device in the DMZ. The RG does some limited filtering but the device in the DMZ will essentially see all traffic including bad stuff so that device must be able to handle everything just as if the RG was not there. In this mode, I think the RG is essentially acting as a modem in the same way you have a modem for DSL. There are ways to put multiple devices behind the RG where each is tied to a static public IP address but I don't need that and have not dug into that area. Try the following steps:

- Use one RG LAN port to feed the WAN port on your router. Remaining RG LAN ports feed your TV's.
- Setup your router to get a DHCP address from the RG. You MUST have your router's LAN set to a different subnet from the RG. The RG uses the 192.168.1.x sub net and you cannot use that sub net for your router. The RG uses 192.168.1.254 for itself. I have my router subnet set to 192.168.2.x. Change your router subnet and save your settings
- In the RG, use the MDC menu (Local Network > Configure), uncheck the block at the bottom that causes a warning for router behind a router. This is the step I noted earlier that I expect to change if I move my router to the DMZPlus zone. From other forums I think I saw that if youhave this checked, it will cause a warning window to pop up which gives you the option to put your router in the DMZ at that point. I have not tried this yet.
- reboot your router to pick up a DHCP IP from the RG.

At this point, when you look at the IP addresses assigned by the RG, you should see the DHCP addresses assigned to your TV's and your router. May need to look at MAC codes to determine which address is your router since it does not show any names. Alternately, unplug your TV's and your router should show up as the only device on line. To check everything out, plug in a computer to your router and let it get a new DHCP address from the new subnet controlled by your router. If all is well, your computer should have a DHCP IP address on your router subnet and you should be able to surf the net. Also, your router should show that it is attached to your public IP address.

At this point, you will need to set up the rest of your private LAN (all connected to your router) in whatever way you desire including assigning a static IP address to your Elk. I reworked my router network before Uverse was installed because I knew I would have a subnet address clash.

 

[PaulD]

. As I noted earlier, I may move my router to the DMZ zone. From what I understand, the DMZ only allows a single device in the DMZ and it routes all non TV traffic directly to the device in the DMZ. The RG does some limited filtering but the device in the DMZ will essentially see all traffic including bad stuff so that device must be able to handle everything just as if the RG was not there. In this mode, I think the RG is essentially acting as a modem in the same way you have a modem for DSL.

For those of you watching my Uverse installation, I found that my intial installation (non DMZ mode) worked fine for me to surf the net but I could not come in from outside and get traffic routed to my internal network devices or hosted services such as my camera as I had done before Uverse. This was true even though my router had every appearance of using my public IP address. I decided to go ahead and set the RG to put my router in the DMZPlus zone to see if that fixed it. Short answer...it fixed the routing problem.
To do this, I went thru several steps.
1) I went to the MDC menu (Local Network > Configure) and put a check back in the box which creates a warning if you have a router behind a router and saved that setting
2) Now try and navigate to a web page and it will pop up a window warning you that you have a router behind a router. It also give you guidance on how to "resolve" this issue. If you follow that guidance, it apparently moves your router into the DMZPlus zone and it also gives your router an IP address that matches the public IP address assigned to your Uverse setup. Previously, your router was assigned a DHCP IP address within the 192.168.1.x range from the RG.
3) Although everything worked at this stage, you can go back to the MDC menu (Firewall > Settings) and verify that your router (with public IP address) is listed as the device in the DMZPlus zone.

With this change, I can now access my cameras which has a dedicated port on my router behind the RG. Has all the appearances of putting me back in the same mode I was in when I had a DSL modem and my router except that the RG is now acting as my DSL modem.