Best Setup?

Johnboy1951

I have ADSL from Eircom ...... giving trouble at the moment so want to do my setup so that it is unlikely to interfere with any tests their engineer may carry out.

Connected to the ADSL is a Netopia wireless router.
Others in the household use that wireless and it is separated from my own network .....

I have a second router connected to the Netopia which has VOIP built in. I have several choices in how to set up the second router (no modem built in) ....

First I can give the second router (a Vigor) either a LAN address on its WAN side or allow it to get a second WAN IP address from the modem in the Netopia. Yes apparently Eircom have no problems with more than one device getting WAN IP addresses on the one account. I do not know what the max number of such devices is .... and it doesn't matter for this thread.

If I allow the two devices to get individual IP addresses then that may upset some of the engineers tests ..... I don't know but think it may.

So it looks like I would be better off giving the Vigor a LAN IP on its WAN side from the Netopia .. at least until the problem has been fixed.

If I go that route then I have to decide whether to port forward/static route/whatever ....... seem to be several ways to get the required ports to connect to the Vigor.
Alternatively I could just use a Stun Server for the VOIP accounts which should allow them to traverse the NAT of the Netopia.

If I use two separate WAN IPs for the two routers how can I manage to ensure that the VOIP calls get priority? ..... I do not know I can unless Eircom will allow setting one of them with priority.
With everything going through the one router I have some chance of guaranteeing the VOIP quality, from here.

So what would be the best setup in the circumstances == an engineer is due to come out and check the line?

If using just the one WAN IP then which of the connection methods would be best ---- Stun, Port forwarding, Static Route, Port Redirection, DMZ etc etc.?

For simplicity I am inclined to using a Stun Server for the moment and no settings at all in either router.

Talk about confusion!

Opinions welcome on the better setup in the present circumstances.

Regards.

malachy47

I guess I'm not familiar enough with the Netopia to be authoritive as I don't use ADSL personally.

But if I catch you right the Eircom twisted pair connects to the Netopia, which has x number of RJ45 ports and each of these can be assigned it's own public IP address?

But in any case, the item I place upstream of all other devices in an install (where QOS is an issue) is either a Linksys 2101 or possibly a 2102, depending on requirement. What it does is look at ALL traffic leaving your premises, and if packets need to be dropped due to contention, it'll drop non-QOS (i.e. non-VOIP packets).

Whether your Vigor ATA/router agrees with Linksys as to what constitutes a QOS packet I can't say. It's not standard.

Johnboy1951

Thanks ...... for the moment I have set things up without QOS. It appears that as long as the data is mostly flowing through the Vigor that it will give priority to the VOIP. The wireless users on the Netopia are light so won't interfere much if at all.

BTW, the Netoia is a modem/router (the Vigor is router only)...... but I think what you picked up on is that the modem will allow anything connected to its LAN ports to set itself up using PPoE and get a WAN address from the modem --- essentially bypassing the Netopia router completely.

This does allow separation of LANs on different WAN IP addresses if I wish it ...... also means that anyone getting access to the wireless (Netopia) can only connect to the PCs using wireless and not to my PCs on the LAN (Vigor). (When set up with two different WAN IPs)

All is set for the moment anyway .... I used Stun for the VOIP through the Netopia for now. VOIP was working OK, but the connection was dire all evening.

My connection decided to come good again .... at 2.30am ...... hard to know what is happening ..... water in the underground cabling?

Thanks again.

malachy47

As long as it works that's the main thing. As for a router behind a router I'm not a big fan of that type of setup in general, but if gives you additional ports for your devices then fine. I'd rather a switch behind a single router, assuming that the router can give you a public/private IP per port as required. It just helps with double-NAT and port forwarding, which as you know is a pita with SIP. If the second router had a passthru/direct mode I'd look into it. But then again I'd like faster broadband a lot more ;-)

Johnboy1951

malachy47 wrote: »

As long as it works that's the main thing. As for a router behind a router I'm not a big fan of that type of setup in general, but if gives you additional ports for your devices then fine. I'd rather a switch behind a single router, assuming that the router can give you a public/private IP per port as required. It just helps with double-NAT and port forwarding, which as you know is a pita with SIP. If the second router had a passthru/direct mode I'd look into it. But then again I'd like faster broadband a lot more ;-)

I seem to be having different experiences than most everyone else. I have not needed to forward port or set up any static routes etc etc for VOIP, although I am getting the VOIP through the 'internal' router which is getting a LAN IP from the 'outer' router on its WAN port.

Strangely, today when I was 'playing' with it, I did not even need to use a Stun server .... or so it seemed.
I did set the VOIP up to use one nonetheless; better to be sure the VOIP accounts are registering.

I have had ~2.5Mb/s all day today, so whatever was happening has stopped.

I did confirm that the loss of packets shown on the ISP test from BlackKnight is due to my Vigor router which has VOIP on board.

I connected wirelessly from my PC to the 'outer' (Netopia) router and did the test ...... all OK.
I then did the test using the wired connection to the 'inner' router (Vigor) and the VOIP section of the test report told me there is about 90% packet loss and VOIP would be useless.

Do you know if this is to be expected?
I suspect so ..... do you know?

Regards.

malachy47

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

.
I then did the test using the wired connection to the 'inner' router (Vigor) and the VOIP section of the test report told me there is about 90% packet loss and VOIP would be useless.

Do you know if this is to be expected?
I suspect so ..... do you know?

Regards.

Yep. It's the equivalent of trying to stream an MP3 , but putting the packets in a .zip file first

The Vigor is "painting" the VOIP packet, but the VOIP test program is painting it also. So there is twice the effort to decode the SIP packets. It's a false-positive so to speak.