UPC Horizon Set Top Box trial

ballooba

ballooba wrote: »

This is more of a networking question probably, but I switched over to using Horizon as my router this evening and all went well except I can't access any of my devices using their hostnames. Any ideas? Is this to do with the domain name on the LAN in the settings? It defaults to "net".

Anyone any insights on this? I might have more luck on another forum within Boards.

ChrisSmets

Got the Horizon Box yesterday. About an hour to set up the tv and then i did have wifi on the box's network but not through my ASUS router, which is plugged in the same way as before...

Now my housemate was p/o yesterday that she couldnt have inet access since the Wifi signal is a lot weaker than before... And its not an option to put the box in the living room... because then I dont have my box

Will give them a call tonite and see what we can come up with.

ballooba

ChrisSmets wrote: »

Now my housemate was p/o yesterday that she couldnt have inet access since the Wifi signal is a lot weaker than before... And its not an option to put the box in the living room... because then I dont have my box

Powerline adaptors.

MonkstownHoop

ChrisSmets wrote: »

Got the Horizon Box yesterday. About an hour to set up the tv and then i did have wifi on the box's network but not through my ASUS router, which is plugged in the same way as before...

Now my housemate was p/o yesterday that she couldnt have inet access since the Wifi signal is a lot weaker than before... And its not an option to put the box in the living room... because then I dont have my box

Will give them a call tonite and see what we can come up with.

ballooba wrote: »

Powerline adaptors.

my box is exactly where my old 50mb box was and im still getting less than that

Inquitus

ChrisSmets wrote: »

Got the Horizon Box yesterday. About an hour to set up the tv and then i did have wifi on the box's network but not through my ASUS router, which is plugged in the same way as before...

Now my housemate was p/o yesterday that she couldnt have inet access since the Wifi signal is a lot weaker than before... And its not an option to put the box in the living room... because then I dont have my box

Will give them a call tonite and see what we can come up with.

You can just use your asus as a Wifi Extender, I have an old router upstairs that is connected to the Horizon Box via LAN cable that runs up the chimney, on a diff SSID, and it works fine, you could ofc use the same SSID as well.

Just let the Horizon box handle the DHCP.

paradisepaddy

ted1 wrote: »

sounds like your not saving the config, After you enter the code you need to vol - and TV standby again.


https://support-en.upc-cablecom.ch/app/answers/detail/a_id/4779/p/644,645//session/L3RpbWUvMTM2ODUyNTk4MS9zaWQvRE5vRWQ5cWw%3D

more like a user error than a bug

cheers Ted. You were right. Works fine now. *note to self, read instructions first.

PP

MrVestek

ballooba wrote: »

Powerline adaptors.

Don't use those, they're bloody horrible and offer terrible bandwidth.

Get a small wifi repeater, or try changing radio channels to see if that improves signal.

MonkstownHoop

Could i use my old cisco wifi box to boost signal?

paradisepaddy

thanks Achilles, you've actually reminded me to see if changing channels improves the small loss in signal every so often.

PP

ballooba

Achilles wrote: »

Don't use those, they're bloody horrible and offer terrible bandwidth.

Get a small wifi repeater, or try changing radio channels to see if that improves signal.

I've had absolutely no issues. The bandwidth depends on the model, but the best one I have offer up to 500MBps. Far better than Wi-Fi. What's the bandwidth using a Wi-Fi repeater like?

ChrisSmets

Hey ballooba

HAd a quick peek around and the decent ones seem quite €€...

How should a decent one set me back?

ballooba

GBP 25 for a 200 Mbps pair.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-TL-PA211KIT-200Mbps-Powerline-Adapter/dp/B004INVKP4?SubscriptionId=AKIAJ7T5BOVUVRD2EFYQ&tag=camelcamelcam-21&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B004INVKP4

More for a 500Mbps pair.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0084Y9N3O/ref=noref?ie=UTF8&psc=1&s=computers

bob11

Inquitus wrote: »

You need to ring the self install helpline, they fixed this for me in about an hour. Essentially your account is incorrectly configured at the back end so when the box tries to initialise your connection etc on first run it gets told to PFO by the UPC servers.

Try just toggling the power on the box .. Once its properly provisioned, I think it will still need a power reset to load properly ..

I had that error twice before my box was configured ..

MrVestek

ballooba wrote: »

I've had absolutely no issues. The bandwidth depends on the model, but the best one I have offer up to 500MBps. Far better than Wi-Fi. What's the bandwidth using a Wi-Fi repeater like?

They transmit at 500Mb in theory... in practise you'll be lucky if you get 80.

ballooba

Achilles wrote: »

They transmit at 500Mb in theory... in practise you'll be lucky if you get 80.

And Wi-Fi is between 11Mbps and 600Mbps in theory. I see no difference to be honest. YMMV.

SitUbuSit

dam099 wrote: »

Not a Netgear but what I did on a tp-link was connect from Horizon box to a LAN port not WAN and disabled DCHP on the tp-link. Apparently that makes it function as a switch and devices get their IP address from the Horizon box. Disabled wifi on horizon as well.

Thanks for this. Really appreciate it!

I did as you said naming Horizon box wifi network UPC A and Netgear router wifi network UPC B, operating on a different channel. All worked fine with the second router (Netgear), for both wired and wireless connections and could see the NAS connected to the Horizon box.

However, wasn't getting internet access through Horizon box for wireless or wired getting error message saying DNS lookup failed. Checked the settings on the Horizon box and the DNS server was down as 192.168.192.1 (which is the IP of the Horizon box) and this worked fine when I wasn't using a second router on the same network, but for some reasons wasn't now. I update this to standard UPC DNS server address of 89.101.160.4 and bob's your uncle, all working fine now.

So I have wired and wireless access now through Horizon box and second router, and can see NAS on both.

Next task for this afternoon is to try and get on the same wifi network, so we don't have to manually select for different parts of the house. That didn't work this morning...so fingers crossed.

Cheers again!

S

ZV Yoda

I signed up for the trial, but am having second throughts before I actually apply for the new box. My main concern is similar to @ChrisSmets.

I currently have an Apple Airport Extreme connected via ethernet to my Cisco router (both located in the kitchen at the back of the house). The wifi on the Cisco is disabled & I use the superior wifi capabilities of the AE instead. The current location of the AE means I get a great wifi signal in the garage/office located at the end of the back garden. I also have an Airport Express in my current set up (used to transmit music via wifi to the hifi system).

If I go with the new UPC box, it will be located in the sitting room at the front of the house. Unless I run a long ethernet cable from the new box in the sitting room to the AE in the kitchen (not ideal), I will lose the wifi access in the garage. I'm not sure how else I can ensure a decent wifi signal in the garage.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

mattviv86

iv the new horizon box, it keeps dropping the wifi on my phone, drops then comes back. also has anyone the brand codes for the horizon remote to change the tv

r0qi4162fux9kg

ZV Yoda wrote: »

I signed up for the trial, but am having second throughts before I actually apply for the new box. My main concern is similar to @ChrisSmets.

I currently have an Apple Airport Extreme connected via ethernet to my Cisco router (both located in the kitchen at the back of the house). The wifi on the Cisco is disabled & I use the superior wifi capabilities of the AE instead. The current location of the AE means I get a great wifi signal in the garage/office located at the end of the back garden. I also have an Airport Express in my current set up (used to transmit music via wifi to the hifi system).

If I go with the new UPC box, it will be located in the sitting room at the front of the house. Unless I run a long ethernet cable from the new box in the sitting room to the AE in the kitchen (not ideal), I will lose the wifi access in the garage. I'm not sure how else I can ensure a decent wifi signal in the garage.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

When I was talking to the sales team they told me it wasn't possible to keep the existing modem. Back and forth with me explaining why it isn't suitable for me (pretty much the exact same reason you have). I wasn't getting anywhere so I just agreed with him.

Roll an a week - Engineer comes out to do the install. Tell him I'm keeping the modem. Didn't give a reason or mention that the sales rep said no.

Now I have the horizon box (took a week for them to get it working mind) and the original Thompson modem.

Evilbart

ZV Yoda wrote: »

I signed up for the trial, but am having second throughts before I actually apply for the new box. My main concern is similar to @ChrisSmets.

I currently have an Apple Airport Extreme connected via ethernet to my Cisco router (both located in the kitchen at the back of the house). The wifi on the Cisco is disabled & I use the superior wifi capabilities of the AE instead. The current location of the AE means I get a great wifi signal in the garage/office located at the end of the back garden. I also have an Airport Express in my current set up (used to transmit music via wifi to the hifi system).

If I go with the new UPC box, it will be located in the sitting room at the front of the house. Unless I run a long ethernet cable from the new box in the sitting room to the AE in the kitchen (not ideal), I will lose the wifi access in the garage. I'm not sure how else I can ensure a decent wifi signal in the garage.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

You could use a third airport express to extend the range maybe

jimmycrackcorm

Achilles wrote: »

They transmit at 500Mb in theory... in practise you'll be lucky if you get 80.

I agree. I put a cheap home plug set for my son's ps3 and there are no lags compared to when it was on wifi only.

yelselseivad

I got the Horizon box last Friday and installed it myself. My kids are complaining that they can't get decent internet access on their phones or in the attic - they had both before Horizon was installed. I still have the Cisco here - have you any suggestions as to what I can do so that I don't have to listen to shouting and swearing every night. Also, have to say I'm not too impressed that the signal keeps dropping on my own PC either.

allforju

quenching wrote: »

Yes, several times, only solution was to switch off/on and wait for startup.

Thanks, thought I reset during an update.

paulboland

yelselseivad wrote: »

I got the Horizon box last Friday and installed it myself. My kids are complaining that they can't get decent internet access on their phones or in the attic - they had both before Horizon was installed. I still have the Cisco here - have you any suggestions as to what I can do so that I don't have to listen to shouting and swearing every night. Also, have to say I'm not too impressed that the signal keeps dropping on my own PC either.

I will be using my own wireless router
Well it's 2 routers I use at the moment
Buffalo wireless disabled takes connection from upc modem and does all the dhcp it is then connected to a belkin wireless n+
So when I get tomorrow my horizon box I will do set up then when all fully working horizon i will disable wireless on horizon then connect to buffalo to Belkin N+
And use wireless from belkin it gives me 95% signal downstairs to ps3
And I don't get any drop outs due to using buffalo first then belkin
Note wireless can be hit and miss in setups try moving your horizon box even if only a few inches or few feet as a small movement of any wireless router can make all the difference in a signal
If you want best wireless you will always have to use a seperate wireless router or extender
Using a ps3 is great to find best signal strength as you can see in its network setting signal % so anyone with ps3 do that to find best Connection by moving horizon box even if only a small amount can make big difference
Also this horizon box is beta software its not final release there letting us test it first before general release so remember it will have faults its up to us to test and let them know whats wrong or what needs to be better and even in holland it's still been developed it will take a few months to sort out software faults and by next year I say there will be newer horizon box out
Sky hd when it first came out was the same for early beta users as well
Just keep letting them know what you like and don't like about the horizon and if faults happen report them that's how thing get fixed
I have been been a beta tester for Microsoft for 15 years and you would be shocked at windows beta software before it gets fixed but by testing to large number of users that's how it gets better

Griffinx

mattviv86 wrote: »

iv the new horizon box, it keeps dropping the wifi on my phone, drops then comes back. also has anyone the brand codes for the horizon remote to change the tv

Mine too

Jonathan

allforju wrote: »

Came out this morning and went to switch on my Horizon Box. It wouldn't switch on, the was no display and where the Blue light is usually on underneath, it was showing as Red. Had to reset the box to switch on. Anybody else ever get this?

I'm seeing similar issues here. Box won't turn on either. Neither remote or power button on the Horizon box are working. Display showing current time, and recording symbol.


Not impressed.

lar77

Jonathan wrote: »

I'm seeing similar issues here. Box won't turn on either. Neither remote or power button on the Horizon box are working. Display showing current time, and recording symbol.


Not impressed.

That happens to mine a lot too ... have to kill the power and restart. The list of issues is very long now! Can't understand why most of these basic issues haven't been sorted after a year of trials in Holland.

derekbro

I set up my the new horizon box last night, the tv was working ok but the internet and phone were not working so i rang UPC and they enabled it today. However I am seeing very strange behaviour, when i plug in my desktop PC to a network port on the back of the box the sound on the tv gets really jumpy and on a HD channel the picture is jumpy too. When i pull out the network cable the sound returns to normal straight away. I have my smart TV plugged in to another network port and it does not affect the sound but i can't see how its a fault of the PC, i never had any problems on the old cisco router.
Could this be a faulty box / hardware bug?

kippy

Achilles wrote: »

They transmit at 500Mb in theory... in practise you'll be lucky if you get 80.

Achilles, the powerlan adapters, even the cheapest of them are far far better than any of the G network speeds in most wireless networks, and the higher rated ones EASILY out perform N rated wireless networks........

(Experience from using many of all mentioned technologies mentioned here)
If you are not getting the "rated" speeds through the powerline adapters you should check that you are using CAT6 Patch cable, I generally find that increases the speeds..........if they are well well below what is advertised - even then I find even at that they are far better than wireless for speed and stability.
I'd also ask what you are measuring the "speed" against - how are you determining that you are only getting connected to the network at 80Mbps as opposed to 500?

fat bloke

Question, if I may.

A couple of times now the remote has frozen in me. So I can't switch channels or... well do anything basically, but on the box itself there appear to be three touch buttons - channel up/down and standby. But they don't work for me at all.

Should they?