Qubicfactor
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Asus N56U Singtel and M1 Presets
I just want to help clear the air since there seems to be so much confusion in the internet regarding this. I would not have bothered if the N56U router had not shot up in popularity drastically. The pieces of info are all already here in the forums, just that it is all being buried and intermingled with misinformation over time.
The addition of the Singtel-Mio and Singtel-Others presets is an unofficial and undocumented feature that is not adequately explained by Asus, since it is NOT something that is a design feature of the router, but rather a request that was kindly worked on and added in firmware, to make things easier for N56U users on Singtel exStream Fibre to connect directly to the ONT and skip the given 2Wire/Pace 5012NV RG while avoiding additional hardware where possible. With the presets, there is no need to use a managed switch to split VLANs or use the 2Wire for MioTV to function.
Some small background info about how the presets came about:
Bro Xieliwei and myself had managed to figure out how to get MioTV running off our managed switches directly. I wanted to take this step further since smart/managed switches are always an extra cost/device, and the feature to allow MioTV to run (QoS Priority) was not something available on all smart switches although VLAN is. By chance, I read KLSeet’s post about him getting Asus to write in a similar preset for Malaysia’s Unifi just the day after he posted it. With some dozen odd emails back and forth, I managed to convince him to talk to Asus to do the same for Singtel’s exStream. Bro Xieliwei helped me do the actual firmware testing on my spare N56U (I use it for 5Ghz bridging) and correspond with Asus since he had MioVoice which I had opted out of and cannot test, as well as my personal commitments. Fast forward, beta firmware 8.1.1.4 and all subsequent firmware had the presets baked in. Some flexibility was also left in with the option for a custom VLAN and priority setting. Future routers like the N66 may have this as well, though it still depends on Asus.
Disclaimer:
I DO NOT work for Asus or Singtel. Neither does Singtel nor Asus officially provide technical support for this "feature". Remember that if you ever get any connectivity issues, you ARE ON YOUR OWN since you have elected to use an unofficial feature in an unofficial setup, barring whatever help you can get from the community here.
Notes on connectivity issues:
Singtel exStream does get downtimes once in a while (from personal experience, once in a couple of months), whether due to maintenance at night or some backend issue somewhere, and in times like those you can be stuck trying to figure out whether your N56U setup has a problem, or if Singtel’s network is really down. In such a scenario, come here to the forums in NGBN (via 3G or any alternative means) and check if anyone else on eXstream has an issue. Don’t forget to state your region (Jurong etc). If many users from your area or more have issues, then most likely the problem is not on your side and you can only wait till it is back up, with the occasional ONT and N56U off and on to confirm. (Remember, always ONT on first). The N56U does support a fair number of 3G dongles especially Huaweis, and it’s an excellent fallback option, albeit the fact you have to activate and deactivate it manually.
Should you choose to plug in the 2Wire to the ONT again to see the 2 diagnostic lights (Broadband and Service), do remember to off and on the ONT. The ONT WILL get confused if you swap devices out without a power cycle and this may cause unpredictable results. On another note, ignore the diagnostic lights if you have the 2Wire behind the N56U for MioVoice since it will likely be red though MioVoice works fine.
Otherwise, probably your settings are wrong, you bricked your N56U or you got an unfortunate lemon set. Correspondingly, check your settings again, recover via Asus CD and/or RMA your set. You’ll also never know if you accidentally damaged your fibre cable.
So what can the presets do?
Offer direct connection to Singtel's ONT with internet and MioTV (via port 4). Previously, you will need a managed switch to untag VLAN 10 for internet and untag VLAN 20 and set QoS priority to 4 for MioTV. Support for MioVoice is by placing the 2Wire WAN behind port 3 with “Singtel-Mio” preset. Remember that the N56U does not have any phone ports since it is NOT a VOIP gateway/router. You can also get a software or hardware SIP solution to completely get rid of the 2Wire (Linksys PAP2T, various SIP dect phones etc) but these do not actually require the “Singtel-Mio” preset since they just run off plain internet. Settings for MioVoice SIP are available in the forums; do look it up if you are heading down this road (keyword: voip.singtel.com).
Do also note that you can opt out of MioVoice when applying for exStream fibre and have Singtel keep you on analog line. Singtel will hence not charge you the quarterly line fees, but only the units you use which is really not much.
The only difference between the 2 presets is that “Singtel-Others” assumes that you do not have MioVoice and hence frees up port 3 for internet/lan use. Alternatively, you can set it up manually by selecting “Manual”. Need more ports? Get a gigabit switch.
Diagram by ngbc
Flash your N56U to the latest firmware to get the presets (though technically anything from beta 8.1.1.4 already has it).
Note: MioVoice not working with firmware update 1.0.1.7f. Use the latest 1.0.1.8d firmware.
NEW - M1 preset
Asus has kindly made a preset for M1 RG users. You will be able to use VoIP with your RG on port 3 of the Asus N56U. Ports 1,2 and 4 are normal LAN/Internet on the N56U. Please note that this preset is intended for M1 users with either the white NC Huawei ONT, or the black M1 Huawei ONT with VoIP provisioned by RG only, since only M1 users in this configuration require VLAN settings to accommodate the VoIP VLAN. Other M1 Fiber users who did not opt for the Huawei RG can simply use the N56U as it is without any preset required. "M1-Fiber" preset is available from firmware version 1.0.1.8d onwards.
Padavan Firmware
For those using the Padavan third party firmware, do note that the presets have been removed as of version 1.1.1.8f-b7 due to a major rewrite of the VLAN code. You will have to input the VLAN settings manually under the "Ports Isolation and VLAN Filtering" section in the web GUI. I have listed the equivalent settings contained in the presets below for convenience, though you are free to set any ports as you wish since there is true VLAN functionality now. StarHub users can work their way from here (I am not going to produce any SH firmware for now since I didn't get enough replies to confirm that it works).
I just want to help clear the air since there seems to be so much confusion in the internet regarding this. I would not have bothered if the N56U router had not shot up in popularity drastically. The pieces of info are all already here in the forums, just that it is all being buried and intermingled with misinformation over time.
The addition of the Singtel-Mio and Singtel-Others presets is an unofficial and undocumented feature that is not adequately explained by Asus, since it is NOT something that is a design feature of the router, but rather a request that was kindly worked on and added in firmware, to make things easier for N56U users on Singtel exStream Fibre to connect directly to the ONT and skip the given 2Wire/Pace 5012NV RG while avoiding additional hardware where possible. With the presets, there is no need to use a managed switch to split VLANs or use the 2Wire for MioTV to function.
Some small background info about how the presets came about:
Bro Xieliwei and myself had managed to figure out how to get MioTV running off our managed switches directly. I wanted to take this step further since smart/managed switches are always an extra cost/device, and the feature to allow MioTV to run (QoS Priority) was not something available on all smart switches although VLAN is. By chance, I read KLSeet’s post about him getting Asus to write in a similar preset for Malaysia’s Unifi just the day after he posted it. With some dozen odd emails back and forth, I managed to convince him to talk to Asus to do the same for Singtel’s exStream. Bro Xieliwei helped me do the actual firmware testing on my spare N56U (I use it for 5Ghz bridging) and correspond with Asus since he had MioVoice which I had opted out of and cannot test, as well as my personal commitments. Fast forward, beta firmware 8.1.1.4 and all subsequent firmware had the presets baked in. Some flexibility was also left in with the option for a custom VLAN and priority setting. Future routers like the N66 may have this as well, though it still depends on Asus.
Disclaimer:
I DO NOT work for Asus or Singtel. Neither does Singtel nor Asus officially provide technical support for this "feature". Remember that if you ever get any connectivity issues, you ARE ON YOUR OWN since you have elected to use an unofficial feature in an unofficial setup, barring whatever help you can get from the community here.
Notes on connectivity issues:
Singtel exStream does get downtimes once in a while (from personal experience, once in a couple of months), whether due to maintenance at night or some backend issue somewhere, and in times like those you can be stuck trying to figure out whether your N56U setup has a problem, or if Singtel’s network is really down. In such a scenario, come here to the forums in NGBN (via 3G or any alternative means) and check if anyone else on eXstream has an issue. Don’t forget to state your region (Jurong etc). If many users from your area or more have issues, then most likely the problem is not on your side and you can only wait till it is back up, with the occasional ONT and N56U off and on to confirm. (Remember, always ONT on first). The N56U does support a fair number of 3G dongles especially Huaweis, and it’s an excellent fallback option, albeit the fact you have to activate and deactivate it manually.
Should you choose to plug in the 2Wire to the ONT again to see the 2 diagnostic lights (Broadband and Service), do remember to off and on the ONT. The ONT WILL get confused if you swap devices out without a power cycle and this may cause unpredictable results. On another note, ignore the diagnostic lights if you have the 2Wire behind the N56U for MioVoice since it will likely be red though MioVoice works fine.
Otherwise, probably your settings are wrong, you bricked your N56U or you got an unfortunate lemon set. Correspondingly, check your settings again, recover via Asus CD and/or RMA your set. You’ll also never know if you accidentally damaged your fibre cable.
So what can the presets do?
Offer direct connection to Singtel's ONT with internet and MioTV (via port 4). Previously, you will need a managed switch to untag VLAN 10 for internet and untag VLAN 20 and set QoS priority to 4 for MioTV. Support for MioVoice is by placing the 2Wire WAN behind port 3 with “Singtel-Mio” preset. Remember that the N56U does not have any phone ports since it is NOT a VOIP gateway/router. You can also get a software or hardware SIP solution to completely get rid of the 2Wire (Linksys PAP2T, various SIP dect phones etc) but these do not actually require the “Singtel-Mio” preset since they just run off plain internet. Settings for MioVoice SIP are available in the forums; do look it up if you are heading down this road (keyword: voip.singtel.com).
Do also note that you can opt out of MioVoice when applying for exStream fibre and have Singtel keep you on analog line. Singtel will hence not charge you the quarterly line fees, but only the units you use which is really not much.
The only difference between the 2 presets is that “Singtel-Others” assumes that you do not have MioVoice and hence frees up port 3 for internet/lan use. Alternatively, you can set it up manually by selecting “Manual”. Need more ports? Get a gigabit switch.
Code:
Singtel-MIO Preset
TP
l
ONT
l
Asus RT-N66U /N56U
l
l--Port1--> Computer
l--Port2--> Computer
l--Port3--> 2Wire --> mioVoice
l--Port4--> mioTV
Singtel-Others Preset
TP
l
ONT
l
Asus RT-N66U /N56U
l
l--Port1--> Computer
l--Port2--> Computer
l--Port3--> Computer
l--Port4--> mioTV
Diagram by ngbc
Flash your N56U to the latest firmware to get the presets (though technically anything from beta 8.1.1.4 already has it).
Note: MioVoice not working with firmware update 1.0.1.7f. Use the latest 1.0.1.8d firmware.
NEW - M1 preset
Asus has kindly made a preset for M1 RG users. You will be able to use VoIP with your RG on port 3 of the Asus N56U. Ports 1,2 and 4 are normal LAN/Internet on the N56U. Please note that this preset is intended for M1 users with either the white NC Huawei ONT, or the black M1 Huawei ONT with VoIP provisioned by RG only, since only M1 users in this configuration require VLAN settings to accommodate the VoIP VLAN. Other M1 Fiber users who did not opt for the Huawei RG can simply use the N56U as it is without any preset required. "M1-Fiber" preset is available from firmware version 1.0.1.8d onwards.
Padavan Firmware
For those using the Padavan third party firmware, do note that the presets have been removed as of version 1.1.1.8f-b7 due to a major rewrite of the VLAN code. You will have to input the VLAN settings manually under the "Ports Isolation and VLAN Filtering" section in the web GUI. I have listed the equivalent settings contained in the presets below for convenience, though you are free to set any ports as you wish since there is true VLAN functionality now. StarHub users can work their way from here (I am not going to produce any SH firmware for now since I didn't get enough replies to confirm that it works).
Code:
"Singtel-Mio"
Ports Isolation and VLAN Filtering
Choose IPTV STB Port: LAN3 & LAN4
VLAN Tagged Traffic Filter? Yes
VLAN CPU: VID 10 PRIO 0
VLAN LAN3: VID 30 PRIO 4 Tag
VLAN LAN4: VID 20 PRIO 4 Untag
Code:
"Singtel-Others"
Ports Isolation and VLAN Filtering
Choose IPTV STB Port: LAN4
VLAN Tagged Traffic Filter? Yes
VLAN CPU: VID 10 PRIO 0
VLAN LAN4: VID 20 PRIO 4 Untag
Code:
"M1-Fiber"
Ports Isolation and VLAN Filtering
Choose IPTV STB Port: LAN3
VLAN Tagged Traffic Filter? Yes
VLAN CPU: VID 1103 PRIO 1
VLAN LAN3: VID 1107 PRIO 1 Tag
Last edited: