Starhub IPTV in Switched network - help

FreezerGeezer

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Hi,

I have had my Starhub setup recontracted and upgraded today and been given a new ONT on which I had requested direct ONT to use my own router. The engineer claimed that the VLAN tagging has been is no longer used so all new installations are now direct ONT.

The contract also included IPTV and to avoid any additional cabling from my wiring closet to the room where my TV is, I have purchased 2 TP-Link managed switches and set up 3 VLAN's across the 2 rooms.

VLAN 10 = LAN & VIFI
VLAN 20 = WAN Internet
VLAN 30 = IPTV

I had tested the setup before the engineer came and proven the IP connectivity between devices on VLAN 20 & 30 in the wiring closet and TV room on the respective ports.

The installation went OK, and the Internet is working OK, but I cannot get the IPTV to connect. When I connect the IPTV box directly to the ONT port 2, it boots up fine but when I connect to the managed switch infrastructure it does not receive the IP information (DHCP) and fails with an error message. I have also tried connecting my Mac directly to port 2 on the ONT and it does not receive an IP. The engineer agreed that it should work but I had to let him go to check my switch config but I cannot find anything wrong.

Has anyone got any details of the specifications and infrastructure requirements for Starhub IPTV ? I would also like to verify if its not using VLAN tagging just to be sure as part of the troubleshooting if anyone knows how to do this.



Thanks

Pete
 

zoneguard

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Setup port mirroring on your managed switch and wireshark the traffic from ONT port 2 to IPTV and see how it actually works
 

misato

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From what I see, your traffic all mixed. You will still need to create separated VLAN on your managed switch for each of the service. The only difference is the endpoints ports on your switch needs not be tagged.
 

FreezerGeezer

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I don't understand why you think my network is "mixed", traffic is on 3 separate VLAN's and endpoints are not tagged. Furthermore, I have done some more troubleshooting this morning and cut down the complexity to narrow this down, with the following conclusion

1. ONT Port 2 -> Unmanned dumb switch connected to IPTV Box -IPTV Box boots up fine

2. ONT Port 2 -> Managed switched (TPLInk 2008), factory reset all settings default (VLAN ID 1 untagged) with only ONT and IPTV Box connected -> Does not work, IPTV Box does not get a DHCP response.

Any ideas ?
 

zoneguard

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Wireshark the traffic and you'll have your answer instead of waiting for somebody to show up with the answer. My guess is there aren't many Starhub IPTV users with non standard networks to begin with.
 

jeffrey745

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What's the benefit of starhub IPTV as compared to cable TV? My thinking is if fibre Internet is down,cannot watch cable TV?
 

FreezerGeezer

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I haven't got the answer to that yet (until I got it working) but the reason I got it was by re-contracting to the Home Hub 1000 package which comes with "Fibre TV". Note that its delivered on a separate port from the ONT and not the same one as your broadband, so if you have a straight connection (unlike me) to your TV I don't think you would be be affected by your broadband usage or router connectivity
 

crewcutboy

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What's the benefit of starhub IPTV as compared to cable TV? My thinking is if fibre Internet is down,cannot watch cable TV?

The "benefits" include:
- if/when recording, you can record multiple channels at the same time as there's greater bandwidth from fibre.
- accessing recording from a set-top box that's in another room.

It's just their way of battling the irrelevance of cable TV in this Netfllix age of video everywhere and video on demand.

For Starhub, the actual benefit is in piracy control as the IPTV signal can't be hijacked unlike cable.

But it's quite amusing how Starhub is now touting the "virtues" of and trying to convert people to IPTV when they were the beneficiaries of the frustration people faced with Singtel's IPTV service. Wasn't it too long ago that they advertised "cable TV is more stable therefore watch EPL on Starhub instead of Singtel"?
 

jeffrey745

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The "benefits" include:
- if/when recording, you can record multiple channels at the same time as there's greater bandwidth from fibre.
- accessing recording from a set-top box that's in another room.

It's just their way of battling the irrelevance of cable TV in this Netfllix age of video everywhere and video on demand.

For Starhub, the actual benefit is in piracy control as the IPTV signal can't be hijacked unlike cable.

But it's quite amusing how Starhub is now touting the "virtues" of and trying to convert people to IPTV when they were the beneficiaries of the frustration people faced with Singtel's IPTV service. Wasn't it too long ago that they advertised "cable TV is more stable therefore watch EPL on Starhub instead of Singtel"?
Yes that's y dun tink I will switch to IPTV. For singtel case I heard now IPTV on fibre now nt much problems unlike those days when Internet speed was slower,no fibre? Tkx for all ur help n advise here!
 

FreezerGeezer

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RESOLVED

For anyone else that are pulling their hair out to get this working. The Starhub IPTV VLAN is 1091 (at least in my case) and not 1099 which is the answer you get from other sources. I early suspected that there were VLAN's involved despite the engineer firmly insisting they had been removed both for Internet and IPTV, Wireshark confirmed that this was not the case.

Once I confirmed this, I also tried to enable IGMP snooping on this VLAN as suggested but could not get this to work. I have limited knowledge of multicast but I believe IGMP snooping will have limited impact in a small environment like mine, I might look in to it later again.

Regarding the comparison between Cable and IPTV, my initial impression is that the menu system on the IPTV box is superior and a lot snappier and responsive than my cable box. Picture and sound and viewing experience is the same. Note that this is based on a couple of hours usage, will post again if any further issues worth reporting occur.
 

layang89

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For anyone else that are pulling their hair out to get this working. The Starhub IPTV VLAN is 1091 (at least in my case) and not 1099 which is the answer you get from other sources. I early suspected that there were VLAN's involved despite the engineer firmly insisting they had been removed both for Internet and IPTV, Wireshark confirmed that this was not the case.

Once I confirmed this, I also tried to enable IGMP snooping on this VLAN as suggested but could not get this to work. I have limited knowledge of multicast but I believe IGMP snooping will have limited impact in a small environment like mine, I might look in to it later again.

Regarding the comparison between Cable and IPTV, my initial impression is that the menu system on the IPTV box is superior and a lot snappier and responsive than my cable box. Picture and sound and viewing experience is the same. Note that this is based on a couple of hours usage, will post again if any further issues worth reporting occur.

Hi

Just to understand more on the resolution. Does it mean that vlan 1091 needs to be configured on the managed switch port, instead of the default vlan 1 ?
 

FreezerGeezer

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Hi

Just to understand more on the resolution. Does it mean that vlan 1091 needs to be configured on the managed switch port, instead of the default vlan 1 ?

I have configured port 2 ONT and the IPTV box on VLAN 1091 Tagged. Apparently my post count is too low for me to post a picture so I can't add a network diagram of my setup

A few more things to add that I didn't cover

- Priority is 4, I have not set it but the wireshark capture shows this so I believe its default

- Ethernet port on Samsung box is 100 Mbit Full, not Gigabit

- Fibre TV box does not come with a hard drive, a USB disk needs to be connected and when thats done its automatically detected and SmartTV is enabled and programs can be recorded.

- To emphasize again, the menu system and responsiveness of the remote control is the big difference here and that in itself was worth the hassle I gone through over the weekend.

- Box has been on all day today and been rock solid so far
 
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chercm

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Nothing other than the box been rock solid and I have not had a missed (TV) frame since completing the configuration.

have you tried to use the smart tv function to perform recording ? i always have recording issues on the hubstation as always starts recording too early and also it does not record at all
 

FreezerGeezer

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have you tried to use the smart tv function to perform recording ? i always have recording issues on the hubstation as always starts recording too early and also it does not record at all
First of all, there is no built in hard drive so you need to connect a USB disk to the box and when you do the recording feature becomes available in the menu system, there is also a service you need to subscribe to at that point (I believe it was $4 per month). You can chose record by show or record by time, I have only recorded once "by show" and that started spot on. Will post again if there is anything worth noting once I used it a bit more
 

Ddarksire

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Hi Pete

Has your fibre TV issue with Starhub been resolved? How the system so far? Any downtime or DC issue?
 

kCirdEc

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@freezergeezer Do you have the diagram of you setup? I'm trying to setup my switch but I can't seem to get it to work. I have a CISCO 2960s L2 switch and set lan tagging to 1091 to ports of ONT and IPTV. I did check using wireshark and vlan is 1091. Thanks!
 
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