WhizComms, new Fibre Broadband provider

[xiaofan]

I checked with Whizcomms chat earlier and they confirmed they'll be using the F8648P V2-1. If upgrading to 10Gbps broadband, should consider taking the chance with Whizcomms ONR or go with Viewqwest?

If you do not like unbridged ONR, go for VQ.

VQ uses bridged ONR by default (effective the same as ONT).

 

[cyberprokia]

can any1 explain whats the downside of unbridged ONR? does unbridged affect speed, or has security issues?
last time i see in this thread is bridged can get WC 2.5g to dual wan to 2g.

 

[jinsatkilife]

can any1 explain whats the downside of unbridged ONR? does unbridged affect speed, or has security issues?
last time i see in this thread is bridged can get WC 2.5g to dual wan to 2g.

if ur normal user who surf, then no need care

ONR means cannot use ur router advanced features. If previously didnt need to use advanced features, then ONR is ok

 

[laokorkor]

if ur normal user who surf, then no need care

ONR means cannot use ur router advanced features. If previously didnt need to use advanced features, then ONR is ok

Agree, Singtel (whose network WC uses) is probably the largest provider of broadband in Singapore. If ONR is good enough for Singtel's vast customer base, it is most probably good enough for you and me. Before signing on, if you're afraid of missing out something, you probably can research on the advantages of ONT over ONR and see whether you can give these ONT features a miss, just in case. It's good that you know about the ONR vs ONT debate, you're light years ahead of me. When I sign on WC, I don't know about this topic and thankfully doesn't miss anything - thank God. LOL!

 

[xiaofan]

can any1 explain whats the downside of unbridged ONR? does unbridged affect speed, or has security issues?
last time i see in this thread is bridged can get WC 2.5g to dual wan to 2g.

You can take a look of my write-up here.
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/...cs-of-home-networking.6653421/#post-138363236

Majority of the users may not have issues with ONR. The problem is that you may not know that you are affected.

Power users usually avoid ONR since that will be the main router of the home network and they can not use their own router to its full abilities.

Some adavanced users think there are security concerns since ISP staff may be able to use TR069 to look at your home network.

Then some people reported Port Forwarding issues with ONR.

ONR will also usually have limited firmware features and limited CPU power compared to the better consumer routers out there.

 

[xiaofan]

Similar situation for CGNAT (VQ/MR/SIMBA).

Majority of users will be okay with CGNAT but some users get affected (eg: cannot do port forwarding).

VQ/MR provide static IPv4 add-on for those who hit the limit of CGNAT.

Unfortunately SIMBA does not have that add-on. It provides public IPv6 for 10Gbps plan users as a potential work-around but not able to sort out all issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier-grade_NAT

• Carrier-grade NAT usually prevents the ISP customers from using port forwarding, because the network address translation (NAT) is usually implemented by mapping ports of the NAT devices in the network to other ports in the external interface. This is done so the router will be able to map the responses to the correct device; in carrier-grade NAT networks, even though the router at the consumer end might be configured for port forwarding, the "master router" of the ISP, which runs the CGN, will block this port forwarding because the actual port would not be the port configured by the consumer.[7] In order to overcome the former disadvantage, the Port Control Protocol (PCP) has been standardized in the RFC 6887.
• In cases of banning traffic based on IP addresses, a system might block the traffic of a spamming user by banning the user's IP address. If that user happens to be behind carrier-grade NAT, other users sharing the same public address with the spammer will be inadvertently blocked.[7] This can create problems for forum and wiki administrators attempting to address disruptive actions of a single malicious user sharing an IP address with legitimate users.

 

[laokorkor]

I'm currently on WC 2.5gbps until April 2025.

Just to side track a bit. My current AP is tp-link AX1800. My household has the following devices:

Laptop cabled to onr
Smarttv cabled to onr
Samsung z fold 5
Iphone 15 pro max
Iphone 13 pro

My personal wifi device is z fold 5 and on a good day I can hit above 500mbps from my master bedroom to my AP in the living room.

It seems like my AP is getting old and newer ones are pretty affordable. Does it make sense to upgrade? What's a good wifi speed to target given my devices? What AP do you recommend?

 

[zhongfu]

I'm currently on WC 2.5gbps until April 2025.

Just to side track a bit. My current AP is tp-link AX1800. My household has the following devices:

Laptop cabled to onr
Smarttv cabled to onr
Samsung z fold 5
Iphone 15 pro max
Iphone 13 pro

My personal wifi device is z fold 5 and on a good day I can hit above 500mbps from my master bedroom to my AP in the living room.

It seems like my AP is getting old and newer ones are pretty affordable. Does it make sense to upgrade? What's a good wifi speed to target given my devices? What AP do you recommend?

500Mbps at 80MHz channel width would be pretty good, especially at a distance

more than enough for me on a phone, personally

 

[hkchew03]

I'm currently on WC 2.5gbps until April 2025.

Just to side track a bit. My current AP is tp-link AX1800. My household has the following devices:

Laptop cabled to onr
Smarttv cabled to onr
Samsung z fold 5
Iphone 15 pro max
Iphone 13 pro

My personal wifi device is z fold 5 and on a good day I can hit above 500mbps from my master bedroom to my AP in the living room.

It seems like my AP is getting old and newer ones are pretty affordable. Does it make sense to upgrade? What's a good wifi speed to target given my devices? What AP do you recommend?

You not going to get any signicant practical improvement with the upgrade, given best case senerior with a router that can utilise 2x 1gbps port and your wifi speed go above 1gbps, how often are you downloading huge files that go pass that speed for extended amount of time? Not likely you going to use your phone to download 10GB or more data/games.

 

[xiaofan]

I'm currently on WC 2.5gbps until April 2025.

Just to side track a bit. My current AP is tp-link AX1800. My household has the following devices:

Laptop cabled to onr
Smarttv cabled to onr
Samsung z fold 5
Iphone 15 pro max
Iphone 13 pro

My personal wifi device is z fold 5 and on a good day I can hit above 500mbps from my master bedroom to my AP in the living room.

It seems like my AP is getting old and newer ones are pretty affordable. Does it make sense to upgrade? What's a good wifi speed to target given my devices? What AP do you recommend?

TP-Link AX1800? Do you mean TP-Link Archer AX20 or Archer AX23 (2x2 WiFi 6, 80MHz channel bandwidth, AX1800 rated) ? 500Mbps is good WiFi speed if it is consistent, but you mention that is only on a good day.

For low cost upgrade, it will be good to get another wireless router like TP-Link Archer AX72 (4x4 WiFi 6, 160MHz channel bandwidth, AX5400 rated) at about S$80 from Carousell to use the WC 2.5Gbps plan more effectly. You may get more consistent WiFi speed since you have quite some good WiFi 6 devices.

WC ONR --> Archer AX72 (AX5400) as AP in the living room
WC ONR --> Archer AX1800 as AP (optional) in the room with weak signal if any.
WC ONR --> Laptop with cable
WC ONR --> Smart TV

Call me biased but I do not recommend using AX1800 or even AX3000 rated Wireless router now, since AX5400/AX6000 rated routers are cheap enough. I do not recommend buying BE3600 grade dual band WiFi 7 router either (like the M1 issued TP-Link BE230) since BE5000/BE6500/BE7200 rated wireless router are cheap enough.

In theory (real thing will be more complicated), 4x4 MIMO and 160MHz channel bandwidth in the AX72 can allow two WiFi 6 device to be connected at 2402Mbps PHY speed. 2x2 MIMO and 80MHz channel bandwith in the AX20/AX23 can only give one WiFi 6 device to be connected at 1201 Mbps PHY speed.

A reference why 4x4 is better than 2x2 from Chinese author, both in terms of wireless speed and coverage. He is thinking that Beam Forming is the reason based on his testing results. I am not saying that his test results are absolute valid but it is a good data point.
https://www.acwifi.net/18179.html

 

[007Mi6]

Hi, I am about to sign up with WC for my father. We had the following and need some quick advice:

2x Tapos CCTV
1x Dreame Robot
Fixed homeline

I believe we still need a router (Asus AX3000P) to go with it. Would I have any issue accessing the CCTV and Dreame Robot Vacuum?

Thanks in advance

 

[BBCWatcher]

Hi, I am about to sign up with WC for my father. We had the following and need some quick advice:
2x Tapos CCTV
1x Dreame Robot
Fixed homeline

WhizComms provides the fixed home line at $3.04 per month extra if you want that. (But does your father still need a fixed home line?)

WhizComms provides an unbridged ONR, so their equipment is providing the routing functions. If you need any port forwarding you would configure it in their ONR. Turn off any routing functions in devices you connect to their ONR. For example, to provide Wi-Fi either plug in a wireless access point (WAP) or plug in a wireless router that's configured as a wireless access point (routing functions disabled).

I believe we still need a router (Asus AX3000P) to go with it.

Nope. If you want Wi-Fi you only need to plug in a wireless access point (WAP). If you plug in a wireless router then you would disable its routing functions, configuring it as a wireless access point. The unbridged ONR handles all the routing between the WAN (on the WhizComms fibre side) and your home LAN (the various devices in your home).

Would I have any issue accessing the CCTV and Dreame Robot Vacuum?

No, not if you follow the configuration guidance above.

 

[xiaofan]

Hi, I am about to sign up with WC for my father. We had the following and need some quick advice:

2x Tapos CCTV
1x Dreame Robot
Fixed homeline

I believe we still need a router (Asus AX3000P) to go with it. Would I have any issue accessing the CCTV and Dreame Robot Vacuum?

Thanks in advance

It should be fine, just set up RT-AX3000P in AP mode to avoid Double NAT.

Wether single RT-AX3000P can cover the flat is another story. But you can add one more RT-AX3000P as AP as well, if you have LAN ports in the rooms.

WC ONR -- RT-AX3000P in the living room, in AP mode
WC ONR -- RT-AX3000P in the other bedroom, in AP mode (same SSID and same password as the first one), if single RT-AX3000P is not good with wireless coverage.
WC ONR -- wired device like PC or NAS or Smart TV
WC ONR -- wired device like PC or NAS or Smart TV

If you just use the following, then you only use WC 2.5Gbps as 1Gbps.
WC ONR -- RT-AX3000P in the living room -- use wireless for all your devices.

 

[lifeislame]

my Huawei onr is from around 8 years back, I think the supported uplink is 1gbps, is it possible to request to change the one to support 2.5gbps after recontract?


Read HWZ Forum Rules!

 

[xiaofan]

my Huawei onr is from around 8 years back, I think the supported uplink is 1gbps, is it possible to request to change the one to support 2.5gbps after recontract?

All the Singtel/WC GPON ONRs support WC/Singtel 2.5Gbps plan (aggregated 2.5Gbps). The Huawei ONR may have better build quality than the new Nokia and ZTE ONR. If it is still working, no need to change. Usually the issue is with the power adapter or power contact -- the ONR itself is rock solid.

• Huawei HG8244H ONR
• Huawei HG8240T5 ONR
• Nokia G240 ONR
• ZTE ZXHN F620 ONR

 

[Lss]

my contract for 500Mbps is coming to an end. will i be able to upgrade to 2.5Gpbs and be able to fully use the bandwidth? or will it work at 1Gpbs or something? Currently connecting their ONT to Asus TUF-AX4200.

 

[BBCWatcher]

my Huawei onr is from around 8 years back, I think the supported uplink is 1gbps, is it possible to request to change the one to support 2.5gbps after recontract?

You can request 2.5 Gb/s fibre speed now. WhizComms will give you a free upgrade if your Huawei ONR supports it, which it probably does. There's one potential disadvantage, though. At the end of your contract WhizComms will place you on the noncontract 2.5 Gb/s rate unless you recontract. The noncontract 2.5 Gb/s rate is higher than the 500 Mb/s noncontract rate. I think it's about $40/month versus about $28/month.

Currently WhizComms seems to be offering recontracts on their 2.5 Gb/s service for $24/month (24 months) or $26/month (12 months). These rates are subject to change, of course.

Your Huawei ONR supports a maximum of 1.0 Gb/s per port. If your ONR is bridged then only the first port will be bridged. You will not see any benefit with a higher speed unless your 500 Mb/s fibre speed is currently constraining. For wireless devices it may not be constraining at all. For wired devices the best you can probably do is to halve the time it takes to download a big file. Does that matter? Will your life be materially better? Probably not.

my contract for 500Mbps is coming to an end. will i be able to upgrade to 2.5Gpbs and be able to fully use the bandwidth? or will it work at 1Gpbs or something? Currently connecting their ONT to Asus TUF-AX4200.

I don't think WhizComms ever provided an ONT, but they've provided ONRs that can be bridged (functionally equivalent to ONTs) in the past. See above for some comments.

Your Asus TUF AX4200 wireless router has a 2.5 Gb/s Ethernet port, but the equipment WhizComms provides for their 2.5 Gb/s (fibre speed) service is limited to 1.0 Gb/s per port. You'll get that much delivered to your Asus TUF AX4200. Whether your Asus wireless router can do anything with that higher speed depends on a variety of factors including your local and ever changing wireless environment in/around your home. You can attach one or a couple wired devices to the WhizComms ONR, and they can get their own 1.0 Gb/s ports. The aggregate speed limit across the ports will be 2.5 Gb/s. Will that matter (make your life materially better, etc.)? Probably not, but it's possible.

If your WhizComms ONR is not bridged then it's generally best to disable any routing functions in your Asus TUF AX4200 and configure it as a wireless access point (WAP).

On edit: It looks like the Asus TUF-AX4200 might support WAN port aggregation. So you might be able to get 2.0 Gb/s (1.0 Gb/s+1.0 Gb/s) into your Asus equipment using 2 cables. Whether the Asus TUF-AX4200 can deliver any real-world benefits to your wireless devices with that configuration is a separate question.

 

[Lss]

I don't think WhizComms ever provided an ONT, but they've provided ONRs that can be bridged (functionally equivalent to ONTs) in the past. See above for some comments.

Your Asus TUF AX4200 wireless router has a 2.5 Gb/s Ethernet port, but the equipment WhizComms provides for their 2.5 Gb/s (fibre speed) service is limited to 1.0 Gb/s per port. You'll get that much delivered to your Asus TUF AX4200. Whether your Asus wireless router can do anything with that higher speed depends on a variety of factors including your local and ever changing wireless environment in/around your home. You can attach one or a couple wired devices to the WhizComms ONR, and they can get their own 1.0 Gb/s ports. The aggregate speed limit across the ports will be 2.5 Gb/s. Will that matter (make your life materially better, etc.)? Probably not, but it's possible.

If your WhizComms ONR is not bridged then it's generally best to disable any routing functions in your Asus TUF AX4200 and configure it as a wireless access point (WAP).

On edit: It looks like the Asus TUF-AX4200 might support WAN port aggregation. So you might be able to get 2.0 Gb/s (1.0 Gb/s+1.0 Gb/s) into your Asus equipment using 2 cables. Whether the Asus TUF-AX4200 can deliver any real-world benefits to your wireless devices with that configuration is a separate question.

I see so its more likely that they configured the ONR in bridge rather than actually giving me an ONT.


humm i'll need to pull another cable if wan port aggregation is needed as the router is a couple metres away from the DB box. but that means its still max 2Gbps. they are really misrepresenting their product imo

 

[xiaofan]

On edit: It looks like the Asus TUF-AX4200 might support WAN port aggregation. So you might be able to get 2.0 Gb/s (1.0 Gb/s+1.0 Gb/s) into your Asus equipment using 2 cables. Whether the Asus TUF-AX4200 can deliver any real-world benefits to your wireless devices with that configuration is a separate question.

1. FYI, WAN Aggregation does not work since none of local ISP's ONT/ONR support LACP-IEEE 802.3ad.

Asus WAN Aggregation FAQ:
https://www.asus.com/sg/support/faq/1039053/

2. What will work is Dual WAN Load Balancing. But then the Asus router needs to be configured in router mode and you have to live with Double NAT, which may or may not cause issues depending on the use cases.
https://www.asus.com/sg/support/faq/1050116/

Double NAT:
https://kb.netgear.com/30186/What-is-double-NAT-and-why-is-it-bad

3) Therefore for average users, it is probably be easy to use two wireless router or use a combination of wireless and wired connection for WC 2.5Gbps. That is why WC 2.5Gbps is called "aggregated 2.5Gbps plan".

WC ONR 1G LAN port --> Asus TUF-4200 (up to 1Gbps)
WC ONR 1G LAN port --> Wired device like computer or NAS (up to 1Gbps)
WC ONR 1G LAN port --> Another wireless AP (optional, up to 1Gbps)
WC ONR 1G LAN port --> Another wire device (optional, up to 1Gbps)

4) Power users can replace the WC ONR with a 2.5G capable ONU with 2.5G LAN port. That is another way to use the WC 2.5Gbps plan to the full potential.

Asus TUF-AX6000 or GT-AX6000 or other routers with dual 2.5G ports will be better than TUF-AX4200 in this case.

2.5G capable GPON ONU --> Asus TUF-AX6000 WAN
Asus TUF-AX6000 LAN --> 2.5G wired device

 

[xiaofan]

I see so its more likely that they configured the ONR in bridge rather than actually giving me an ONT.

humm i'll need to pull another cable if wan port aggregation is needed as the router is a couple metres away from the DB box. but that means its still max 2Gbps. they are really misrepresenting their product imo

As mentioned, WAN Aggregation will not work. Dual WAN Load balancing will work. But you still need to pull another cable to do that and you will have to live with Double NAT.

WC 2.5Gbps is so-called "aggregated 2.5Gbps plan".

They mention the following in the WC webpages.

1) https://whizcomms.com.sg/2-5gbps-speed-boost-request/
Note: 2.5Gbps Broadband has a maximum bandwidth of 2.5Gbps, with each device connection achieving up to 1Gbps.

2) https://whizcomms.com.sg/fibreplus-2-5gbps/
Frequently Asked Questions

What is 2.5Gbps Broadband?
2.5Gbps Broadband is our lowest priced broadband plan. For most residential users, 2.5Gbps is more than sufficient for every day online activities such as music/video streaming, surfing the web, working and even gaming to some extent.

You will enjoy a maximum total bandwidth of 2.5Gbps with each device connection going up to 1Gbps.