Network dilemma on Starhub TV+

[jimmy]

I think you are right. Not everyone like such OTT.

Their market survey may be biased. For next 10 years, traditional TV channels will still exist. Maybe market share lower.

 

[firesong]

Their market survey may be biased. For next 10 years, traditional TV channels will still exist. Maybe market share lower.

Surveys are only as good as their sample group and size.

They may have surveyed the young families and working adults, so these are more likely to go with digital content-on-demand over traditional programming. Moreover, it is those who are working (more so today with dual-earner families) that do not want the traditional programming since they need to organise their lives around the TV schedule.

TV on demand services allows for them to control what they want to watch, anytime they want it, and now where they want it. The only people with the luxury to follow a programming schedule are typically the retired elderly, but even so many of them are hooked to demand-tv thanks to the excellent collection of Korean and US dramas on Netflix.

 

[liverpudian13]

Received a call from SH Telesales offering free upgrade to their current HomeHub+ 1G plan (currently on HomeHub IG w fibre STB, 2 passes & Netflix@$79.90/mth).
Did not take up the offer as I was hesitant about their new Chrome box performance & other issues which I hope other members here can enlighten me.
Besides the need to be connected to the Nokia Beacon or 2 Linksys routers for FTA channels which is restrictive (since I am currently using Asus Mesh routers), my main concern is whether having the chrome box connected to the router which is then connected to Port 1 of the ONT will affect the 1Gbps bandwidth for my internet surfing especially when someone is watching SH program via the box while other family members are watching other videos on the net since both are bandwidth intensive.
Currently my fibre STB is connected to Port 2 of the ONT while my mesh router is connected to Port 1 which means TV watching and internet surfing are independent of each other.
With the new setup, both the above activities are via the same router. Will performance then be affected resulting in laggy videos and/or slow surfing speed?
Can some tech savvy members help to shed some light on the above as the telesales staff says the 2 acitvities will still be independent & tv watching would not affect my subscribed IG bandwidth but I am not incline to taking their words for it.

 

[antecpro]

Received a call from SH Telesales offering free upgrade to their current HomeHub+ 1G plan (currently on HomeHub IG w fibre STB, 2 passes & Netflix@$79.90/mth).
Did not take up the offer as I was hesitant about their new Chrome box performance & other issues which I hope other members here can enlighten me.
Besides the need to be connected to the Nokia Beacon or 2 Linksys routers for FTA channels which is restrictive (since I am currently using Asus Mesh routers), my main concern is whether having the chrome box connected to the router which is then connected to Port 1 of the ONT will affect the 1Gbps bandwidth for my internet surfing especially when someone is watching SH program via the box while other family members are watching other videos on the net since both are bandwidth intensive.
Currently my fibre STB is connected to Port 2 of the ONT while my mesh router is connected to Port 1 which means TV watching and internet surfing are independent of each other.
With the new setup, both the above activities are via the same router. Will performance then be affected resulting in laggy videos and/or slow surfing speed?
Can some tech savvy members help to shed some light on the above as the telesales staff says the 2 acitvities will still be independent & tv watching would not affect my subscribed IG bandwidth but I am not incline to taking their words for it.

Bro, can share what the telesales offer now and $$? Thanks

 

[Henry Ng]

Yes.. this is the first one I am gonna try.

Troublesome to use TV+ la.

 

[s7460597]

Can retain fiber tv?

 

[ardneh]

Bro, can share what the telesales offer now and $$? Thanks

Yeah. I’m interested as well
No one called me to offer anything

 

[Henry Ng]

Received a call from SH Telesales offering free upgrade to their current HomeHub+ 1G plan (currently on HomeHub IG w fibre STB, 2 passes & Netflix@$79.90/mth).
Did not take up the offer as I was hesitant about their new Chrome box performance & other issues which I hope other members here can enlighten me.
Besides the need to be connected to the Nokia Beacon or 2 Linksys routers for FTA channels which is restrictive (since I am currently using Asus Mesh routers), my main concern is whether having the chrome box connected to the router which is then connected to Port 1 of the ONT will affect the 1Gbps bandwidth for my internet surfing especially when someone is watching SH program via the box while other family members are watching other videos on the net since both are bandwidth intensive.
Currently my fibre STB is connected to Port 2 of the ONT while my mesh router is connected to Port 1 which means TV watching and internet surfing are independent of each other.
With the new setup, both the above activities are via the same router. Will performance then be affected resulting in laggy videos and/or slow surfing speed?
Can some tech savvy members help to shed some light on the above as the telesales staff says the 2 acitvities will still be independent & tv watching would not affect my subscribed IG bandwidth but I am not incline to taking their words for it.

There are many feedbacks here.

 

[liverpudian13]

Bro, can share what the telesales offer now and $$? Thanks

Yeah. I’m interested as well
No one called me to offer anything

Re-contract to HomeHub+ 1G for 24 mths@same rate of current plan of $79.90/mth.
Comes with 1Gbps broadband, TV+ box, 2 TV+ passes, Netflix and Disney+.
Actually no big difference from what I am getting now except the STB and Disney+.
But NO free Nokia smart wifi since it is considered a re-contract case.

PS:
Anyone interested in the Nokia Beacon can PM me for reasonable price as I did not use the pair that came with my current subscription and have been using own Asus Mesh instead.

 

[Henry Ng]

Re-contract to HomeHub+ 1G for 24 mths@same rate of current plan of $79.90/mth.
Comes with 1Gbps broadband, TV+ box, 2 TV+ passes, Netflix and Disney+.
Actually no big difference from what I am getting now except the STB and Disney+.
But NO free Nokia smart wifi since it is considered a re-contract case.

PS:
Anyone interested in the Nokia Beacon can PM me for reasonable price as I did not use the pair that came with my current subscription and have been using own Asus Mesh instead.

Without the Nokia router can not watch free to air channels. No one will want to buy Nokia router as it is just a AC router.

 

[ineedspace]

is it possible to install starhub TV+ apk on xiaomi box and stream it from xiaomi box?

 

[xiaofan]

is it possible to install starhub TV+ apk on xiaomi box and stream it from xiaomi box?

No. But you can run Starhub TV+ on your mobile phone and then cast through Mi Box S (or the older Mi Box Global version), or other Android TV OS device (Nvidia Shield TV, Sony Android TV, etc).

 

[Henry Ng]

is it possible to install starhub TV+ apk on xiaomi box and stream it from xiaomi box?

No Starhub do not allow it unless it is their own TV box.

 

[seowbin]

after so many months, did starhub solve the crap nokia router problem?

I have AX router but forced to piggyback behind a lousy/stoneage nokia router.

 

[xiaofan]

after so many months, did starhub solve the crap nokia router problem?
I have AX router but forced to piggyback behind a lousy/stoneage nokia router.

You can ditch the Nokia router and use your own AX router as the main router.

If you use the Starhub TV+ box, the only missing thing is MediaCorp channels. However you can use a few workaround.

1) If you have TV with DVB-T2 tuner, just buy the antenna. Quality should be better than Starhub TV+ box.

2) meWatch now supports Android TV OS directly without the need of casting. Try to install it from the Play Store. I tried it with my Mi Box S and it works.

3) In case Starhub blocks the meWach app (unlikely), you can still cast to TV from your mobile phone. Starhub TV+ box supports Google Chromecast function.

 

[seowbin]

After fiddling with it this afternoon, finally managed to make my AX router as primary router and make the Nokia becon as secondary router (just for Mediacock channels/IPTV stream ) only. My parents watch channel 8 and U all those on the same android box. Suffered for half a year or so, finally decided to do something about it.

Point noted (a bit technical) :
1) Starfug uses vlan trunking , same as Sinktel
From Nokia Becon, you can observe that it uses native VLAN (no tag) to receive Internet IP (aka Public IP) and vlan 1091 for IPTV (static IP assignment from TR069 profile i supposed)

2) When you connect this starfug connection to a switch, both my AX router and Nokia Beacon received a public IP but only my AX router is able to surf Internet.

Initially, I thought that without TR-069 (those auto-provisioning crap) , NAT is not enabled. Till i finally used the nokia GUI to ping the internet. Ping is not working.

3) When Nokia Becon doesn't have an internet connection, Channel 8 and U continue to work. Therefore, i confirm the idea of transporting VLAN 1091 to Nokia Becon will work.

4) To overcome the limitation on point 2 (i'm not interested to get 2 IP address from starfug anyway) . I issued a LAN IP from my main AX router to nokia Becon.

Finally, it works.


How to do it
1) Get a "managed" switch that supports VLAN tagging,

First create vlan 1091 and other VLAN such as VLAN 10 and VLAN 99 in my example.

2) By default, in most switch, VLAN 1 is untagged.
Starfug Internet - VLAN 10 (You can assign your favourite number). Usually, we avoid using VLAN 1 in the networking world
Starfug IPTV - VLAN 1091
Your LAN segment (ie: 192.168.99.x/24 - which is ) - VLAN99 (any number you like)


Port 1 (To Starhub ONT) - Set it to trunk mode. Ensure VLAN 10 packets are passed as untagged. VLAN 1091 are tagged

Port 2 (To your ATAS internet router/more technological advanced router ) - Set it to an access port, VLAN 10.
This will allow your ATAS router to get a Public IP from Starfug

Port 3 (To the silly Nokia Beacon) - Set it as trunk mode, passed VLAN99 is untagged and VLAN 1091 as tagged.

This will allow your Nokia Beacon to get a LAN IP from your Atas Router and make the Android Box happy. Able to visit Netflix , get IP streaming over Internet from Starfug and those "fiber only channels"

Only no idea how long it will last. Hopefully is forever.

 

[xiaofan]

@seowbin Wonderful finding. So Starhub is just reusing the same Starhub Fibre TV VLAN ID (1091) for MediaCorp FTA channels, right? You wrote 1096 in later parts of the post, is it a typo, or they changed to 1096?

In this case, which VLAN capable switch are you using? I tend to believe those cheaper smart switch like TP-Link TL-SG105E/SG-108E will work as well. Do you need to enable IGMP Snooping?

In the case of EA7500 v2 and EA8100 v1, Starhub/Linksys mentioned in the release notes that dual WAN was added. Looks like one WAN port is for Starhub Internet (no VLAN ID required) and another WAN port is for the MediaCorp FTA channels (VLAN ID 1091, no internet access required, looks like using Starhub internal network, just like previous Fibre TV connected to Starhub ONT Port 2). Normal contents for the Starhub TV box is still going through the internet access.

Other dual wan router may work as well. Maybe it is possible to use OpenWRT or pfSense as well, with or without an extra VLAN capable switch.

 

[seowbin]

you are right, 1091. Typo mistake.

I'm using a stoneage HP switch for this. Used to have my home network lab but nowadays must stuff i moved elsewhere. On this switch, IGMP snooping is not supported i think. Just googled.

Do note that the VLAN1091, IP address was static assignment therefore i have no idea if someone else will seized the same IP if the Nokia Beacon never report back for a long time. Best is let me run for a while, see got any problem or not.

 

[seowbin]

I done some wireshark, looks like not so simple to replace the nokia beacon with other routers.

Right now, other channels (like 855) are using multicast as well (over VLAN 1091) therefore it won't be using your regular internet bandwidth for those tv streaming. (Make sense)

The source IP from nokia is bearing a 10.110.32.x source IP while the vlan 1091 static ip i have is 169.159.X.X/8 subnet .

There are more tricks done behind this.

 

[xiaofan]

I done some wireshark, looks like not so simple to replace the nokia beacon with other routers.
Right now, other channels (like 855) are using multicast as well (over VLAN 1091) therefore it won't be using your regular internet bandwidth for those tv streaming. (Make sense)
The source IP from nokia is bearing a 10.110.32.x source IP while the vlan 1091 static ip i have is 169.159.X.X/8 subnet .
There are more tricks done behind this.

Quite similar to what SingTel issued routers are doing (eg: ONR, SingTel mesh router, SingTel AC Plus or SingTel AC Elite).

It is okay to use 3rd party for SingTel ONT users, but the 3rd party router only implement VLAN 10 (SingTel Fibre Internet) and 20 (SingTel Fibre TV) but not those need the mix of the two. For example, Netflix and Stingray Music on SingTel TV box. If you need those functions, then you need to stick to SingTel issued router. Luckily usually people can use other devices for Netflix and Stingray music.