working Singtel Vlan Settings with TPLink SG108E

[xiaofan]

May i know why you say that "it will not be a surprise to me that AX9000 FW support for VLAN is not stable"? VLAN tagging is as old as the hills.

You will be surprised that Google does not know how to do it and latest Google Nest Wifi mesh still does not support VLAN.

Many Linksys Velop mesh compatible routers also do not support SingTel VLAN but their new E series routers (not compatible with Velop) do support Singtel VLAN.

And pretty recent Ubiquiti UDM (high end prosumer router) is also struggling with SingTel VLAN.

TP-Link should be better though as their other routers support SingTel VLAN well.

 

[Fabulous50]

You will be surprised that Google does not know how to do it and latest Google Nest Wifi mesh still does not support VLAN.

Many Link Velop mesh compatible routers also do not support SingTel VLAN but their new E series routers (not compatible with Velop) do support Singtel VLAN.

And pretty recent Ubiquiti UDM (high end prosumer router) is also struggling with SingTel VLAN.

TP-Link should be better though as their other routers support SingTel VLAN well.

hmm.... nice to know. VLAN tagging is a standard feature on business networking since "forever".

I think that ISPs should publish their configuration specs publicly. Otherwise, this is a kind of restraint of trade (scaring consumers into buying their routers from the ISP themselves). The first thing out of the mouth of the Singtel support is "Is your router supported by us?". Even "better", the support person only knows how to press a button to check ONT or say "please go to your router manufacturer". The support person did not know what a VLAN was even, or DHCP, or DNS (in other words, they are not trained in router configuration).

Do you know how M1 and Starhub manage this issue? Would the virtual network operators be better?

 

[xiaofan]

hmm.... nice to know. VLAN tagging is a standard feature on business networking since "forever".
I think that ISPs should publish their configuration specs publicly. Otherwise, this is a kind of restraint of trade (scaring consumers into buying their routers from the ISP themselves). The first thing out of the mouth of the Singtel support is "Is your router supported by us?". Even "better", the support person only knows how to press a button to check ONT or say "please go to your router manufacturer". The support person did not know what a VLAN was even, or DHCP, or DNS (in other words, they are not trained in router configuration).
Do you know how M1 and Starhub manage this issue? Would the virtual network operators be better?

Starhub and M1 Fibre Internet do not need VLAN. Same for Viewquest, MyRepublic and Whizcomms. So technically you can use any router with them.

Now Starhub is a bit tricky if you have Starhub TV+ box. If you want to have local FTA channels on the TV+ box, then you have to use the supported router like EA7500 V2 and EA8100 or the lousy Nokia Beacon 1 mesh. I do not know the technical reasons though and so far no one has reverse engineering the working mechanism.

 

[Fabulous50]

You should not set VOIP VLAN (unused long ago, now VOIP is through ONT or ONR) and IPTV VLAN (as you do not have Singtel TV). Try to leave them empty. Or set them as 0 to see if that helps.

My issues lasted about 2 days, then disappeared. I think something not right in their infrastructure and they quietly fixed it (or it fixed itself). The support guy took my number when I insisted on a second line support (didn't even recognize the term btw haha) and never got a call back.

Singtel service sucks big time.

 

[etegration]

what magic is this! tell us more leh!

- sorry didnt quote the reply. was asking on the more than 1 WAN ip on singtel fiber. how to achieve this?

 

[letmeout]

I seemed to have encountered an ip lock on my Singtel fibre. I changed DNS on TP Link router and encountered 'WAN unplugged' error for one day. Does this mean we are not allowed to change DNS on Singtel fibre connection?

 

[xiaofan]

I seemed to have encountered an ip lock on my Singtel fibre. I changed DNS on TP Link router and encountered 'WAN unplugged' error for one day. Does this mean we are not allowed to change DNS on Singtel fibre connection?

For SingTel ONT users, you are okay to change the DNS. Same for users with bridged ONR -- you can change the DNS with your own router connected to the bridged port (including those on SingTel 1+1 plan where Port 4 is bridged).

Does the error message of "WAN unplugged" result in loss of internet connection or not? If not maybe it is not a real issue.

Recently I am seeing this issue from time to time on my Asus RT-AX82U. Previously if I encountered this issue it was because of my Pi-hole DNS was down (I am using Pi-hole hosted on Google Cloud, with 1.1.1.3 as a backup).

Now even if I use 1.1.1.3, or even SingTel DNS, I still see this error message. I believe it was related to the Asus FW Network Detection features (using DNS Query and/or ping, to make sure ntp time update is proper, or for dual WAN users ). However, the internet access is not affected.

Another thing is that my IP address becomes very dynamic recently. Previously it was very stable and it would not change for several months and no change after reboot. Now I almost always got a new IP address after reboot.

 

[xiaofan]

I seemed to have encountered an ip lock on my Singtel fibre. I changed DNS on TP Link router and encountered 'WAN unplugged' error for one day. Does this mean we are not allowed to change DNS on Singtel fibre connection?

For IP lock, if I understand what miloaisdino mentioned before, usually it means you changed router three times or more (result in getting 4 IP addresses including the original IP addresses). That would cause you to lose internet for one day.

1) Router A to B should be okay (tested)
2) Router A to B to A should be okay (tested).
3) Router A to B back to A then to B might be locked (not tested and you may not want to test this)
4) Router A to B to C should be okay (not tested)
5) Router A to B to C back to A may get locked (not tested)

 

[letmeout]

For IP lock, if I understand what miloaisdino mentioned before, usually it means you changed router three times or more (result in getting 4 IP addresses including the original IP addresses). That would cause you to lose internet for one day.

1) Router A to B should be okay (tested)
2) Router A to B to A should be okay (tested).
3) Router A to B back to A then to B might be locked (not tested and you may not want to test this)
4) Router A to B to C should be okay (not tested)
5) Router A to B to C back to A may get locked (not tested)

Yes "WAN unplugged" occur together with internet loss. Can restore internet by swapping to SingTel-issued router. The only change was changing to AdGuard DNS on TP Link router 2 days before IP lock happened. So can rule out "multiple IP glitch"?

 

[xiaofan]

Yes "WAN unplugged" occur together with internet loss. Can restore internet by swapping to SingTel-issued router. The only change was changing to AdGuard DNS on TP Link router 2 days before IP lock happened. So can rule out "multiple IP glitch"?

I see. So yes this is not because of multiple IP glitch or IP lock.

But you may have to have another backup DNS server if you use Adguard DNS as it is a bit slow and may time out. For example, you may want to use 1.1.1.3 or 9.9.9.9 as the backup.

I use 1.1.1.3 as the backup for my Pi-hole DNS server hosted on Google cloud.

 

[letmeout]

I see. So yes this is not because of multiple IP glitch or IP lock.

But you may have to have another backup DNS server if you use Adguard DNS as it is a bit slow and may time out. For example, you may want to use 1.1.1.3 or 9.9.9.9 as the backup.

I use 1.1.1.3 as the backup for my Pi-hole DNS server hosted on Google cloud.

Thanks. No wonder I find AdGuard slow too.

 

[Fabulous50]

I'm back to this thread again! My Archer6000 (TP-Link) router rebooted the other day and promptly lost the WAN connection for 2 days before the Nth repeated reboot succeeded. So basically, my problem never went away, but is intermittent on a reboot.

The issue seems to be that the router is not acquiring the IP address. When I connected my old Asus router, it does connect 100% of the time, though it seems to be retrying the DHCP a number of times before it succeeds (one time it took 3 minutes to acquire the IP address). A recent update of the TP-Link software has a Singapore-Singtel config, so I'm using it. The system logs of the TP-Link are useless and are not helpful at all.

Both Singtel and TP-Link support both suck big time. Both of them blame the other party. Singtel claims that its second line support cannot do anything to troubleshoot (this after I pressed them hard to refer to 2nd line). TP-link is even worse - they made me repeat the symptoms multiple times in email, then finally said there's nothing they can do - without offering any suggestions.

I was on a Mio/Broadband contract before, but now "upgraded" on a unlimited broadband. My old asus connected fine in the prior set up and also in the existing set up - it has the "Singtel-Others" and "Singtel-Mio" VLAN configs (I use the "SingTel-Others").

Can anyone help? Nowadays internet is like water and electricity - it is very very annoying. So annoying, I might buy an asus router or fallback on my old one. Anyone want to buy a slightly used TP-Link WiFi6 router ?


PS. Singtel support was slightly more helpful. At least they offer to change me to a bridged ONR and I fix the IP address. But they want to charge 100+ !!

 

[xiaofan]

Just ditch the TP-Link and get the Asus. I am pretty happy with my RT-AX82U which works mostly flawlessly with the ONT and SingTel TV box with VLAN profile.

If you want a even better one, get Asus RT-AX86U. Check out Courts offer from time to time at around S$320. It is one of the best consumer AX router out there.

 

[Fabulous50]

Just ditch the TP-Link and get the Asus. I am pretty happy with my RT-AX82U which works mostly flawlessly with the ONT and SingTel TV box with VLAN profile.

If you want a even better one, get Asus RT-AX86U. Check out Courts offer from time to time at around S$320. It is one of the best consumer AX router out there.

Sigh.... i might do that. Wanted to exhaust my options first. I've actually owned 2 generations of asus routers and they work well. Don't know what made me switch to tp-link...

 

[Fabulous50]

Sigh.... i might do that. Wanted to exhaust my options first. I've actually owned 2 generations of asus routers and they work well. Don't know what made me switch to tp-link...

TP link actually emailed me and are willing to help me troubleshoot remotely if I can get the router to disconnect again. It might not help, but at least they show willing. So I take back what I said about their service sucks.


Will report later if there's news.

 

[xiaofan]

Lots of good info here if you want to see further discussions.
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/...properly-singtel-asus-rt-ax86u.6564040/page-3

Summary Post. Thanks for everyone helping me out with my setup.

Here's what I learned:
1. 802.1Q VLAN tagging allows traffic of multiple VLANs egress out of respective member ports. For eg. if a port is a member of VLAN 10 and VLAN 20, traffic on both VLANs will go through that port.
2. A port can be a member of a port by being marked as tagged or untagged for that VLAN.
3. Tagging a port for a VLAN is the common way of having the port be the member for that specific VLAN
4. A port can also be marked as untagged. Untagged member ports have the tag information for traffic egressing out of the port removed. This is usually for Tag-unaware devices like printers.
5. PVID is to provide tagging information for ingress traffic that do not already have tagging information. For eg, printers (being tag-unwaware devices) will not put tagging information for traffic egressing out of the printer. The port on the switch hence receives traffic without tagging information. The switch then assisgns the PVID as tagging information to traffic ingressing into that port.

With that basic networking knowledge, I gathered from the various gurus here that:
Singtel Router requires VLAN 10 traffic.
Singtel Mio TV STB required untagged VLAN 20 traffic
Asus routers required untagged VLAN 10 traffic.

Hence I have configured my network as such:
Singtel ONT -> TL-SG105E Port 1
TL-SG105E Port 2 -> Asus XT8 Router WAN Port
TL-SG105E Port 3 -> Singtel AC Elite Router
TL-SG105E Port 4 -> Singtel MIO TV STB
TL-SG105E Port 5 -> Asus XT8 Router LAN Port (to access the switch's management UI)

Here are some configs that have been set as well. Including them as I'm unsure if they contribute to having things work for me.






Im not sure how long Imgur will host the photos for, but I can't upload photos normally cause of my new account. The Shifus here may want to repost this summary (if the knowledge sharing was accurate) so that the photos last longer.