Billion UK Forum

hi all.


This is my first post in this forum so hello! I'm a new owner of a Billion 7800n router which i bought to beef up my home network as my current Sky router (Sagem F@st) was so not doing the job!! Anyway, since setting this up through the EWAN (with guidance!) i'm happy to say I have no problems anymore with coverage, signal strength or any lag. Perfect router. However.. i'm encountering some issues that i never had with the sky setup which I would like to address with some help. Firstly let me quickly explain what i have using my WiFi network:

Apple Mac Server (media host)
2 x Macbook Pros
2 x iPhone 4's
2 x iPod touch
1 x iPad 2
1 x Apple TV
1 x Airport Express
1 x B&W Zeppelin speakers
xbox
Wireless Printer (Lexmark)

All of the hardware use the server as the media centre and playing music/movies in several places at once is no problem. HOwever, my problems are coming from the Airplay B&W speakers and the Apple TV.

Before my new Billion router ('Before Billion' BB) was installed, i had set up most items with static IP addresses which all worked out fine. If i wanted to play some music on my B&W speakers, i could look on my phone and see the Airport sign there and the speaker unit was always available regardless of time or state. It felt like it was always connected to the sky router. My Apple TV was the same. Whenever i turned it on, it always connected to the Wifi straight away with no manual intervention.

Since installing my new Billion router ('After Billion' AB) these 2 items are becoming really high maintenance. To use my speakers i now have to set the unit into standby, then turn on otherwise it won't connect with the network. Once i have done this, i can find the speakers on the network for most of the day. If i don't use them for a period of time (for example overnight), when i come to use them in the morning i have to go through the same process again. This never happened with the sky router.

This is also the same principle for Apple TV. I have to reset the Unit and add Wifi details again before it connects to the Apple store. Once i've done this its ok for a period of time, but leave it without activity and i have to go through the same reset process.

I don't know enough about router settings but with the reading and research i've done to try and solve this problem, I thought a static IP would work - it hasn't. I've tried assigning a static ARP to a static IP - This hasn't worked either. I don't know enough about firewalls but something tells me it couldn't be a firewall issue could it?

Basically i want my speakers and Apple TV unit to behave like it did when connected to the Sagem Sky router. I don't want to keep repeating a 'special move' on a piece of kit to make it work as it's supposed to. I'm all for education to solve myself but i have no idea where to start!!!

Many thanks in advance and any advice/help/suggestions/instructions would be greatly received!


Cheers

What are the lease times showing as for those devices in the router's DHCP Table ?

The default lease on my 7800N is 24hrs and while that will expire, the devices should be able to renew that lease as soon as they're switched on and are in range. One of my sons who has a 3G only has to come into range of my router for it to appear in the DHCP Table.

This may seem an obvious question, but after entering the devices' details, did you remember to Save Config as not doing so would result in having to re-enter the details each time the router was switched off/on, as they would be lost.

Next time after you have set them up again and saved the config and if it continues to occur, then a workaround to this would be to backup that config so you would be able to restore en-block the devices' settings, rather than having to re-enter them individually each time.

Perhaps billion_fan may know of a fix for this when he sees your thread, or you could raise a ticket with Billion techs via http://www.billion.uk.com/esupport

Hello Tomken.

Thanks for your reply.

Everything is appearing in the DCHP table and i extended to lease to 1000 hours! I also assigned static IPs as i thought it would avoid the lease time issues.

I have saved the changes and even restarted the router after each to ensure its taken, but still no use.

da_vide78 wrote:Hello Tomken.

Thanks for your reply.

Everything is appearing in the DCHP table and i extended to lease to 1000 hours! I also assigned static IPs as i thought it would avoid the lease time issues.

I have saved the changes and even restarted the router after each to ensure its taken, but still no use.

Unless the router needs to auto restart for a given change to take effect, then there's no need to reboot the router when making any other changes that do not require this.

The lease would only expire for a device if the device was switched off and not used again within that time frame, but should renew again as soon as it was switched on and/or was in range of the router.

I was just wondering if the speakers and tv need port forwarding for them to auto pick up, but as I've never had to do anything like that, then I couldn't help you with the procedure. However, I think there may be a tutorial on the Billion Knowledge Base via the esupport link regarding this, as in my first post.

Hi da_vide78

Have you tired firmware version 1.06g, this firmware has a wireless driver improvement.

More info here

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=356

If that doesn't work have you tried changing the channel width from 20/40mhz to 20mhz??

Another suggestion changing the beacon interval etc ..............


You can set these on the Billion 7800N using Terminal as follows:

1. Open command prompt.
2. Type 'telnet 192.168.1.254'
3. Enter your username and password set to the 7800N
4. Type 'iwpriv ra0 set BeaconPeriod=75'
5. Type 'iwpriv ra0 set RTS threshold=2307'
6. Type 'iwpriv ra0 set FragThreshold=2304'
7. Type 'save'
8. Type 'Logout'

I found out enabling multicast under wireless setting (advance > configuration>LAN> wireless) make it difficult for some devices to connect properly to 7800N wifi. I suggest you disable it and see what happens

I've disabled that setting and my iPad , 2 iPhone 3GSs & the kids iPhone 4Ss will connect just fine.

Initially I found advise that suggested multicast forwarding was necessary to get good 'N' speeds with apple devices but I found that not to be true for my configuration.