[Guide] - Huawei EchoLife HG612 /Modem ONLY

Following on from the "Post your FTTC line stats & unlocking info" thread.

I have decided to create a guide post to assist with connecting to BT Infinity / BT Infinity 2 with just the Huawei EchoLife HG612 so this means you can connect another AP instead of using the BT HH3. The modem will get a direct connection (PPPoE connection) rather than having to go through the HH3.

Step 1) Unlock the modem using this thread "Post your FTTC line stats & unlocking info".

Step 2) Once your modem is unlocked and you can access the modem gui interface you then need to go to "Basic > WAN". This is where you need to modify the info.

Step 3) Disable "Service List > INTERNET (Connection Type, BRIDGE)".

Step 4) Disable "Service List > TR069_INTERNET (Connection Type, DHCP)".

Step 5) Create a new connection with the following settings. (Username: [email protected], Password: BT)

Step 6) Go to "Status > WAN" and you should see "connected" for "ptm1.101" - shown here.

Step 7) You can then enable DHCP "Basic > LAN" - shown here.

Then after this you can use it as a pure wired network OR add your own AP if you wish too. Remember to ensure your IP scheme is correct.

Interesting, but I can't really see why you'd want to do this. What's the advantage over having a connected device with a PPPoE connection?

bremen1874 said:

Interesting, but I can't really see why you'd want to do this. What's the advantage over having a connected device with a PPPoE connection?

Click to expand...

Some people may only want one device handling the connections. I havn't done any tests on throughput e.t.c so I can't tell you the full answer but for myself it removed a device, which didn't require to be plugged in.

Is this needed?

I've got BT Infinity for Business. It came with an OpenReach modem (can't remember the model) and some BT Business Hub. The second the two guys left I then unplugged the BT Business Hub, and just plugged the cable from the modem into my own load balancing gear.

My gear is making a PPPoE connection. WAN interface shows it's correctly got a 217.41.15.*** IP and is using 81.148.0.1 as gateway. The settings I used on my gear was to authenticate with the ***@hg52.btclick.com username and matching password. MTU is set to 1442. I've set my gear to use DHCP, and the IP it gets DHCP'd is the single static IP I purchased with BT Infinity for Business (IP never changes after resync).

I haven't unlocked the modem or done any settings on it at all. It just... worked.

So should what I have done not worked out of the box?

Westyfield2 said:

So should what I have done not worked out of the box?

Click to expand...

Yours is working as you'd expect.

If you unlock the modem to look at the connection information it becomes obvious that the BT supplied modem has additional capabilities. Mrbell1984's post shows a way in which some of these capabilities could possibly be used.

bremen1874 said:

Yours is working as you'd expect.

If you unlock the modem to look at the connection information it becomes obvious that the BT supplied modem has additional capabilities. Mrbell1984's post shows a way in which some of these capabilities could possibly be used.

Click to expand...

Oh right, ta.

Don't suppose if anyone else who has setup PPPoE like me knows whether the MTU can safely go higher than 1442?

My router has defaulted to 1442, but I'd have thought 1492 is correct? (1500bytes minus 8 bytes of PPPoE headers)

Another thing to note by default the HH3 is not unlocked. So far only version A can be unlocked not version B.

(One Example) By unlocking the Huawei EchoLife HG612 this opens endless posibilities and one of them is turning the DHCP server back on and what this helps is to modify the DNS settings to allow DHCP address to manage this as the HH3 can not be modified to allow DNS changes.

I was aiming this guide for home users and business users would be using more powerful equipment I would expect.

this may interest you concerning that VLAN 301

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/121613-report-accuses-bt-of-supplying-276975.html

An interesting read, but the last two paragraphs put things into useful context.

hedgey said:

this may interest you concerning that VLAN 301

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/121613-report-accuses-bt-of-supplying-276975.html

Click to expand...

That's an interesting read. Thanks for that.

Every exchange is probably being tapped by GCHQ. No need for them to do it at the modem level.

mrbell1984 said:

Following on from the "Post your FTTC line stats & unlocking info" thread.

I have decided to create a guide post to assist with connecting to BT Infinity / BT Infinity 2 with just the Huawei EchoLife HG612 so this means you can connect another AP instead of using the BT HH3. The modem will get a direct connection (PPPoE connection) rather than having to go through the HH3.

Step 1) Unlock the modem using this thread "Post your FTTC line stats & unlocking info".

Step 2) Once your modem is unlocked and you can access the modem gui interface you then need to go to "Basic > WAN". This is where you need to modify the info.

Step 3) Disable "Service List > INTERNET (Connection Type, BRIDGE)".

Step 4) Disable "Service List > TR069_INTERNET (Connection Type, DHCP)".

Step 5) Create a new connection with the following settings. (Username: [email protected], Password: BT)

Step 6) Go to "Status > WAN" and you should see "connected" for "ptm1.101" - shown here.

Step 7) You can then enable DHCP "Basic > LAN" - shown here.

Then after this you can use it as a pure wired network OR add your own AP if you wish too. Remember to ensure your IP scheme is correct.

Click to expand...

I tried this and then connected my netgear N900, yet I'm having difficulty getting the Netgear N900 WNDR4500 to establish an internet connection.


On the unlocked GUI HG612 I have:

PPPOE enabled connection.

Username = [email protected]

Password = BT

TR069 (BT agent) removed

On the Netgear I have given the router a IP address of 192.168.1.2 and DHCP starting from 192.168.1.3

This is because the HG612 has a default address of 192.168.1.1, which originally conflicts with the default address of the Netgear Router.

I have connected the WAN cable to the Internet port on the router and to the HG612's LAN 1, the second cable is going from the router to LAN 2, which I can access the HG612 GUI and the Router GUI at the same time.

However, when trying to setup a internet connection, the Netgear fails every time. I have tried the wizard and manual settings with and without the username and password in the Netgear GUI.

I'm I missing something to enable a connection? Really stuck at the moment and tried with what knowledge I have with networking as it's very basic.

The IP range of the router starts at:

192.168.1.3 - 192.168.1.254

What I want to do, is have the hg612 as a modem and have the netgear handle the rest. So basically do I have the hg612 bridged by default? as it is set to bridge by defaults and then enter the username and password on the netgear using the PPPOE option?

I was under the impression that PPPOE was enabled on the hg612, as that is what a few suggested but I'm new to all this, so bear with me.

I would have the LAN 1 of the modem going to the WAN port on the router, then use the PPPoE WAN option on the Netgear with your BT credentials.

mrbell1984 said:

Following on from the "Post your FTTC line stats & unlocking info" thread.

Click to expand...

Sorry to necro an old thread but you wouldn't happen to still have screenshots of the settings you used as the image links are dead. thanks

Used to do this with my BT connection, does anyone know if this works with Sky using MER?

cp88 said:

Used to do this with my BT connection, does anyone know if this works with Sky using MER?

Click to expand...

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-...e-openreach-modem-sky-fibre-router-guide.html