Obi compatible with BT Home Hub?

[Midshires]

It appears that devices such as the Obi100 and 110 will not work when connected to the BT Home Hub 4  or 5, at least not with the out-of-the-box settings.

So I'd like to ask, has anyone got this combination working and what did you have to achieve this?

I see a reviewer on Amazon UK says "I am so pleased [with the Obi110]  I have just bought another for a friend of mine which I had running in less than two hours despite having to negotiate her BT HomeHub 3 which are notoriously cantankerous when you are trying to get through the firewall."

Amazon doesn't allow you to contact reviewers, so I cannot get in touch with him to find out how. 

Hoping someone can help. Thanks, Andy E.

[ianobi]

Hi Andy,

The good news is that any OBi can work with BT Home Hub. I had two OBi110s working behind a BT Home Hub 4 for several months with no problems. The bad news is that I got so annoyed with the Home Hub not allowing me to do certain things, that it's now back in its box and I'm back to an old Draytek router. This means I cannot quote you exact settings, but the problem to overcome relates to "Port Forwarding". Here's a rough guide:

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/43715/~/how-to-set-up-game-and-application-sharing%2Fport-forwarding-facilities-on-the-bt

British Telecom make things way over complicated making you invent the OBi as a new user application before you can set up the correct ports to forward. As a test to make sure that port forwarding is the problem, put your OBi into the Home Hub's "DMZ" (via "advanced settings"). This effectively opens all ports from the internet into your OBi. If that works then take it out of DMZ and port forward as required.

For one standard OBi100/110 Obihai recommend these ports be forwarded:

TCP Ports: 6800, 5222, 5223
UDP Ports: 5060 to 5061, 10000 to 11000, 16600 to 16998, 19305

There's a lot more to be said about ports, but that can wait until you get one OBi working satisfactorily.

[ianobi]

An OBi setting worth changing is:

Change the Ethernet port on the OBi from 10 mb/s half-duplex to 100 mb/s full duplex:

1. Dial *** 0

2. Enter option 27 and press #

3. Press 1 to set a new value

4. Enter a value of 1 and press #

5. Press 1 to confirm/save

6. Hang up

7. Wait for the OBi to reboot

[Midshires]

Ianobi, not without reason are you classed a Hero Member!

Thanks very much for these suggestions. I shall carry them out now...

Andy.

[Midshires]

Ianobi,

I have followed your  instructions --- and yes, I now have two OBi100 boxes working properly, first in the DMZ and now outside the DMZ, having set up port forwarding as you directed.

Phew! It's a good feeling to be operational again. Thank you very much indeed. Really.

You said "There's a lot more to be said about ports, but that can wait until you get one OBi working satisfactorily." Well,  I'm all ears!

One more question please. As you know, the BT Home Hub has just four device outlets for plugging in devices. I have an Internet radio plugged into the third port and a Vonage terminal adapter in the fourth. So they are all in use now. But if I wished to add another OBi100 or two, can I plug a 5-Port Fast Ethernet Switch into one of the four device outlets and get the extra capacity?

Thanks for your generosity and patience dealing with my questions.

Andy.

[ianobi]

But if I wished to add another OBi100 or two, can I plug a 5-Port Fast Ethernet Switch into one of the four device outlets and get the extra capacity?

I have never tried that, so others may wish to comment. I suspect we are back to the issues of ports. At default, both your OBi100s are using the same ports, e.g. 5060 as the SIP listening port for sp1 and 5061 as the SIP listening port for sp2 (OBi calls them UserAgentPorts). Any decent router including your Home Hub should sort this out as the two OBi devices are on different private ip addresses. However, I prefer not to leave this to chance. I would change the UserAgentPorts to ports well away from the defaults, something like 34000 and 34001 for UserAgentPorts for OBI1 and 34002 and 34003 for OBi2. This helps to avoid sip scanners who target the usual port numbers. Also, I would change the RTP port ranges increasing the OBi2 ports by 400 to clear them of the OBi1 RTP ranges. These changes would need to be reflected in your port forwarding.

One number you can't change is the OBiTALK listening port, which has to 10000. For this reason, if you wish to try the Ethernet switch solution, I suggest plugging it into one of the Hub outlets that does not have an existing OBi connected.

A lot of this depends on what you are using your OBi devices for. Each OBi100 can support two registered voip providers and up to eight that do not require registration (i.e. outgoing calls only). An OBi200/OBi202 supports four registered voip providers and eight unregistered. However, each only supports one OBiTALK network connection, if that's important to you. If you share your aims, then users here may be able to suggest good configs for you with less OBi devices.

[ianobi]

I just read your past posts and can see why you use OBi100s. If you are only using the OBiTALK network, then most of my last post does not apply to you. I would still recommend the Ethernet switch plugs into a Hub outlet with no existing OBi on it.

With port forwarding, if you only use the OBiTALK network, then you may only need:

TCP Ports: 6800, 5222, 5223
UDP Ports: 10000 to 11000, 19305

[Midshires]

Thanks!

Yes, I use only OBi100 devices, currently as a means of exercising or demonstrating vintage telephones to friends. I expect to have up to four OBi100s connected to this private telephone network but only two will be in use (speaking) at any given time. 

On that basis, the existing set-up should suffice (I hope!).

Once again, thanks for your kind assistance. I am learning fast...

Andy.