UPC TV, Broadband and Phone bundles, what is the physical setup ?

Usjes

Hi,

I currently have TV only with UPC and am considering getting a bundle. There seem to be lots on complaints about the UPC WiFi quality/range though so I am wondering what is the actual physical setup, can I just use my own existing wireless router by connecting it to an ethernet port on the back of the new UPC box via some cat5 cable? Also, how is the phone setup managed, do I have to run phone cables from the new UPC box to my handsets or does my phone continue to come in over my existing landline and its just the billing that goes to UPC from now on ?

Thanks,

Usjes.

icdg

Nowadays it'll be a Horizon box you'll be getting so you get your router built in. The phone is connected into the back, it doesn't use the Eircom landline.

As far as using your existing router it would be as a router only, not a modem. However AFAIK it doesn't work properly with Horizon - I'll let others explain what the issues are as I'm not really au fait with that aspect.

coylemj

Usjes wrote: »

There seem to be lots on complaints about the UPC WiFi quality/range ....

I've had the Horizon box since early in the rollout and have no complaints whatsoever about the Wi-Fi quality or range. The s/w was complete sh1te at first but they've fixed a lot of the complaints we had about it recently.

It's all in one box and all of the services are delivered by the UPC cable coming into your house. There's four Ethernet (network) ports and two telephone ports around the back, the box is made by Samsung. The phone service is over IP so you'll drop your existing landline, UPC will take care of moving the number over if you want to hang on to it.

You'll only use one of the phone ports unless you pay for two lines, typically you'll plug a cordless base unit into it but any analogue phone handset with tone dial will work. Some of the UPC call agents talk about needing a 'digital phone', this is nonsense, it's an analogue line. From the cordless handset to the cordless base unit is typically digital (DECT) but the line is analogue so any handset currently working on an Eircom landline will work.

Usjes

coylemj wrote: »

I've had the Horizon box since early in the rollout and have no complaints whatsoever about the Wi-Fi quality or range.

This will depend on the type of house you're in though. For me its a big very old house with walls which are 16 inches of solid granite. The furthest point from the incoming UPC wire would be about 45 feet horizontally and 1 floor up. Do UPC give any guarantees or indeed even estimates of the sort of range their WiFi will work over ? Can it create a wireless network that will support all the devices on my current wireless network (printer, desktop, internet radio, mobile phones of random visitors) ? Do UPC provide technical specs for what the horizon box is capable of ?

coylemj

This may be of interest .......

These days with smart phones, tablets, laptops and more the demand for fast Wi-Fi has never been greater. But with so many factors in the average home affecting the Wi-Fi signal strength, it’s not uncommon for the signal to be lower in some areas of the home, particularly upstairs and in attic conversions. A simple way to maximise your Wi-Fi signal throughout the home is to use a wireless powerline adapter.

http://www.upc.ie/bundles/discover-our-services/discover-broadband/wireless-extenders/

Usjes

coylemj wrote: »

This may be of interest .......

These days with smart phones, tablets, laptops and more the demand for fast Wi-Fi has never been greater. But with so many factors in the average home affecting the Wi-Fi signal strength, it’s not uncommon for the signal to be lower in some areas of the home, particularly upstairs and in attic conversions. A simple way to maximise your Wi-Fi signal throughout the home is to use a wireless powerline adapter.

http://www.upc.ie/bundles/discover-our-services/discover-broadband/wireless-extenders/

Indeed, but I already have a wireless router which covers the house adequately but previous posters (icdg above) indicate that it wont work if I simply attach it to an ethernet port at the back of the horizon box. So why are UPC allowing one piece of networking equipment (the powerline adaptor) but not a wireless router ? This all seems very odd, I would expect them to provide a just 'dumb' internet feed to which I could attach any networking gear. My existing broadband for instance is from vodafone and was supplied originally with an old Eircom modem/wired router. I bought a wireless router when I bought a laptop and then simply attached the wireless router to the eircom modem via an ethernet port. Its not clear why the horizon box shouldn't permit a similar setup.

who_me

All I had to do was plug the WAN port of my Wifi router into one of the LAN ports on the Horizon, ensure DHCP is enabled and it worked. There are some potential gotchas.

- If you use one of the Horizon apps to control the TV, you have to be on the same network as the set-top box. So that device (your phone, tablet etc.) has to be on the Horizon Wifi rather that your router's network.
- If you have some devices connected to the Horizon box and other to your router, you might have issues with them connecting to each other.
- The Horizon Wifi can't be turned off. It seems to re-enable periodically. I don't know if that's a bug or a deliberate move because of the Horizon Wi-Free service.

Personally, I just plugged all wired devices into my router and connect to that via all Wifi devices and it works great. Bridging may solve the first two issues above, but I'm not bothered about the app and all my devices are on the one router so that's ok.

Usjes

who_me wrote: »

Personally, I just plugged all wired devices into my router and connect to that via all Wifi devices and it works great. Bridging may solve the first two issues above, but I'm not bothered about the app and all my devices are on the one router so that's ok.

And why did you decide not to just use the built-in WiFi on the horizon box. Were you having range/quality problems?

Personally I dont have any particular reason for wanting to use my own gear but past experience has shown me that UPC gear tends to be buggy and crap so I dont want to find myself locked into a 12 month contract with a wireless LAN that simply doesn't work reliably and no other options.

who_me

Usjes wrote: »

And why did you decide not to just use the built-in WiFi on the horizon box. Were you having range/quality problems?

Personally I dont have any particular reason for wanting to use my own gear but past experience has shown me that UPC gear tends to be buggy and crap so I dont want to find myself locked into a 12 month contract with a wireless LAN that simply doesn't work reliably and no other options.

I had coverage everywhere, but admittedly not a full signal (and mine is a small apartment), so while I had a signal everywhere, it may have impacted performance.

The reasons I switched:

- Horizon box has no external antennae, mine has 3 (better for coverage, necessary for MIMO, see below)
- Horizon box doesn't support 5GHz yet (2.4GHz is very cluttered, the 5GHz almost unused; and allows use of wide channels for doubling bandwidth).
- Horizon box doesn't support MIMO (more speed gains)

On the Horizon I might get 40-60Mbps on wireless, with a good N router I get up to 85Mbps on iPad and 150Mbps on iMac. If you have 100Mbps+ broadband, it makes sense to have Wifi that at least matches that.

pizzahead77

You can also arrange for UPC to disable the modem in the Horizon box and use one of their cable routers which may or may not be able to be bridged.

There's plenty of info on this over on the Broadband forum - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=259

Luck100

I've had Horizon internet/tv/phone for a bit over a month now. In response to your questions:

You can definitely connect your own wifi router to the Horizon box and have both running wifi at the same time. I tried it with a rather old wifi N router I had and it worked - I could see both routers from my PC, connect to either, and both worked. It took a bit of configuration with my router (had to disable DHCP and assign it a fix IP). Turns out the Horizon box works better than my old router.

It's hard to predict what signal strength and range will be - you just have to try it. It also depends on the quality of the wifi receiver in your client device - my PC in the attic gets a full strength signal from the horizon box, but in the same room my smartphone can barely function.

mfceiling

pizzahead77 wrote: »

You can also arrange for UPC to disable the modem in the Horizon box and use one of their cable routers which may or may not be able to be bridged.

There's plenty of info on this over on the Broadband forum - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=259

I would do this. We have Horizon and the wifi range on it is useless. If the box can't "see" the laptop then you've basically had it. We can barely get coverage outside our living room - less than 20 ft from this "magic, one box does everything"