VIP5: TM Unifi HSBB Installation and performance

TM's Unifi High Speed Broadband (HSBB) began its availability in my area (Taman Bukit Serdang, Seri Kembangan) since early January 2011. I have noticed the TM contractors laying out the fibre optics cables in the area about a month prior its availability. TM Unifi initial launch started off with waiving the RM200 installation fee until a few months after that, they took off the promotion and started charging new customers the RM200 installation fee (additional RM40 spread over 5 months bill). Not only until recently they resumed the promotion until 31/03/2011. On top of that, people who register online will enjoy one month free subscribtion. For more information, you can go to www.unifi.my

You could say that I have tried almost all mobile broadband services available in Malaysia and I can conclude that almost all are below my expectation. So before the promotion ends, I registered for the Unifi service online on 7/02/2011. The online registration is very much straight forward. If you've had an account with TM before, they will have your records to speed up the process. You will have three package options; VIP5, VIP10 or VIP10 with the monthly charge of RM149, RM199 and RM249 respectively.

All packages include the HyppTv service, broadband service and a fixed line telephone. You will also get to select your preference for the fixed line telephone number, giving the last 3-4 digits of the phone number of preference and it will generate the available suggestions. Lastly, you will need to select the appointment date where the TM unifi installer will come over to your house and install the service. The appointment dates options are auto-generated according to available slots. At first, it listed dates in middle march 2011, I refreshed the page and it shows earlier dates in end of February.

So I selected on the latest date available which is on the 24/02/2011. I'm not sure why this happens, but if you you're lucky, you can get earlier dates to get your TM Unifi installed. In my case, I was able to get my Unifi roughly within two weeks from the date of registration. I thought that was pretty impressive!

Just a few days before installation, a TM representative called me to confirm the appointment time and date. They also advice me to prepare a 4-point power socket extension to power up all their equipments. So on the day they came in with these four equipments to set up.

Clockwise from top left: D-Link DIR-615 Wireless N Router (Residential Gateway), TM IPTV Set-Top Box IPtv (Hypp TV STB), Motorola DECT phone, Huawei HG655a VDSL2 modem. So make sure you know where you want to place these equipments and take consideration of where the wires are going to be as well. Note that my residence is a high rise building hence the use of the VDSL2 modem. The fibre optic cable only goes up to the server room at base of the apartment and the service is distributed via the normal copper phone line to every apartment units. Where as for landed property, the fibre optic cable will go directly onto the Optical Network Unit (ONU) replacing the VDSL2 modem. The equipment and cable setup will look pretty much like below.

Depending on your residence, and how you want to set up these equipments. It is a good idea to plan where they are going to be placed and how you are going to lay the cables. Otherwise it can be quite messy. For high rise units, you might want to consider the location of your telephone point and your TV. If it's not close to each other, you might want to prepare an extension for the telephone line (Point 1 - Point 2). The ones that came with the modem are only 1.5m long. Even though it stated there for standard (no charge) wiring consist of 15m of each fibre/ethernet/phone cable, the TM Unifi installer did not provide a longer telephone cable. I end up buying myself a 5m extension telephone cable for merely RM4.00. No biggie. But if I want to make a fuss, I could... since its all there in B&W. Installation was all up and running within one hour. Thanks bro TM.

So lets look at the equipment one by one.

1. HUAWEI HG655a VDSL2 Modem

HUAWEI HG655a VDSL2 Modem - Front View

HUAWEI HG655a VDSL2 Modem - Rear View

From left:

• DSL: Telephone line coming from the wall socket to the DSL port of the modem
• PHONE 1: DECT cordless phone hooks up to this port
• PHONE 2: For a second phone
• LAN1: Connects to the Wireless-N Router (Residential Gateway)
• LAN2-LAN4: I was informed that these ports do not work. (untested tho)
• RESET, ON/OFF, POWER. (Self explained)

The modem generate quite a bit of heat while in operation, so I think it's best to place it in a well ventilated area to reduce the heat stress on the electronics.

2. D-Link DIR-615 Wireless-N Router (Residential Gateway)  and 3. Motorola C601A DECT Phone

Phone and Router (Front View)

The telephone that came with this looks simple and sleek. I kind of like it. The Router in the other hand are in the TM colour theme (white+orange). I would have preferred if it was black so it would go together with the modem and the phone. Now out of the sudden I have something that looks like a child's toy with blinking lights and two antennas. So I have that ugly thing nicely tucked behind the TV out of everyone's view. It also has a USB port in front for USB printers and storage sharing.

Router (Rear View)

So looking at the ports from behind. From left, we have the red Ethernet cable which is the Ethernet cable going to the IPtv STB unit. Then it has 3 ports to distribute the internet via Ethernet cables (4 x 1.5m cables provided in the box). One port at the far left is the WAN Ethernet cable coming from the VDSL2 modem that provide the main connection to the internet.

So depending on where your computer is, you have the option of connecting it via ethernet cable to these 3 available ports or you can just connect it wirelessly.

4. IPTV Set-Top-Box (STB)

STB (Front View)

STB Remote Control

Above is the STB or similar to the ASTRO decoder to provide the IPtv service named HyppTV that comes together with the Unifi service. IMO the device has this typical cheap-china made built quality as compared to the Astro decoder. Same goes the remote control that looks like those DVD players you buy from Tesco for RM99, but we will see how this STB performs later. I found out later that it is actually made by HUAWEI as indicated at the bottom of the unit.

The rear of the STB includes the Ethernet Port (Red Cable) which is connected from the Router that connects it to the internet for the TV service. It is recommended that you connect the STB to your HDTV via the HDMI cable provided. For older tv's that do not have HDMI ports have the option to connect via the RGB/V (Video) and L/R (sound) cables (also provided), but you will loose out on the picture quality if the channel are in high definition.

Now, lets look that the performance of the internet speed. Am I really getting for what I am paying for?

Below are several tests from speedtest.net

Download speed is fairly consistent within the range of 4.5 - 5.0 Megabits per second as per package subscribed of 5Mb/s. While upload speed can reached more than 5Mb/s. Most users are downloading more than uploading, so I guess TM are not so concerned on capping the upload speed. For download speed, it is very much regulated to what I am subscribed to.

I also tried downloading a file from a website and received pretty much the same result below. Transfer rate was at around 650 kB/s which rounds up to 5200 kb/s. Note that 1 byte(B)=8 bits(b).

So you can imagine how snappy it is when surfing website even with heavy flash and graphics as compared to my previous mobile broadband service. Youtube viewing is also streaming seamlessly even when viewed at 1080p high definition without pauses for buffering/loading. Awesome!

Now lets see what the IPtv service has to offer!

Don't expect too much from the channels available, as of now there are only 14 free channels provided with the package. See them below.

All these free channels are broadcast in standard definition except LUXE.TV channel which is in HD. You also have the option of subscribing to additional premium channels for an additional charge billed on to your account.

On top of the premium channels, there are also Video On Demand (VOD) Channels where you can individually subscribe to content to your liking. This is the first of its kind service available in Malaysia and I find it very convenient to be able to watch anything whenever you want to (with a price, of course).

Choices of content in the VOD are a lot to choose from but still quite limited, TM should look into putting in more content in the VOD section and revise the price and package to attract more viewers. Also, perhaps the VOD movies should be in HD adding more value to it. As for me, I think I would skip it for now.. after all, we have the high speed internet for that :)

This is how the mosaic channel (CH100) looks like on the TV. I think the User Interface is pretty neat and cool as opposed to the STB unit. It not as dodgy as expected. From there you can scroll to the channels available.

Below is the sample of LUXE.TV HD channel and the info tab on screen. Pretty nice I'd say.

One thing about HyppTv, when there is a thunderstorm, service still continues! :) but I do notice sometimes (with or without rain), there are sudden image pixel distortion for a split second. It is still bearable though, nothing major. If it gets worse then I will give TM a call.

Overall, I can say that internet speed is up to what is promised and I am satisfied. I would go for the 20Mb/s! but as for now 5Mb/s is enough for my daily needs with only 2 computers in this household.

As for the IPtv, it needs a lot more quality channels if TM plans to compete with Astro which currently monopolised the pay tv services in Malaysia. I was informed that channels such as HBO, Discovery, Nat. Geo. etc are signed in a bond with Astro as the exclusive provider in Malaysia. Hence TM are not able to provide those channels on HyppTv. I have high hope for HyppTv to be at par with Astro as this will create a healthy competition. In the end, consumer will benefit.

I forgot to add that the VIP5 package supposedly comes with 60GB worth of data download per month but according to unifi's website, it is not yet imposed. I guess they are monitoring customers usage first before implementing the quota limit. I will monitor the speed throughout the month and see if there are any changes.

That's all for now (wow, this is a very long post!)... Sorry to bore you!

This article was written by ickytech posted by guest blogger you can also post yours contact me!

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The Unifi Installation – My Experience

One of the (many) reasons I’ve been excited about moving into the new place is because…it has Unifi! Thankfully my area has had it for quite some time.

We had the internal wiring done way back so we could do the skimming and painting safe in the knowledge that we wouldn’t be disrupted again by any more wall drilling. It’s worth getting it done earlier especially if it’s a new house and you’re doing some touch-ups or if you are doing renovation like we are.

Thankfully the subcon we had was really efficient and professional, he even helped us fit double LAN face-plates for the cables.

You also need to know which side the fiber cable will come from (front or back) and plan the equipment location accordingly (router, fibre termination box, modem & phone) plus then you have the IPTV STB which needs to be attached to the TV via HDMI.

I had a CAT5e cable pulled from the study to the living room for the Unifi IPTV so we could keep the modems etc out of the way and had the fiber cable outside hidden.

So far my experience with Unifi has been great, called them about 10-12 days ago and signed up. They took my details once, explained everything properly to me (installation procedure, plan cost, installation cost and so on) and arranged for installation on December 27th 2010.

The fee for installation since October 1st is now RM200 unless you sign up for the 20MB plan – then it’s waived.

Our original appointment was set for 2.30pm but the installer team called us from TTDI to let us know they’d finished their morning job and could come at 11am.

They arrived on time and were polite, professional and tidy. They explained everything properly and set-up everything nicely. And they brought along all these goodies with them! I almost mistook them for Santa!

From top to bottom – Panasonic DECT Cordless phone,  Huawei EchoLife HG850a GPON Terminal, D-Link DIR-615 Wireless Router and IPTV Set-top Box.

They got to work straight away pulling the fibre from the distribution pole to the house, there is a big mango tree in the way so it took a bit of time.

They also got to work inside in my study testing the fiber cable and making sure everything was ready to rock.

They did a very neat job outside and you can hardly see anything has been done at all!

The next part was to get the fiber terminated inside then get everything installed, the modem, the router and the phone. They couldn’t set up the IPTV as I don’t have a television right now :x

Then it was testing time! Everything worked fine, checked out the telephone – much clearer than our old one although there is a little lag when you dial a number. And call rates are CHEAP, all fixed lines calls are free and calls to mobile phones are 10sen per minute.

They asked me to grab my laptop and test the connection, so I did – guess what’s the first thing I did? Speedtest of course..

w00t – full speed and good latency. I did some International speed tests too – I got around 3.3MB to Europe and about 1.5MB to USA. I think TM are having some problems with the International backbone right now though so will see if it improves. Even at it’s slowest though it’s miles better than Streamyx!

I also installed the Speedtest app on my iPhone 4 and did a speed-test standing way out in the front yard – this is the result:

Let’s hope it stays fast and good, I might upgrade it later to 10MB – that’d be NAIS!

Anyway that’s my Unifi experience so far. From what I’ve read most people with FTTH (fiber to the home – for landed properties) installations are more than happy, but some with VDSL (high-rise installs) are having some problems – but then that’s to be expected as it’s still running over copper cable.

This article was written by shaolintiger posted by guest blogger you can also post yours contact me!

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TM Unifi ZTE ZXDSL 931DII VDSL Modem

The ZTE ZXDSL 931DII is a VDSL2 router modem, which is an advanced all-in-one gateway incorporating VDSL2 modem, The 931DII offers VoIP access that feature full compliance with industry standards. It is suitable for a wide range of application scenarios like residential (in-home) and commercial (offices, apartments, hotels, warehouses) applications. At user side, it offers high-speed VDSL2 access service for residential and small business customers.

The ZXDSL 931DII is a VDSL2 access device, which supports multiple line transmission mode. It provides four 10/100Base-T Ethernet interfaces and two (2) FXS interfaces. In addition, ZXDSL 931DII provides the broadband Internet service or enterprise network access service via high-speed ADSL access.

Another model is ZTE ZXDSL 931WII VDSL2 modem router it do not supports the two (2) FXS interfaces but added with the WLAN interface for wireless connectivity in contrast to ZXDSL 931DII which is lack of WiFi but also added two (2) VoIP ports for SIP phone.

The ZXDSL 931DII is a VDSL2 MODEM. It provides the bridge and route function and supports the following features:

• ITU-T G.993.2 VDSL2 standard
• It supports LAN protocol.
• It supports IEEE802.3 and IEEE802.3u.
• It supports speed auto-negotiation.
• It supports Half duplex/Full duplex.
• It supports user-friendly GUI for web configuration.
• It supports IPSec for virtual private network (VPN).
• It supports parental control function to restrict children usage.
• It supports self-learning bridge (IEEE 802.1D Transparent Bridging).
• It supports virtual server, IP filter, and demilitarized military zone (DMZ)host.
• It supports Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for 931DII only
• It supports T38 fax
• It supports DTMP
• It supports G.711/G723/G729 Codes

TM Unifi ZTE ZXDSL Series VDSL Modem User Manual 931DII link 931WII link

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TM’s Unifi Equipment Subscriber FreeBiz

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) has claimed that the equipment (free or not) it provided to the Unifi business package subscriber such as the (VIP5, VIP10, VIP20) is worth of total RM 970 (with Broadband Termination Unit of RM 700, Business Gateway of RM 150, and Cordless Telephone of RM 120). Broadband Termination Unit refers to Optical Network Unit (ONU) or VDSL 2 Modem.

Business Gateway is the wireless router. Unlike Unifi residential package subscriber, Unifi business package subscriber does not get a set-top-box of RM 500, which is required to watch IPTV channels included in Unifi Residential package. Optical Network Unit is for those who live or work in a landed home or office. VDSL 2 modem is for those who live or work in a high-rise building, which include me.

TM Unifi Motorola Dec Phone

TM Unifi D-Link DIR-615 Wireless N Router

TM Unifi ZTE ZXDSL 931DII VDSL2 Modem (User Manual pdf)

TM IPTV Set-Top Box

If you are using Internet Explorer 9, right click the pictures below and select ‘Save Target As’ to download the picture of original size.

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ZTE ZXDSL 931WII Firmware TFTP Upload

Recently, I decided to upgrade my ADSL subscription to VDSL, and the deal included a ZTE ZXDSL 931WII CPE box (VDSL2 modem + NAT + WLAN AP). Attached with the box were instructions stating that configuration settings could be managed from a private web page provided by the ISP. And was one able to do so? Of course not. Much to my annoyance, it also turned out that all ‘outside the box’ local configuration had been disabled in the firmware (no response to LAN http, ssh or telnet). So, a quick call to the ISP helpdesk:

“Hi! I upgraded to blablabla and would like to configure it but there’s nothing else on the remote admin panel than a save -button”

“Ok let me check”

“It doesn’t accept any http or telnet connections to the local admin interface either..”

“What would you like to configure?”

“Well you know, the usual stuff people configure on their home router; static IPs, port forwarding, admin password etc..”

“Hmm well I can see that implementing the feature is pending, but I can check details about this with someone. Is it ok if I text you shortly? Kthxbye!” *CLICK*

Some minutes later, there’s a text on my mobile saying “There is no known schedule for adding remote configurability for the current firmware at this time”. W-T-F and thanks a fucking bunch! :D

Seriously: Do they think that I’m going to run this box in my home without having any access to feature configuration?

Sure I can understand that, given the increasingly technical times we live in, the need might arise for the ISP to be able to remotely check the CPE configuration of some less-technically-inclined subscriber using their ACS server. But why-oh-why disable all local configuration options? Surely, the option of configuring the hardware could be kept available to those who wish to do so?

Not happy with the situation at all, I decided it was time to take a look whether local configuration could be performed from inside the box.. I’d rather have a bit of my own fun with the box instead of paying xx€ for queuing +15 minutes on the phone just to be walked through a “Did you check cable connections” check list (or whatever). Should my “playtime” result with a bricked box, no problem. The ISP can then have the box back accompanied with a “the lights just went out” fault description and I’ll go buy something more decent :)

After opening the enclosure, board gets the usual ‘scanning glance’.. and what do you know?! On the front edge close to the status LEDs there’s a standard 4-pole pin header. Easy guess; one pin for GND, one for +VDC, one for RS232TxD and one for RS232RxD. Sort of screaming “hello, I’m a serial port” all over. Not that it turned out to be exactly plug’n’.. err.. hack.

As +3.3V logic levels are used, a RS232 line level driver is needed in-between to interface with a standard serial port. I have plenty of Intersil HIN202 transceivers available, so that’s what I used and will discuss here. Any other RS232 transceiver (f.e.x something by Maxim) should work as well. If you have some other chip, just pay attention to its datasheet / app notes how to connect it.

Basic application of HIN202. Image courtesy of Intersil.

What I put together was rather directly lifted from the HIN202 datasheet (picture above). HIN202 actually uses +5V logic levels, but as the specced low/high signal transition thresholds are 0.8V / 2.0V (respectively), the chip works just fine with 3.3V signal levels too. What of course needs to be accounted for is the RxD output connecting to the CPU. Remember, that the transceiver outputs +5VDC high signal state whereas the CPU prefers 3.3V! Thus, a series resistor is needed to lower the signal level. My choice here was 10k.

As you can see from the datasheet schematic above, electrolythic capacitors are used for the 10V on-chip voltage charge pumps. So why does my circuit use regular ceramic (1206 SMD) capacitors? Well, being the lazy me with certain things (like doing a quick hack such as this) is really about what suitable is ‘on the desk’.. and here, it was the ceramic capacitors. I have no idea if the electrolytics allow the pumps to work better in some specific conditions, but at least on my desktop/living room setup the RS232 connection works just fine like this. So, leave it at that and move on.

Lower side connections of the RS232 transceiver

Upper side connections of the RS232 transceiver

The completed adapter

The transceiver needs +5VDC operating voltage. Luckily there’s a +5V switch mode regulator stage on-board, so there’s no need to build a separate one just for the transceiver alone. I chose to tap into the supply by connecting parallel to D3, but there are plenty of other places on-board too.

Connected to the +5VDC supply..

Ok, adapter all wired up.. Hook it up with the PC, open a port connection in HyperTerm using 115k 8-n-1 and yay, bootup texts scrolling on the screen \o/.

In case you’re wondering about the enclosure looking different on the picture above than what it is at the ZTE website (and the beginning of this post) .. It’s because it is! :) Apparently, ZTE offers at least these two types of enclosure, allowing for a little bit of ISP “branding flair” or whatever. The manuals shipped with the unit have pictures of both enclosures and with a ZTE logo on it, whereas the box itself carries the ISP logo. How classy.

Hardware-wise, the box has a BCM6368 400Mhz processor, 4Mb flash and 64Mb DRAM. For WiFi, there’s a BCM4138 chip. I didn’t really want to bother with removing the RF shielding around the processor to see what else there might be underneath. The ground layer on the bottom of the board is pretty big, so the board and the shielding plate would have to be heated to extremes for removal.

Considering embedded systems as a whole.. Whereas hardware I can manage, Linux I however don’t. I do have some experience with distro installations (Debian, Ubuntu etc.) and basic command line usage, but this doesn’t really get you anywhere on a embedded system that’s optimized for a specific use. So, as you can probably imagine, ending up on the command prompt of the 931WII was somewhat a baffling moment. Steep learning curve right up ahead and all that.. :)

Luckily, hints given by friends combined with a plethora of internet searches pointed me the way. After fiddling around a while, I had a tftp server (TFTPD32) running on my laptop and was able to transfer the flash config to and from the box. The kernel is configured to automatically reboot the system after a valid config file has been uploaded, so no additional command line trickery is required for applying the new settings.

The settings themselves use some Broadcom xml markup (tags starting with X_BROADCOM_COM). I’m sure some kind of developer documentation must exist, not that I was unable to find anything from Broadcom’s online resource library. But once again, searching the net with some of the markup tags gave ideas how to go about configuring some of the settings. First tweak (of course), remove everything between the ManagementServer -tags ;).

After having my share of fun playing “the master of the system”, the first problem surfaced. No matter what parameter switches I passed to tftp, transferring the entire firmware didn’t seem to be possible. The system just kept persistently dumping/fetching the flash config! So there I was, trying to figure out what’s wrong with my tftp setup.. right about until a friend suggested that I could try starting the shell! Being used to desktop systems, I assumed shell would be running (BusyBox is mentioned on the startup texts, and all) but it actually wasn’t. No wonder the basic file system commands (like ‘cd’) were missing :D

If only someone had mentioned earlier that I'm supposed to do this.. ;)

So, after launching the BusyBox shell suddenly tftp has no problems transferring the firmware binary. No idea why it is like this (or did I do/type sth wrong?) but “yeah whatever”, as long as tftp is fully functional. The ZTE firmware binary I uploaded is of version 1.5.0c and it contains CFE bootloader and some vmlinux (2.6.21.5 kernel). The binary is available at the ZTE Finland website along with 1.5.0b. Both of these are for ISP other than mine, but they seem to work. There is 1.5.3something available here, but my box doesn’t accept this. ZTE doesn’t (at least currently) share firmware binaries with end-users, so I have no idea how much newer versions there might be.

Despite now having both the telnet and http admin interfaces accessible, what remains to be figured out is why certain ethernet connections timeout too quickly with the current firmware. This doesn’t seem to happen when using WLAN, so the problem is definitely somewhere with the LAN router settings. I tried modifying some of the nf_conntrack TCP values found under /proc/sys/net/ip4v/netfilter/, up to no avail. Not that it looks like the IP table is getting full either (as in, packets dropped). More learning curve for yours truly, so to say..

Big thanks to everyone who had enough patience to help me with Linux, it’s networking features and other related stuff! If you happen to read this and have a pdf on the Broadcom XML, I wouldn’t mind a download link in the mail. Most of the stuff in the config file seems to be accessible through the http admin interface anyway, so it’s not like my need for the documentation is critical. Call it more of a “nice-to-have” bonus ;)

The factual content ends here, but just to continue a bit on bonuses this is the “real one” of the topic..:

Only after I had the box running on the downgraded firmware, I came across some forum posts stating that the stock firmware is accessible by using the public WAN IP.. Grrrrrr, motherfuckers! If it is so, why the fuck DIDN’T HELPDESK OR THE MANUAL MENTION ABOUT THIS?

More importantly, if it is so, this also sounds like a security risk of sorts. Basically, all you’d have to know is the public IP of some subscriber using this particular CPE (f.ex. take a look at the ISP forum where they conveniently log user IPs), and you’d gain access to their router configuration in no time thanks to the very “default” admin password. Classy *2, if so.

Then again, a friend in-the-know tells me that some ISPs have certain modems that’ll give you access to admin interface from the WAN side if you simply change “login.html?success=0″ to “login.html?success=1″ on the browser address line! So yeah, maybe things could also be worse.. ;)

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