Speedtouch 780WL - changing default IP address

The procedure for changing this router's IP address, and the range of IP
addresses it gives out in DHCP mode is much more complex than I have
encountered on any other router.

I couldn't find anything useful in the User Guide and ended up wasting
over an hour, and GBP12 in "Premium Rate" phone calls to Speedtouch Tech
Support, to sort it out. So I thought it worth recording the procedure
here in case it can help others avoid the grief (either by buying a
better-designed unit, or at least saving some of the grief that the 780
imposes).

The challenge is rather like trying to paint the floor that you are
standing on. The Speedtouch requires you to:

- add an EXTRA IP address for the unit
- add an EXTRA IP range for DHCP
- change the IP address of your current PC
- reboot
- remove the original IP address and DHCP range
- reboot again

In detail:

1. Add an extra IP address
Open a browser and enter 10.0.0.138 (no "http://") into the address box
to access the router
Navigate to Home Network | Interfaces | LocalNetwork
Choose the Configure option.

DO NOT be tempted to use the "Edit" option against the 192.168.1.254
default address; at worst you will crash the unit and have to revert to
Factory Settings (at best it will refuse your new settings as invalid).
Instead, add a NEW address - eg 192.168.0.1/24. The "/24" is needed to
make sure that it "allocates a pool" - a bit beyond me, but that's what
Tech Support insisted.

2. Add an EXTRA IP range for DHCP
Add a corresponding IP range to the DHCP settings on the same page

3. Change the IP address of your current PC
You now need to assing a MANUAL IP address for the PC that you are using
to program the router, and this IP address needs to be WITHIN the new
DHCP range that you are asking the router to assign. Write down your
existing settings (so you can put them back again in Step 8). Set the
primary DNS to the new address of the router, and leave secondary DNS
empty (or 0.0.0.0 if that is what it shows).

4. Disconnect anything else on the network which might have a lease on
an IP address in the original DHCP range. Until all old-range addresses
are dead, you will not be able to remove that range from the DHCP
settings, and the router will go on giving out IP addresses in that
range for any other units that connect.

5. Reboot - Close or Save or whatever it offers, then turn router off
and on again.

6. Get your PC to request a new IP address from the router ("Repair"
option on the appropriate LAN icon in Network Connections from Control
Panel in XP).

As long as nothing else is connected and still keeping an IP address
running in the "old" range (192.168.1.xxx), then you should be able to
go back into the Router Settings (Browser should find it at its new IP
address) - choose Home Network | Interfaces | LocalNetwork as before and
now you should be safe to deletw both the 192.168.1.254 IP address for
the router, and the corresponding IP address

7. Reboot router again

8. Reset the IP settings of your PC to those that you wrote down in Step 3.

.... and that's it!

So, whilst the 780WL is probably a fine router for a first-time
installation (VOIP quality on my first test call via voip.co.uk was
great), I would recommend caution (or allowing a lot longer than you
might reasonably expect to spend) if retro-fitting it to a network that
does not fit with a "192.168.1..." address range.

John Geddes
Derbyshire

On Sun, 10 Sep 2006 09:03:23 +0000, John Geddes
wrote:

Speedtouch 780WL - changing default IP address

Snip

So, whilst the 780WL is probably a fine router for a first-time
installation (VOIP quality on my first test call via voip.co.uk was
great), I would recommend caution (or allowing a lot longer than you
might reasonably expect to spend) if retro-fitting it to a network that
does not fit with a "192.168.1..." address range.

John Geddes
Derbyshire

Or you could have used the Data (custom) template with the Easy Setup
Wizard and achieved the same thing in minutes.

It allows you to either configure the router for Non-Natted Public
subnet configuration or change the default LAN IP address range used
for Natted operation.

Moonshine wrote:

Or you could have used the Data (custom) template with the Easy Setup
Wizard and achieved the same thing in minutes.

It allows you to either configure the router for Non-Natted Public
subnet configuration or change the default LAN IP address range used
for Natted operation.

Thanks for that, but it isn't as easy as you suggest ...

Firstly, users who have bought a VOIP router should not be expected to
guess that they need to choose the "Data" wizard in preference to the
more obvious "Voice+Data" option.

But more importantly, if one DOES down go the "Data (custom)" route as
you suggest, the IP side changes fine - but you then have to configure
the VOIP manually via a browser to the router. And the snag here is that
it does not appear to offer any way to change the country that the
unit is set for. You can change timezone easily, but the need is to
specify the exact country - because of ring cadences and dialtones. It's
not that the Speedtouch tells you the country setting but won't let you
change it - there appears to be no mention of the country setting on any
of the screens. The documentation doesn't seem to help either.

I identified the issue only after wasting an hour today thinking that
the VOIP wasn't setting up properly - because I thought I kept getting
Number Unobtainable tone instead of dialtone. Turned out that my unit
(bought in UK from broadbandstuff) wasn't giving UK "NU" but "ETSI"
(European Telecom Standardisation Institute) dialtone. Thanks to Chris
at voip.co.uk for helping identify that.

And how does one change the country setting on the 780WL if you haven't
run the "Voice+Data" wizard (which would undo any IP changes made in the
Data wizard)? All I could think of was to backup the router settings to
a file, search in the file for the word "country", replace the default
"etsi" with "uk" and then upload back to the router. Thankfully, this
did work.

So, 2/10 to Speedtouch, who couldn't even be bothered to find me anyone
to talk to me at 50p/minute on three attempts today - each time you have
to pay to hear the same longish preamble speech, then they warn that
they will cut you off if they can't connect in 20 seconds, and three
times out of three that is what they did.

However good the technical side of the product, the business of
configuring the 780WL for anything other than a start-from-scratch setup
is miserable, the documentation doesn't seem to help, and from my
limited experience, they offer lousy working-day premium-rate support (I
got through 3/3 times on Saturday, 0/3 Monday).

My advice would be to spend a bit more to buy a router from a company
offering simpler configuration, more complete documentation and better
support.

John Geddes
Derbyshire

On Mon, 11 Sep 2006 15:48:35 +0000, John Geddes
wrote:

Moonshine wrote:

Or you could have used the Data (custom) template with the Easy Setup
Wizard and achieved the same thing in minutes.

It allows you to either configure the router for Non-Natted Public
subnet configuration or change the default LAN IP address range used
for Natted operation.

Thanks for that, but it isn't as easy as you suggest ...

Firstly, users who have bought a VOIP router should not be expected to
guess that they need to choose the "Data" wizard in preference to the
more obvious "Voice+Data" option.

But more importantly, if one DOES down go the "Data (custom)" route as
you suggest, the IP side changes fine - but you then have to configure
the VOIP manually via a browser to the router.

Snipped

The thinking is that for 99% of users the standard NAT IP address
settings will suffice - so there is a template that allows intenet and
voip configuration in one hit.

For those that want to change the IP address range - they will have
suffcient knowledge to be able to configure the VoIP manually - so
only the internet access portion is included Data (custom) template -
this is the same template used across the product range.

There is obviously an error in the default base configuration of the
firmware because the Voice settings should be correct for the UK - UK
tones and dial plan etc - there has been a muck up here unfortunately
(I take it you have 6.1.7.2 firmware?). It should only be necesary to
configure the server and account settings.

John Geddes
Derbyshire

On 11 Sep 2006 15:48, John Geddes wrote:

My advice would be to spend a bit more to buy a router from a company
offering simpler configuration, more complete documentation and better
support.

Thanks for the warning. It does seem odd that some things seem to be made
awkward because the developers know it "inside out" rather than easy and
aimed at end users (eg by product testing with real users!)