Superhub 3 incompatible with TP-Link Deco M5

[Jeremy_K]

After changing from a Superhub2 to a Superhub 3 my TP-Link Deco system stopped working.  After tests and discussions with TP-Link it appears that the Superhub 3.0 does not correctly pass through the IEEE 1905.1 packets that the Deco system uses for ethernet backhaul.

This would seem to be an unfortunate incompatibility.  Has anyone else found this?  Virgin, please sort out the deficiencies in your hub.

[jem101]

What model Deco units do you have and have you got them all connected back to the Hub via Ethernet? Lastly do you have the Deco running in router or access point mode?

[Jeremy_K]

Good questions.  The Deco product is the M5.  The Decos are in access point mode.   The problem occurs when I try to use ethernet backhaul (between the Decos).  I had the Decos connected in to the RJ45 sockets on the Superhub.  It seems that the Decos need to send IEE1905.1 packets between themselves in order to turn off the wifi backhaul and avoid network loop.  TP-Link have done tests and this is what they say:

"We set up deco units and connected as your network topology.
Three deco units are wired to the hub 3.0.
Then we connected computer to the hub 3.0 and captured packets. We didn't see any IEEE1905.1 packets.

Also we contacted Virgin media team and they confirmed that hub 3.0 didn't forward this protocol packets.
We have suggested them to add this support and they were not sure if IEEE 1905.1 will be added to Hub 3.0 in the future or not.

At present, your Deco can only work via Wi-Fi backhaul. Or you can connect your Deco as follows:
Hub 3.0 ----> Main Deco ----> switch ----> Slave Deco units."

The proposed topology is not that convenient for me so I do hope that Virgin might take up the suggestion of adding IEEE1905.1 support.  What I can say for certain is that the Superhub 2 worked fine.

[Andrew-G]

Edited - just seen that you are running the M5 in access point mode.

An alternative might be to ask for VM to provide you with the Hitron router that they provide to small business customers, and hope that doesn't have the same problem - but as you are a residential customer they'll resist that, and you'd probably need to raise a formal complaint, making the twin arguments that the Hub 3 is not standards compliant, and therefore VM are in breach of the Goods & Services Act 2015, and that under Article 3.1 of Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 VM are obliged to offer customers a choice of equipment.  If that doesn't do it, then you could then escalate to CISAS, the industry arbitration service, but its all hard work when VM don't care about customer satisfaction.

Other choices including buying a new mesh system that somebody can confirm works with the Hub 3 (and then raising a formal complaint asking VM to give you a one off discount of the value of that, since their shonky Hub 3 is the cause of the problem - again, chances are you'd need to escalate to CISAS). 

Or, you could just take your business to a company that values it and gives you a better ISP-issue router, or some choice.

[jem101 · Accepted solution]

To be honest the chances of support being added for the 1905.1 protocol if the switch in the Hub doesn’t currently support it would be little to none. If using a wifi backhaul isn’t convenient, and, naturally you are quite right in that an Ethernet backhaul will always be more reliable, I would think your best bet would be to invest in a cheap gigabit switch and connect the Decos to that with an uplink to the Hub.

Not sure how you would necessarily know if a switch supports the required protocol before getting one though - not really the sort of thing that Amazon list in the specifications! Presumably a TP-Link switch would be most likely to be compatible you would hope. 

[Jeremy_K]

Spot on jem101 with your suggested solution.  I've just managed to get it to work with a TP-Link switch sitting between the Decos and the Superhub.  Interestingly the Netgear switch I tried didn't work ... and Netgear is a reputable brand.  And the Superhub 2 was Netgear I believe.  

You're right that there's little way of finding out in advance which products will support IEEE1905.1

[Cris1984]

Hi, 

Can you let us know what TP LINK Switch ended up working for you? I have the same issue and it appears that you've solved this

Thanks

Cris

[Roger_Gooner]

The Deco is designed to replace the existing WiFi router, so run it in router mode with the hub in modem mode. Any network switch (see my sig for an example) should work. This is the configuration:

Hub in modem mode ----> Main Deco ----> switch ----> Slave Deco units

[Jeremy_K]

Hi Cris and Roger

Short answer:  I used the TP-Link TL-SG1008D 8-Port Desktop Gigabit Ethernet Switch currently available on Amazon for £13.98.  I think you would find that any  recent TP-Link switch would work. 

The longer answer is that if the ethernet backbone interconnects between the M5s go through a switch, the switches have to be compatible with IEEE 1905.1 packets.  My NetGear switches did not accept these packets but  the TP-Link ones do.  So the safe thing to do is to get TP-Link.  Luckily they are not expensive.

Regarding the overall architecture, there are various possible configurations but what I did was to have one RJ45 cable from the Superhub to the switch.  And then all the M5s cabled back to the same switch.  This means that the traffic between the M5s goes through the switch and not the Superhub.

I adopted a different approach from Roger.  I kept my Superhub 3 in router mode and had the M5s in access point mode.  This has the advantage that you can still get to the Superhub console on 192.168.0.1.  I find this useful so I have visibility of Virgin's network problems.  I also turned off the Virgin's wifi.  

I hope this helps.  It is not complicated once you have the right switch.

Jeremy

[JNuck81]

Hi Jeremy,

I recently purchased a TP-Link Deco M5 and connected it to my Virgin Superhub 3, I have a further 2No. Slave Deco M5 units dotted around the house wirelessly connected back to the main M5 Deco unit. The set-up seemed to go ok and I was getting WiFi throughout the house even in areas where previously there were black spots. However whilst on Zoom/Skype (on my laptop using a wireless WiFi connection) I frequently received notifications that my internet connection was unstable and it would drop in and out constantly despite my network connection reading as excellent. 
As you can probably already tell by the use of my terminology I am not partial technically minded, but I have been reading the past posts on this thread, all of which have been very insightful and I understand a simple solution to this problem may be to purchase a TP-Link TL-SG1008D 8-Port Desktop Gigabit Ethernet Switch.

I note from your previous post that you connected the TP-Link Ethernet Switch directly to the Superhub using a RJ45 cable and then hard wired/cabled all the M5 Deco units back to this Switch. This all sounds straight forward enough (even to me), however my initial attraction to the Deco M5 mesh network system was that it was wireless.I really want to avoid having cables on show linking the various M5 Deco units around the house back to the TP-Link Switch, my question to you therefore is would your solution work if I only cabled one M5 Deco unit to the TP-Link Switch and then connected the other ‘slave’ Deco units back to it wirelessly? 

Any advice you can offer on this matter would be most appreciated. I have just ordered a number of Netgear Powerline wired and WiFi adaptors , which i am led to believe are endorsed by Virgin to extend and improve the WiFi signal throughout a home, however if I can use your simple cheap solution wirelessly I will return the Netgear adaptors.

many thanks in advance.

kind regards

james

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