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Connect a DrayTek Vigor router to Ultrafast Full-Fibre FTTP Broadband

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Connecting a DrayTek Vigor router to Ultrafast full-fibre FTTP services is easy to do. The ISP supplied ONT or Optical Network Terminal is connected to the optical fibre and converts this into Ethernet, which all of DrayTek's routers can use.

Any of DrayTek's latest routers, such as the Vigor 2927, Vigor 2765, Vigor 2865 and Vigor 2866 can be connected to full-fibre broadband, with up to 950mbps of Hardware Accelerated Firewall throughput.

This article explains how to setup your DrayTek router to connect to your Ultrafast FTTP service.

Overview

In this setup guide's example, an ISP supplied ONT (Optical Network Terminator) will operate as the modem, providing Ethernet. A Vigor 2927 router will then be connected to the ONT and establish a PPPoE Internet connection across the Fibre link.

With most Fibre ISPs, no VLAN tag needs to be set on the router connected to the ONT, but if this is required, DrayTek routers support adding a tag and this is explained later in the article.

If connecting a Vigor 2765 or Vigor 2766 router, make sure to enable the WAN2 port, as shown in this guide.

To connect a DrayTek DSL router such as the Vigor 2865 or 2866, to an ISP's ONT which provides Ethernet - simply follow this guide but set up WAN2 instead.

2927 fttp

Connecting a DrayTek router to FTTP

To begin setting up the router that will be establishing the Internet connection, connect a network cable from the ONT's Ethernet ports into the DrayTek router's Ethernet WAN port:

DrayTek Router	WAN port to use
Vigor 2927 & 2926 Vigor 2962	Connect the ONT to the router's Ethernet WAN1 or WAN2 port.
Vigor 3910	Connect the ONT into the router's first available Gigabit WAN port, by default this will be WAN5.
Vigor 2765, 2766 & 2762	Connect the ONT into the router's WAN2 port, labelled port P4 on the back of the router. Make sure that WAN2 is enabled first.
Vigor 2865, 2866 & 2862	Connect the ONT into the router's WAN2 port. Make sure that WAN2 is enabled and not currently being used as LAN port P6.

Connect a computer to one of the Vigor router's LAN ports. Wait for the computer to be assigned an IP address by the router, then access the router's web interface. By default, that will usually be on https://192.168.1.1.

Log into the router's web interface and upon logging in, the [Dashboard] will be displayed, with the current LAN & WAN status.

Go to [WAN] > [General Setup] to check on the WAN port configuration.

Please note that in this example with the Vigor 2927, WAN1 is the first available Ethernet WAN port, But on DSL/Ethernet routers like the Vigor 2866, WAN2 would be used instead. The configuration is otherwise the same.

Make sure the WAN is enabled and is set to Always On rather than in Failover mode, so that the WAN interface will be utilised.

For most Fibre networks in the UK & Ireland, no VLAN tag is required for Internet connecitivity on the Vigor 2927 router. For example with the Openreach Fibre network. If VLAN tags are used by the ISP, they are usually handled automatically by the ISP supplied ONT.

To configure the router to not use VLAN tags on its Ethernet WAN port, ensure that the Customer and Service VLAN Tag Insertion values are set to Disable.

Note for City Fast users (Black 'Calix 801G' ONT)
A few ISPs / networks do require a tag however, CityFibre for example needs tag 911 set on the router.
To connect a DrayTek router to a CityFibre network's ONT, set the Service VLAN to enable and set a tag value of "911".

If any changes were made on this page, click OK to save and apply the changes, which will prompt to restart the Vigor router:

Once the Vigor router has restarted, or if no changes were needed, go to [WAN] > [Internet Access].

Selecting the Internet Connection Type

In this example, PPPoE is being used for Internet connectivity. If your ISP provided a username e.g. "This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." and a password, this will most likely be using a PPPoE connection to access the Internet. In which case, continue to follow this setup guide to get connected. If the ISP is using PPPoE, select PPPoE as the Access Mode, then click the Details Page button to continue.

If your ISP simply provides an IP address via DHCP, or does not state what authentication is needed to connect to the Internet, select Static or Dynamic IP for the WAN interface, then click the Details Page button. On that page, select Enable, then select Obtain an IP address automatically and click OK to save and apply the changes. The router will prompt to restart and it should be connected to the Internet after doing so.
If your ISP is Sky, follow this guide for the additional setup required. The Vigor router will need some additional DHCP configuration to connect.
If the connection doesn't establish with a DHCP connection, try restarting the ISP supplied ONT, which may free up the Internet IP address for the Vigor router to use.

Continuing to set up the PPPoE connection on the Vigor router:

Select Enable to enable this connection type
Under the ISP Access Setup section:
1. Leave the Service Name field blank
2. Enter the Username supplied by the ISP
3. Enter the Password supplied by the ISP
If your Internet connection has a static IP, set the Fixed IP setting to Yes and enter the IP address in the Fixed IP Address
Click OK to save and apply the changes.

Note for BT Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband users
If your ISP is BT and you do not have a username / password for the Internet connection, try using a username of "This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." and a password of "password".

The router will need to restart to finalise the configuration, click OK again when prompted, to restart the Vigor router.

Getting Online with Full Fibre Broadband

Once the router has restarted, check the connection status either on the [Dashboard] or on the [Online Status] > [Physical Connection] page to check whether the connection has established.

In this example, the Vigor 2927 router's WAN 1 Status now shows in green to indicate that it's connected to the ISP using PPPoE.

Once the PPP connection has established, the router and any clients should now be able to access the Internet, check a couple of websites to ensure it's all working.

Troubleshooting

Internet Connectivity

If when testing the Internet connection once it's connected, you find that some or all websites fail to load:

Make sure the testing computer's LAN IP address is correct, has the router as the gateway and has working DNS servers specified. In this example, the Vigor 2927 has assigned these with DHCP.
If a fixed IP address has been specified for the WAN, try re-configuring it to use "No (Dynamic IP)" instead, to check whether that resolves the issue. If it does, check that the correct IP address is being entered or check with the ISP.
If some but not all websites load, that can be caused by the MTU or max packet size. See this guide to find the correct MTU for your Internet connection.
If no websites load, check the [Online Status] > [Physical Connection] to see the status for the WAN, if the IP address and other text is in red, the WAN connection is offline. Check for any PPPoE error messages shown on the page, if it shows a username or password error, verify that the details are correct and re-enter them on the [WAN] > [Internet Access] > WANx - Details Page

Performance with Ultrafast Broadband

If when testing the Internet connection, you find that speeds are lower than expected:

Make sure that the Ethernet cable being used is of good quality and has all 8 wires. The [Dashboard] should show the Ethernet WAN port in green to indicate it's connected at Gigabit speed. If it's orange, speeds will be limited to 100Mbps.
Enable the router's Hardware Accelerator. To do that, go to [Hardware Acceleration] and enable it for TCP and UDP to accelerate all sessions.
If you have an 'ax' wireless router, acceleration can also be enabled for Wireless LAN Clients.

Click OK to apply the change and acceleration should take effect immediately. New sessions will be accelerated by the Hardware Accelerator after just a few seconds, which should be immediately noticeable when performing speed tests or downloading large files.

Note - Vigor 2962 & Vigor 3910 users
These router models employ a different method for hardware acceleration, that is always on and does not need to be enabled or configured.

Note - Vigor 2862, Vigor 2926, Vigor 2762 users
For Hardware Acceleration to take effect on these models, the Quality of Service, Bandwidth Limit, and Data Flow Monitor must be disabled. If any of these services are enabled, the Hardware Accelerator will not be able to accelerate packets. When enabled, the Hardware Accelerated traffic will not be counted by the WAN Budget or Traffic Graph.
Vigor 2865, Vigor 2866, Vigor 2862, Vigor 2765, Vigor 2766 & Vigor 2762 users only
If when testing performance with the Hardware Accelerator enabled, the download throughput is not accelerated to the full performance of your Internet connection, it may be necessary to disable the WAN1 port to achieve full performance. To do that, go to [WAN] > [General Setup] > WAN1 and on there, set the WAN1 interface to Disable. Click OK and reboot the router when prompted.