Setting Up the Billion 8800NL and 8800AXL For BT TV (Multicast)

Our favourite modem routers – the Billion 8800NL and the enhanced Billion 8800AXL – provide superb performance and represent great upgrades for broadband users using either conventional ADSL broadband or fibre broadband. For fibre broadband users, they are also fully compatible with G.INP, which is an enhancement implemented on BT’s fibre network to improve error performance and broadband speeds further. The good news is also that these are fully compatible with BT’s TV service and its multicast delivery of TV content, unlike many other third-party routers. In this article, we show how to set up the Billion 8800 series modem routers to work with BT’s TV service.

Billion 8800NL

 

We start with our existing set-up for BT’s fibre broadband service

Firstly, here we are with the initial settings for BT’s fibre network. We have defined a WAN service on the PTM interface. To access the settings, go to ‘Configuration’ and then ‘WAN’, where you should see something that resembles the screen shot below:

WAN service menu of Billion 8800

Select the ‘Edit’ button for the service at the top of the list and here are our initial settings for BT’s fibre network. 802.1P priority is set to 0, and 802.1Q VLAN ID is set to 101, with a username of bthomehub@btinternet.com. You can enter anything as the password.

Initial WAN service settings

 

Tick IGMP Multicast Proxy

Now tick the IGMP Multicast Proxy option and then the ‘Apply’ button, as shown below, and that’s all you need to do on this particular menu.

Selecting IGMP Multicast Proxy

 

Advanced Setup for IGMP

Now go to ‘Advanced Setup’ in the menu, and then ‘Multicast’, which will take you to the multicast set-up menu. Ensure that you have the ‘Fast Leave’ and ‘Membership Join Immediate (IPTV)’ options ticked in the top IGMP section, and then press ‘Apply’.

Multicast set-up in the Billion 8800

 

Return to the WAN menu and add a service

Return to the WAN configuration menu by selecting ‘Configuration’ and then ‘WAN’. Your screen should look like this:

WAN service menu of Billion 8800

Select ‘Add’ at the bottom left of the screen. In the options make sure the ‘WAN Port’ is set to DSL and that the ‘Layer 2 Interface’ is set to PTM. In the ‘Type’ box, select ‘Bridging’. Then enter zero for ‘802.1P Priority’ and 101 for 802.1Q VLAN ID, as shown below.

8800 WAN configuration

Then press ‘Next’ and you will be taken back to the WAN Service menu, which will look something like:

Added bridge to the WAN service

 

Ensure IGMP Snooping Mode is set to Standard

As the last step, go into the LAN Configuration menu by selecting ‘Configuration’ and then ‘LAN’. Make sure that the ‘IGMP Snooping Mode’ is set to Standard Mode, as shown below.

IGMP snooping mode

Set-up is now complete and BT TV should work perfectly!

 

How to check it works

If your BT set-top box is installed, you can simply reboot the box and you should be able to access the multicast channels via the Electronic Programme Guide.

If you have a PC or Mac connected to your Billion router using Ethernet, you can use a media streaming application such as VLC to view BT’s test channel. In the VLC programme, select ‘File’ and then ‘Open Network…’, and then ‘Open RTP/UDP Stream’. Then in the options select ‘RTP’ and ‘Multicast’ with IP address 234.81.130.4 and port number 5802. A window should pop up showing the multicast stream! Please note that your PC or Mac needs to be connected to your Billion router via Ethernet cable as multicast channels generally do not work via a WiFi connection.

Screen Shot 2015-07-31 at 17.09.59

 

If you have an ASUS RT-87U, you may be interested in our Setting Up the ASUS RT-AC87U For BT TV (Multicast) page.