if i subscribe to 30mbps plan now and upgrade to 50mbps later, will there be any penalty charges? will my contract be reset to 2 years again?

installation coming tomorrowthanks to forumer jovene. Order RT-AC88U and some cisco switches. Shall see how the fiber perform since its a new area.

From what in understand about unifi:
VLAN400 for voice
VLAN500 for internet
VLAN600 for IPTV

First of all, I dont care about the voice service .
Currently I have a Ethernet cable attached directly from the VLAN500 port to wireless router in the middle of my house for maximum wifi coverage.
I also have another Ethernet cable attached directly from VLAN600 to another end of my house where the TV resides in the living room for IPTV.
I believe this is the standard Unifi setup. Both these cable are nicely concealed inside the wall.

If i would like wired connection for gadgets around my TV too (e.g. PS4, nVidia Shield, TV for Netflix, Netgear Arlo base station etc). My thought is to purchase two switches, 1 placed next to fiber optic modem, 2nd placed next to current IPTV set top box.

1st switch placed next to Fiber optic modem:
Fiber modem VLAN500 -> Switch1 port1
Fiber modem VLAN600 -> Switch1 port2
Switch1 port3 -> Wireless router through concealed ethernet cable
Switch1 port4 -> Living room 2nd Switch Port1 through concealed ethernet cable

2nd Switch next to IPTV set top box
Switch2 port1 -> IPTV set top box
Switch2 port2 -> PS4
Switch2 port3 -> nvidia Shield
Switch2 port4 -> Netgear Arlo base station
so on and so forth.

Is there any GBe switches that doesn't strip off the VLAN tags?
in this setup, does the network traffic knows where they are supposed to go?
Ultimately, passing through the first Switch, does the wireles router gets the VLAN500 internet traffic?
Does my gadgets attached to 2nd Switch gets the routed traffic passsed back from the wireless router?
Does my IPTV set top box gets the VLAN600 IPTV traffics?

Please advise.

This post has been edited by fx_53_xt: Jul 5 2017, 09:44 PM

Forgive my noobness, from my understanding of your explanation the WAN port of my router (in this case Asus RT-AC88U) to BTU will carry both VLAN500 and VLAN600 for IPTV+Internet. At which the separation of VLAN500 and VLAN600 will be done by my router RT-AC88U).

that would be a huge headache

Sorry for my confusion. Need to clarify something first. In a custom router setup, does the traffic with VLAN ID 500/600 being handled by BTU or Router?
referring to case 1 and 2 here, which are the setup done by TM?

Case 1: Router handles the VLAN tagging


Case 2: BTU handles the VLAN tagging


This post has been edited by fx_53_xt: Jul 6 2017, 02:34 PM

Here's the floorplan of my house. The red color line is the existing concealed ethernet cable:


The existing setup is quite simple:
1) BTU resides at the fiber box sitting next to house entrance
2) BTU connects to router through concealed ethernet cable which is the red color line
3) STB / TV / PS4 / everything else connects to router's ethernet port


However, here's what i'd like to enhance to have better wifi coverage and local gigabit network:
1) Move the router to the red spot marked.
2) Gigabit switches near the TV to handles everything else that can do wired internet

Here's the plan:


That create lots of headache because i dont really understand how switches handles VLAN tags:
1) From google it seems normal consumer level unmanaged layer 2 switches cant do VLAN tags
2) some review from Amazon on netgear switches claim that Netgear switch does in fact retain VLAN ID tags
3) Does this plan can even works? I'm not sure what's the behaviour when switches are daisy chained and how do they switches the data when VLAN are invloved.
(i.e. two different VLAN ID traffic are fed into one switch and piped to another switch then broadcast to respective MAC address)

This post has been edited by fx_53_xt: Jul 6 2017, 04:17 PM

From the router there's 2 traffic coming out of 2 different ports (Internet and IPTV) and i need to pipe them through a single cable that was already concealed inside the wall. Hence i thought a switch could do the job? no?

My router is Asus RT-AC88U, i think this model could handle vlan tagging just fine.


Thanks for the correction. My confusion is still when i feed both Internet and IPTV traffic into Switch 1, then pipe it to other end using a single cable and then split them out again using Switch 2, does it works at all?

Maybe this diagram simplifies my confusion much better, will this setup below works?

Thanks for the clarification, so for the simplified diagram as above, the TP-Link works?
I read some user amazon review on Netgear unmanaged switches that netgear switches doesn't strip the VLAN ID.

thanks for all the help. i'll figure this out when i back to msia next week

Homeplug might work for STB but not for the rest, it will not meet my requirement. Homeplug's performance depends on too many variables:
- the age and quality of the power cable
- the electrical noise in the power supply
- the existence of high noise electrical appliances (fridge, microwave, aircond etc)
- and the length of the wires.
I've tried many version of homeplugs in my existing setup not only they didn't meet even half of the advertised speed (which is expected by the way), but most importantly the latency introduced by homeplug is horrible. My work requires access to multiple VM workstation across different countries and involves GUI so latency really could kill me.

Some off topic rant and disclaimer: I'm in no way a network expert but my requirements are slightly different from normal. Single device for Unifi or BTU + Router setup doesn't matter to me as long as it is a reliable solution. Here's my experience with TM:

8 years back i was the one of the first batch that installed Unifi VIP5, i remember we used to call it HSBB and the installation backlog was as long as half a year!
While they gave passable Alcatel-Lucent branded BTU, the orange color router was complete crap.
And that was a time not many people who has the networking knowledge to figure out what voodoo TM was using to manage the triple-play traffic.
KLseet was one of the first that figure out the VLAN tagging thingy but there wasn't any consumer level router except microtik that manages VLAN tags.
I remembered spending hours and hours reading his instruction, then with trial and error and finally using the orange TM router as a bridge to manage the VLAN tag and pass the routing job to a proper router.

I do note that VLAN is a common practice for ISP everywhere to manage Voice/IPTV/internet traffic to end user but TM just made life harder for everyone. I still remember they left all the password default and left a backdoor open supposedly for easy troubleshooting from their end. I do not know if this is now improved.

8 years has passed and I am now coming back again to similarly confusing TM.
- There's different promotion price and promotion package everywhere.
- I wasn't allowed to apply using my own name because i am still overseas and cant do biometric verification and no reps are allowed even with authorization letter (although i later found there was a line for authorized person in the service application and acceptance form), i had to borrow someone else's name to register my unifi. How's ironic is that for fraud prevention.
- Installer came and i communicated with him over the phone. Asked him to test if my existing cables are Cat5e / Cat6 capable of GBe, he either doesn't understand or just lazy. I asked him to extend the fiber to my TV area at which i can solve all my current requirement all at once but instead, he just plug the BTU into my existing fiber box, with literally no cabling work involved and then tell me cabling is not part of installation.
- Didn't have a TV currently at the new place and he claim he wont install the STB because lack of TV. I explain TV will arrive later so i would like to have the STB ready and he dozed off.
- Called TM and complained about the cabling and STB, next day he came by and drop me a these bunch of stuffs. What am i going to do with these fiber? Does he honestly thinks average person have skills and tools to splice the fiber?





I'll be back next weekend to try and find the best way to sort this out. Too bad Time does not service my area.

This post has been edited by fx_53_xt: Jul 7 2017, 12:59 AM

I tried negotiated. He wasn't willing to do anything.
I'm just scratching head when he dump that bunch of fiber to my house the next day as if I have the skill and tools to splice it.
on the bright side, i'll gain new skill when i DIY later

the way homeplug is marketed really needs to be rectified. It works if you want casual and convenient connection.
Other than that nothing lives up to the spec all the manufacturer are putting on the box, even in best best case scenario.

Homeplug i already mentioned in the first place, there's a huge number of factor that will affect the experience for everyone.

Backdoor wise, there's a huge difference between deliberately planted backdoor versus innocent mistake backdoor bugs. And the fact that when the backdoor is publicly published, TM make it clear it was intentional and have no plan to rectify. Not only it would be a PR disaster for a normal company but also shows what kind of attitude they can have when they monopoly everything. Well that was many years ago. I'll give them the benefit of doubt that they improved over the years.

I understand the basic concept of VLAN. Its just that i'm no expert on networking when it comes to implementation and i just think there should be simpler way to do it.

On the installation, my parents were actually on site to explain what was my expectation and i supplemented over the phone in case he had further question. He just refused to listen, no question, no work done, period, not even as simple as testing if the concealed LAN cable is up for GBe. STB wise, the actual problem wasn't with testing but according to installer, he needs a display to set it up. Didn't understand why didn't it came pre-configured since. These are little things that can affect customer experience which happens when TM contract out jobs but spend no effort making proper training.

Again, these are personal experience, not a scenario that is applicable to anyone. There's room for improvement IMHO.

Coincidentally as a comparison, I had to renew my contract with my current ISP
It is mandatory here for them to check the fibre attenuation and quality, upgrade the equipment and if any additional revision needed to be done in the premises.
Contractor came at 10.00am, got out at 10.04am, everything was worry free. His supervisor called me in the afternoon to check if everything was fine and made an apologies because the installer forgot to call me before he came despite they sent me an email confirmation that he would come over between 9am to 11am. What a service !
After i came back from work what i did was flip on the power switch and everything works as expected
Did a speed test on my 5 years old laptop with intel N6230 over wifi 15 feet away with two walls in between but this happened after what they tuned in within 4 minutes in the morning.

So pardon me for a lil show off and setting expectation for TM when i'm finally coming home next week.



This post has been edited by fx_53_xt: Jul 8 2017, 03:51 AM

Passing 300mbps mark, its just a bandwidth number game that you'll never able to utilize as casual home user. Time is already there, TM is almost there.

Here I have 2 TV streaming 4k netflix and hulu, one home laptop on torrent sometimes, one work laptop constantly connecting to work VPN, and i count at least another 15 devices that's using it on and off, i've never consumed more than 20% of the 2Gbps, ever.

Its true that singapore's small geographical size has advantage for deployment over malaysia.

But its not true that they dont have mixed infrastructure. There's still old houses that has all copper, coaxial and fiber infra in place. The big 3 telco does still offers cable internet.
In fact our HSBB initiative rolled out earlier than Singapore's NGBN that only kicked off in 2010 but they were properly managed and competition keeps everything healthy.

Our ISP is in fact crippled by TM monopoly.
Take wireless telco for example, Malaysia offers one of the cheapest if not the cheapest 3G/4G data in the whole wide world because of intense competition. And take into consideration again our geographical disadvantages, you'll see that our overpriced internet and lousy service is simply due to monopoly.

My point here is TM monopoly. With the example wireless telco, i dont see our challenging geographical disadvantage hampers any effort of telco to expand and improve service from time to time, with competitive pricing. Remember the fiasco when Maxis did some stupid stunt and customer jumped ship and they immediately rectify by offering shit loads of data quota and subsequently lowering prices? That's actually a great example of healthy competition in a market without monopoly.

TM? pfffff