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Static IP's on BT2700HGV aren't always static

EssoOil
Member

Hi,

 

This is more of an informative post than a question.  Hope it helps someone (feedback would still be appreciated though).

 

We have 5 static IP's from BT.  Our welcome sheet also listed two more static IP's which said they were "reserved".  The sixth IP is called the "router IP".  We use a 4-year-old Netgear DG834 ADSL router which has been great.  We have the sixth IP address in the "static IP" field on the Netgear router and everytime we connect to the internet the IP address is always exactly the same.  It's been this way for nearly two years.  Keeping the same IP address is important because our remote workers rely on it.  We have modified our domains "A record" at our ISP to point to our static IP so that Outlook Web Access and Remote Desktop etc. can all function.  We also use Remote Desktop which again uses the static IP.

 

Lately we have been having lots of ADSL drop-outs and when we rang BT to report this they said "what router do you have?".  Of course when we said "a Netgear" they didn't want to know.  In an attempt to get some support I dug out the original BT2700HGV router to set that up. This would also help us find out if the 4 year old Netgear router had a fault.

 

Here is a long story cut short... there is no way to get the BT2700HGV to keep the same IP address if you have more than 1 static IP address.  On the Netgear router this is simple.  Not on the BT2700.

 

Apparently you have to configure your 5 or 13 static IP's in a completely different way on the BT2700HGV do they point to different devices on your network. BT admit this is more complex to do.

 

 

There are two solutions:-

 

1) Get just one static IP address from BT and then the BT2700 router will keep the same IP address for ever.  Can anyone confirm this is true?  I logged in to my account last night and was goinf to change my 5 static IP's to just 1 static IP but it looked like BT were going to charge us £5 a month for 1 static IP. Eh! This means that 5 static IP's are included for free but if you want one static IP (that is really static) it costs £5pm?

 

2) Or you can use a different router like the Netgear DG834 or some other decent router.

 

 

Another reason for not using the BT2700HGV is that there is no way of backing up your routers configuration.  Those of you who forward ports on your routers to different devices on your network will appreciate this can be a time consuming process (a work of art!!).  Not being able to back up all of these important settings is just crazy.

 

It's a shame because the BT2700HGV has the making of a good router.  It can give loads of stats and information about your connection which would be great for troubleshooting problems.  It just cant retain the same static IP (remember I have the same set of IP's and the Netgear can retain it no problem).

 

I'd like to hear what others think or have experienced with STATIC IP addresses using the BT2700HGV.

Am I the only person why likes my router to always have the same static IP address?

 

Thanks for reading this far 🙂

 

8 REPLIES 8

alastair
Grand Guru

1) Get just one static IP address from BT and then the BT2700 router will keep the same IP address for ever.  Can anyone confirm this is true?  I logged in to my account last night and was goinf to change my 5 static IP's to just 1 static IP but it looked like BT were going to charge us £5 a month for 1 static IP. Eh! This means that 5 static IP's are included for free but if you want one static IP (that is really static) it costs £5pm?

 

 

the 5 or 13 statics also cost per month. and yes it will always use the same ip address on the WAN with the single static ip. 5 or 13 use a "peer address" on the routers WAN which is essentially a dynamic ip

 

 

 

 

 

I'd like to hear what others think or have experienced with STATIC IP addresses using the BT2700HGV.

 

Am I the only person why likes my router to always have the same static IP address?

 

 

I have used netgears in place of the BT 2700 for many reasons mainly that the netgear you can configure off site and when it is plugged in as long as you have configured it correctly... it will just work. the 2700 however is a pain to set up unless certain conditions are met. mainly that the router needs to do DHCP so that it can register the devices and you can manipulate what ip to give them etc.

 

 

 

 

=~~= All Glory to the Hypnotoad! =~~=

EssoOil
Member

Thanks Alastair, your explaination about "peer addresses" helps me understand this situation a lot better.

 

Also, I had heard that DHCP had to be enabled on the BT2700 for certain IP features to work.  For me, the HUGE problem with this is that we have a Windows Small Business Server and one of the very first things I remember being told before I configured our server is that it likes to be the ONLY DHCP device on the network. To the extend that if a Windows Server detects another DHCP device it will disable its own DHCP capability - something you don't want to happen.  You would always want your Windows Server to be the master device for dishing out IP addresses and also for DNS purposes.

 

As the for 5 IP's also costing, when I changed my selection to 1 IP it said I would be charged £15 per quarter - it certainly didnt look like the price would stay the same (which I would have been happy with). I didnt proceed with the downgrade.

 

If I was going to stick with the BT2700 I might well downgrade but as there's no backup feature combined with your comments I'll be getting another Netgear.

 

Really appreciate your comments.

 

EssoOil
Member

I'm the originator of this post.  I have learned so much about this during the past week I thought I would post what I consider to be quite a helpful and detailed solution:-

 


Multiple static IP addresses from BT

 

Multiple static IP addresses from BT work different to how you might expect.  If you have 5 or 13 IP addresses your routers WAN IP will be assigned a ‘peer address’ that will be totally different to the static IP's you have.  A ‘peer address’ is essentially a dynamic IP address so depending on what router you use your routers WAN IP (your address on the internet) will change regularly.  Not ideal if you want to connect remotely or if you are using a server for emails or remote working.

 

If you don’t need to connect remotely or if it's not important for your router to always have the same IP address the rest of this will not be relevant (but it might still be interesting).  Read on...

 


Peer IP addresses

 

A peer IP address is a gateway for your range of static IP addresses.  Static IP addresses are NOT normally assigned to devices by the ISP. You will usually set your static IP addresses up yourself, pointing them to the various devices on your network.

 

It is possible to use the standard router supplied by BT (2700GHV) to assign your multiple static IP addresses to different devices on your network such as a server or webcam.  The BT 2700HGV router then (somehow) tells BT what your current peer address is so that you can always connect remotely to your devices.

 

However, this is a complicated way of doing things. Before the BT2700HGV can assign your static IP’s to devices on your network its DHCP needs to be enabled.  This might not be a problem for some people, but if you have a Windows server you definitely don’t want your router to have DHCP enabled because a Windows server likes to be the only DHCP device on a network (if a Windows server detects another DHCP device on the Network it will disable its own DHCP capability).

 


But all is not lost. There are two simple solutions to make sure that your router always has the same IP address without using a dynamic peer address and without using the routers DHCP.


SOLUTION 1: To get the BT 2700HGV router to always have the same IP address you need to change your IP package with BT from 5 or 13 static IP addresses to just one static IP address.  I have not tried this myself, but have been told that if you only have one static IP address the BT 2700HGV will always remember it.  This means you can always connect remotely to your router and then create port forwarding rules to connect to the various devices on your network.  For those of you who use a Windows server you don’t need to have DHCP enabled on the 2700HGV.


SOLUTION 2): Use a better router like a Netgear. I have 5 static IP addresses with BT and use a Netgear DG834 router (£40 PC World).  This router allows you to enter a static IP address in the “Static IP” field so it always has the same WAN IP address on the internet.  This makes remote connections easy.  A Netgear will also allow you to backup your routers configuration which you have probably spent many hours configuring. The BT 2700HGV has no way of backing up it’s configuration.

 


How do I know all of this?

 

The reason I know so much about this is that I’ve been though it all.  A while back we had some problems with our BT broadband dropping out.  I thought it might have been our Netgear router so I connected the BT 2700HGV router that we got when we ordered the broadband to see if that helped.  I tired for ages to get the 2700 to remember my static IP address (like the Netgear had done for 18 months without a problem). I tried everything; I looked on the internet, user forums etc. etc.

 

After spending 5 hours I eventually rang BT (at 1am!!) who said that their static IP addresses didn’t work like that with the 2700HGV.  The advisor actually said that Netgear were better routers.  This is when I found out all about peer IP addresses.  It was the BT adviser who said that if I wanted to get the BT2700HGV to always have the same static WAN IP address the easiest thing to do was change my IP package from 5 static IP’s to just one static IP. Then the IP would really be ‘static’ and the router would remember it.

 

In the end I reverted back to the Netgear DG834 v3 router and have just entered one of the static IP addresses into the static IP field in the routers configuration.  My router always has the same WAN IP address.

 

Hope this helps (and well done to those of you who have read this entire post 🙂

 

breezeit
Member

Many thanks for a great summary EssoOil

 

I have recently been 'conned' (thats how I feel anyway) into transfering my previous static IP broadband over to BT Business Broadband.

 

After battling all day with my BT Business Hub 2700 to give me a static IP and then 5 useable IP's I have contacted BT and read a few forums and found that the static IPs are nothing of the sort.

 

The current capabilities of this hub and the peer IP setup is surely utterly useless for Business use. All I want is a known public IP presentation from my hub for VPN's, allocation of public static IP for my Exchange server and a static IP for remote desktop. The Business Broadband Static IP offering with the 2700 just does not do this. Until I can speak to the tech team tomorrow all I am able to do is set my MX record to the dynamic IP address that my hub is currently assigned, (forget my VPN and RDP requirements)....utter madness bearing in mind that it will probably have changed tomorrow.

 

This peer IP setup is vital pre order info for business users if you ask me.

 

To summarise if you are thinking of getting BT Business Broadband with multiple fixed IPs, you DO NOT have a fixed IP presented to the outside world from the hub

 

I'll see what happens tomorrow with the tech team

RichCreedy
Super User

peered static ip adresses work perfectly well, if you understand how to setup your equipment.

 

for instance website directs to one of my static ip addresses, i can remote into my server and desktops, using other static ip addresses, the fact that my router has a dynamic ip address is irrelevant.

 

the way peered static ip addresses works, is a little more complex than a pure static ip address.

 

peered static ip addresses are based on your routers adsl login information. hence for business broadband you have to use a specific account and password. so your router logs into the bt network, it gets a dynamic ip address, which is also logged with the servers that provide your static ip addresses, so that your peered static ip addresses are forwarded to your dynamic ip address.

 

you then apply static ip addresses to your devices via either the router(netgear FVS336g) or on the machines themselves (requires dhcp to be turned off).

 

the method i use is the above mentioned router, with static ip's sent to specific dynamic ip's within my network.

this method works particularly well when hosting multiple websites on 1 server, as you can assign each static ip address to the same machine, but using different ports.

 

i should point out, that the dg834 isn't a professional router, and i personally use more expensive equipment for my business broadband (2 adsl lines, 1 business one home broadband, as i work from home) i have tied them both together using that netgear FVS336G, using 2 dm111p modems.

breezeit
Member

Hi Rich

 

I'm sure it is possible if you have a the knowledge, happy to purchase other equipment, or completely change the way your network is set up.

 

I was expecting to be assigned a range of static IP addresses and have the ability to route any of the IPs provided in the 5 static IP setup to private IP's within my network using BT supplied equipment, straight out the box. This is what we had prior to moving to BT and the (wrong) assumption is that BT would supply the same setup

 

It would have been nice to know before we moved that this is the way BT handle their 5 fixed IP offering (peered static IP)

 

I think future purchasers of BT Business Broadband 5 fixed IP should be aware.

 

 

EssoOil
Member

Hi Breezeit,

 

Although Rich is correct, he admits his way is more complicated.  My method is simple and the router only costs forty quid.

 

I run a server (Small Business Server 2008) and use the following remote services:-

 

  • Outlook Web Access (owa)
  • Remote Web Workplace (rww)
  • Company web (intranet)
  • Push emails via IMAP
  • Remote Desktop (RD)
  • VPN for remote file access

 

I easily do all of this using just one static IP.  This is entered into my Netgear DG834 and never changes.  I always have the same IP address in the internet  - just like you want.

 

For owa, rww, company web and IMAP mobile push emails I point my A record to my fixed IP.

 

e.g. https://remote.myname.com or https://remote.myname.com/owa etc

 

 

    I then port forward on the Netgear as follows:-

 

  • Outlook Web Access (owa) - port 443 to 192.168.0.xx
  • Remote Web Workplace (RWW) - port 4125 to 192.168.0.xx
  • Company web - port 987 to 192.168.0.xx
  • Push emails via IMAP - port 143 to 192.168.0.xx
  • Remote Desktop (RD) - port 3389 to 192.168.0.xx
  • VPN - port 1723 to 192.168.0.xx
  •  

    I never use any of my other 4 IP's.

     

    Buy a Netgear DG834 from PC World for less than £40 and do all of this today.

     

    Rgds - Esso

    Simmy
    Member

    I Agree with the above but have also noted the following:

     

    In the past (a few years ago), bog standard Netgear DGxx routers would let you enter in 1 of the 5 BT static IP's without requiring a subnet or default gateway and it would just work. Let you configure NAT using an inside local IP range and port forward from the WAN to local IP numbers.

     

    It now doesn't seem to work this way, (did BT change things or have router settings changed)? As others have mentioned, if you enter one of the static IP's you get no connection, but if you use dynamic (e.g. let ISP provide the IP) it connects but with a different IP from your range.

     

    What is strange - is that if you use something like a Cisco 800 series router, you can still give the WAN one of your BT static IP's with the relevant subnet (usually 255.255.255.248) no need to specify a default gateway and it works.

     

    Lets you use NAT and an inside local IP range and port forward etc, you can also add other Static IP's from your range and port forward to different devices on your inside local IP range. Ok I know Cisco's are better kit and more expensive, but how do they manage to work when the others don't ?