Advance IT help on North Coast

#1 You can use your own VPN router if the Claro supplied fiber modem/router combo allows you to disable all of its features and can operate in bridge mode only.

#2 Paid or Unpaid? Me.

chico bill said:

I'm willing to pay if and when I get a VPN router, but I can set up a router in bridge mode that part is easy, I am looking for a dedicated router behind a fiber modem - similar to a router behind a Motorola Surfbird on coax cable - but faster. Bridgemode slows things down - that is not my goal.

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Th CLARO supplied device has to operate in bridge mode, not the device you purchase. That might mean (as in probably means) you need the high level password for the CLARO modem/router and CLARO may not be willing to give you that password. If you cannot disable all of the features in the CLARO suppolied device, then what do you do? And how useful would your VPN router be if the CLARO device is not in simple bridge mode?

windeguy said:

the high level password for the CLARO modem/router

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Username= MAC address
Password= MAC address

(most of the time...)

Claro will not allow you to use a personal router (fiber or otherwise) on their network as the primary connection interface to their network. In otherwords, you can't supply your own GPON/fTTx modem.

That leaves you with their equipment connecting to the network and your VPN router having to connect to that for access the internet.

Claro is issuing modem/router/wifi combo units to residential customers. On the Claro equipment you need to disable DHCP, NAT tables, firewall etc and have your router handle those functions exclusively. The available config limitations of the equipment supplied by Claro ( Huawei is what I had) offers a single toggle to disable all router functions and that puts the Claro box into a passthru bridge mode.

It is not good form to have two active DHCP servers, firewalls or sets of translation tables on the same LAN. Unless you can shutdown all the overhead network operations on the Claro equipment, you end up performing double the overhead for each packet sent - and that will slow you down, IP leakage concerns not withstanding.

A related question: If you can get at the main set up of the CLARO router using the main password, can you set up the CLARO router to support the VPN service of your choice without the need for another secondary router?

A router capable of being configured to use a VPN globally will provide all of your connected devices a VPN tunnel. The caveat being, you need to supply a "modem only" connection to the Claro network. As far as I know, Claro does not offer a simple modem so you need that ability to disable those functions on the Claro equipment so that they are handled by your own router, that will be the only thing plugged into the Claro box.

You don't necessarily need to purchase a pre-configured VPN router, any router capable of global VPN will suffice and you have choices with Linksys, TP-Link, Netgear and just about any commercial grade router.

Residential grade routers that do not support global VPN that are supported by DD-WRT can be turned into what you want by installing DD-WRT. Thus you have lots of equipment choices available to you.

Two years ago, when I had Claro Fiber, the Claro equipment was configurable in the way I needed it to be. I do not have Claro service now so I do not know what equipment they are leaving behind when they hook you up. If you are already using Claro fiber without a 2nd router in place, go into your Claro modem/router config settings and see if you can find a setting option to enter bridge mode. It's usually in the advanced network settings section, and is not always labelled bridge mode specifically. It should be a single check box/option toggle. - DO NOT TOGGLE IT until you have a second router ready to go or you'll have to reset your modem to reverse that click.

windeguy said:

A related question: If you can get at the main set up of the CLARO router using the main password, can you set up the CLARO router to support the VPN service of your choice without the need for another secondary router?

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That would depend on whether or not the Claro equipment is capable of being configured to perform that function. I suspect not. Most supplied modem/router/wifi combos do not support 2.4 and 5G wifi simultaneously, do not come with configurable guest network access and are lacking most of the advanced set up options that the routers are capable of performing but have been omitted from the configuration interface by the manufacture. It boils down to manufacturing one motherboard of all the various models and limiting features on a per model basis via the software setup interface

Power users are almost always better off using their own router for wifi and cabled LAN connections. You can get much better routers than those supplied by the ISPs here. Turn the ISP equipment into a bridge and connect your own router for stronger wifi signals, beam forming technology, global VPN, dual band simultaneous wifi, guest networks etc.

Cdn_Gringo said:

That would depend on whether or not the Claro equipment is capable of being configured to perform that function. I suspect not. Most supplied modem/router/wifi combos do not support 2.4 and 5G wifi simultaneously, do not come with configurable guest network access and are lacking most of the advanced set up options that the routers are capable of performing but have been omitted from the configuration interface by the manufacture. It boils down to manufacturing one motherboard of all the various models and limiting features on a per model basis via the software setup interface

Power users are almost always better off using their own router for wifi and cabled LAN connections. You can get much better routers than those supplied by the ISPs here. Turn the ISP equipment into a bridge and connect your own router for stronger wifi signals, beam forming technology, global VPN, dual band simultaneous wifi, guest networks etc.

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Understood. In the scenario of using the CLARO unit in bridge mode, when you pay for X bits/sec to CLARO, are you losing any of that speed on account of the CLARO unit being in bridge mode? That question is independent of using a VPN.

Then the next question is when using your own higher end router in VPN mode attached to the CLARO unit in bridged mode, how much of the X bits/sec do you lose?

From my own experience, any potential loss of throughput has been negligible or at least within an acceptable margin. ISP max/min speeds are like battery life projections and gas mpg ratings for cars - they are never exactly what is promised and usually reflect a "best case/use scenario" which most will never see.

From day to day your throughput can vary based on network congestion, problems with the cabling between here and the US etc. I haven't seen or considered any loss of speed noticeable or a significant deviation from the norm. Sure now and then, I see less throughput but that's probably because everyone else is downloading GOT at the same time here. When everyone stops surfing to watch the show, the temporary situation immediately improves. It gets even better when everyone goes to bed.

Your use of a better router more than offsets any slight drop in throughput. In fact, with any speed above 6Mbits/s you won't even notice. Those at the very lowest end of the speed spectrum at 2 Mbits/s may see some degradation but only because they have so little work with.

chico bill said:

I am heading to the states and thinking of buying a pre-configured VPN flash router.
Two questions:
#1) Can this be configured with Claro Fiber ? (wanting to use a router with Express VPN so all devices are connected through a VPN service: printer, scanner, TV, cell phones, tablets and laptops)
#2) Is there a real skilled IT person someone has used on the North Coast who knows his way around the protocols and hardware setup ?

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You do not need to pay extra for a pre config router, just buy a mid grade or higher router most of them have a good vpn management software (not dd-wrt) already built it that allows you to using the OpenVPN protocol which will allow you to use the expressvpn, nordvpn or any of the other 100 vpn providers.

#1 - Yes it can be configured with Claro Fiber
#2 - I'm in the capital now but I used to live in north coast.

I currently have a dual router, dual ip (local & usa) setup and have claro fiber.

Router 1 - Claro Fiber - 25mbps down

Router 2 - Dual Band 2g & 5g Router with vpn installed on it - which gives me a usa ip address (11-15 mbps down)

The VPN will usually cut your normal internet speed in half on average depending on which server of the vpn service you connect to, from DR the speed using a server in miami will be faster than using a server in New York.

The claro information is on the bottom of the modem. I do not use in bridge mode.

Cdn_Gringo said:

Claro will not allow you to use a personal router (fiber or otherwise) on their network as the primary connection interface to their network. In otherwords, you can't supply your own GPON/fTTx modem.

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I am not on fiber with Claro.

I´m using a TP-Link TD-W8951ND ADSL+2 modem/router that I purchased and it works great. I turned off the Wi-Fi.

Connected to that I also have a Linksys WRT1900ACS dual band gigabit Wi-Fi router using ExpressVPN.

I set the Linksys VPN router to start giving out IP addresses from 150 up.

The ExpressVPN allows you to choose which attached devices use the VPN and which go through direct.
I have a couple connections that I prefer to be directly connected to the TP-link modem/router.

ExpressVPN has a kill-switch that stops traffic if the VPN is down.

That´s good and bad.

To circumvent that, I installed a 2 port Ethernet switch to "my" computer only.
One side goes to the TP-link router direct, the other side goes through the VPN router.
This allow me to switch manually to non-VPN if and when the occasion arises.
Note of caution, DON´T forget what position you left the switch!!!!

One thing I do not like about installing EXpressedVPN software on the Linksys router was that ExpressVPN´s software took away some of the features of the Linksys router, such as the ability to use the eSATA port.

If I had known that, I would have bought the lower priced Linksys WRT1200AC router.

PS:

Beware, Claro will insist that it´s "your" router that´s bad if you have an Internet problem.
They will connect theirs for a few seconds to prove you are wrong.
I had to argued repeatedly with the tech to prove him wrong, they are stubborn.
I proved the problem was still there by switching back and forth between mine and there modem/router.
Be prepared to defend your router, go back to using theirs and make sure the problem is not your modem/router.

PPS:

I switched the Claro system from using their 10.0.0.1 IP settings to 192.168.0.1 for uniformity reasons. one of my devices could not be switched to the 10.0.0.1 IP range.

The VPN will usually cut your normal internet speed in half on average depending on which server of the vpn service you connect to, from DR the speed using a server in miami will be faster than using a server in New York.

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This....which is why I prefer to use VPN only on my devices that need it.
On the other hand, I have a 160MB connection here at home so if the VPN connection cuts it in half communicating from NL to New York, it doesn't matter much. I can still stream all I want.
If you're on f'n Delancer in Sosua though, that can become an issue...half of the slug like speed they offer might not be enough anymore to stream HD or even at all.