Huawei ws329: review, setup and firmware

Enter the “Home Network” tab”

Go to the “Wi-Fi Settings” tab;
Check the box “Smart network coverage”;
Check the “Enable Wi-Fi” field;
Next, come up with and print the original name of your Wi-Fi in the “SSID” field;
Check the “Enable SSID” box;
Set “WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK”;
In the column below, enter “TKIP AES”;
Then independently come up with and print the access code to your Wi-Fi;
Having completed entering all the parameters, you must click “Save”, otherwise the device will not remember the adjustments.

Users who prefer to remotely control the router settings are recommended to use the official resource and install the “Huawei RuMate” program on their mobile device.

Huawei ws329 — review and setup

Huawei WS329 wireless WiFi router is an entry-level model in a line of three budget broadband access devices (WS319, WS329 and WS330) from the famous Chinese manufacturer of networking and telecommunications equipment, which is increasingly advancing in the mass SOHO segment of the market.

At the time of writing, the price of the device is about 1300 rubles. It is slightly more productive than the WS319 due to the Ralink RT63365E chip used, which, although not much, is faster. This chip is purely budget with a low clock frequency. As an example of use, I can give the universal router Upvel UR354AN4G.

Otherwise, the characteristics of the device are not particularly remarkable and are almost identical for all three models of the line:
— FastEthernet 10/100 Mbit/s network switch: 1xWAN and 4xLAN
— Wi-Fi module 802.11n, 2.4 GHz, maximum theoretical speed up to 300 Mbit/s
— 2 fixed antennas with a coefficient of 5dBi
The packaging is typical for an inexpensive device and is more than sufficient for it — LAN cable, power supply and mini-instructions.

At the time of writing, the current firmware version is V100R001C199B011. She is English speaking. There is full support for IPTV digital television, including using VLAN 802.1Q. Of the obvious problems, the only obvious problem can be identified is the unstable operation of the VPN using the L2TP protocol. No other significant problems were identified.

Hardware configuration

The printed circuit board occupies only part of the housing. The router is based on the Ralink RT63365E processor. The volume of the RAM module is 32 MB, 4 MB flash is installed for the firmware.

A network switch (all ports are 10/100 Mbit/s) is built into the processor, and an external Ralink RT5392L chip (802.11n, 2.4 GHz, 2T2R, up to 300 Mbit/s) was added to implement Wi-Fi. . The antenna cables are soldered to the board, but there are also micro connectors.

Note that there are no radiators on the microcircuits, but they are located on the bottom side of the board. However, during testing we did not notice any problems with overheating. On the board you can see a group of pads for a console connection, but access is blocked by an unknown password.

Testing was carried out with firmware version V100R001C199B011 provided by the manufacturer.

Dynamic IP address (dhcp)

This type of connection is used in TTK-Ural and some branches of Rostelecom. It is also used to operate Beeline’s local network, and will soon be used by this telecom operator as the main one for accessing the Internet.

In the “Internet Connection” connection list, create a new one or edit an existing connection using the “Edit” button:

The “Enable Connection” and “INTERNET” checkboxes must be checked — otherwise the connection will not work. In the “Connection Type” list, you need to set the connection type to “IP routing (IP)”. The NAT Type should be set to “NAPT”, and the addressing type should be “IPv4 addresing type” — “DHCP”.

Click the “Save” button.

Additional settings

Since the router is single-band, residents of apartment buildings may need to tune to a more unoccupied channel, and also adjust the power of the Wi-Fi transmitter.

All this can be done in the additional settings section, which is located in the “Wi-Fi Settings” tab.

Configuration via web interface

In order to set it up correctly, you need to have an agreement with your communication service provider in front of you. It indicates the type of connection used, for example, PPPoE, IPoE, etc., as well as information about the client account: access code and name.

Rostelecom clients should perform the following sequential actions:

Open the “Internet” tab;
Go to the “Internet Settings” tab;
In the “Connection type” position, indicate “PPP”;
From the contract documents with the service provider, copy the name into the “Internet account” column, enter the access code in the password position — it is also included in the contract;
Having completed entering all the parameters from the agreement, you must click “Save”, otherwise the device will not remember the adjustments.

If the user is a Kyivstar client, then most likely the router was provided to him by the provider. Their subscribers need to perform the following several actions when connecting to IPoE:

Follow steps numbered “1” and “2” from the previous instructions, which are described above for Rostelecom subscribers;
Check the “Enable” box;
Specify the type of connection “IP — routing”;
Check the “Clone MAC” box;
In the drop-down menu of the “Addressing type” column, indicate “DHCP”;
Having completed entering all the parameters, you must click “Save”, otherwise the device will not remember the adjustments.

Connect to PC

The first thing you need to do when setting up the Huawei WS329 Beeline router is:

connect the device’s Ethernet cable to your PC;
check the connection is correct;
make sure that the cable is connected correctly and was recognized by the computer;
diagnose the device.

In addition, it would be a good idea to check your device for viruses by scanning the antivirus program installed on your computer.

Productivity

We were unable to test the device with Beeline Internet — the L2TP connection was apparently established, but access to the Internet did not work. The lack of detailed logs and diagnostic tools made it impossible to understand the situation.

So only synthetic benchmarks were used to test performance. Since the router only has 100 Mbit/s ports, we tested it on the version of the stand used in most previous materials.

All options for connecting to the Internet were checked.

When using IPoE, PPPoE and PPTP modes, the user can count on almost full channel speed of 100 Mbit/s. Higher load in the L2TP client reduces the maximum speed to 60-70 Mbit/s. In addition, it should be noted that the latter option turned out to be not very stable in tests — prolonged operation under high load led to loss of connection.

The router is capable of providing access to the provider’s local network simultaneously with VPN connections to the Internet. There are no comments regarding the speed of operation in this mode; the indicators are shown in the following graph.

When loaded by a p2p client, the router in all modes except L2TP showed a real operating speed of 8.5 MB/s, while the number of connections was 500 or more (no restrictions were set in the client). With L2TP, work in this scenario was unstable, which once again confirms the poor implementation of this function in the firmware version under review.

The router has a wireless module with a maximum connection speed of 300 Mbit/s. However, in practice, in the presence of neighboring networks, it cannot use a wide channel, so you can only count on 144.4 Mbit/s. However, given the use of 100 Mbit/s wired ports, this should not be considered a significant limitation on the Internet access speed of wireless devices.

Wi-Fi speed testing was carried out with a TP-Link TL-WDN4800 adapter. The distance between the devices was about 4 meters. The router was configured to operate in the 802.11n standard with a 20/40 MHz band and WPA2-PSK AES protection. The numbers represent the speed of operation of a wireless client with a PC in the LAN segment and with a server on the Internet for various connection options.

The results of the wireless controller performance test can be considered good for the hardware configuration used. In all modes except L2TP, the client can count on 85-95 Mbit/s when working over Wi-Fi.

In general, the device performed quite well for the segment and hardware configuration under consideration. Apart from L2TP, the implementation of which clearly requires improvement, the router can be effectively used with connections with speeds up to 100 Mbit/s inclusive.

Relay mode

The device is capable of working as a bridge, that is, as a repeater.

To do this, you need to open the “Home Network” tab and go to the “WDS (bridge mode)” section, where you activate the mode of relaying an existing Wi-Fi signal from the main wireless router.

Reset

The manufacturer has provided two methods for resetting the router settings:

By pressing the two-function key “RST/WPS”;
Via the web configurator. In the main menu of the interface, you will need to go to the “Reset settings” tab, then click on the virtual button of the same name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs_p8YUZR84

The first method is more convenient, since it is not always possible to open and get into the router configurator without first reverting the settings to the factory state, so let’s consider it in more detail.