Full fibre broadband has been installed in the village.
Looking at the company website, it describes installation as an engineer installing an Optical Network Terminal and setting up your router.
It's not clear if a new router is supplied or not.
Can any router connect to the ONT?
Thing is, I'm happy with my Asus router and I have Express VPN installed that replaces the standard firmware, however, the VPN firmware does not give you as much control over the configuration that the original Asus firmware did.
Does anyone have any knowledge of this?
I will contact the provider tomorrow but I think it will just be sales people with little technical knowledge.
If you can set a WAN port on the Asus router to be an Ethernet port rather than the dsl port, then yes it will work
WAN (Internet) port
Connect a network cable into this port to establish WAN connection.LAN 1 ~ 4 ports
Connect network cables into these ports to establish LAN connection.
From the manual. This is what I have.
The problem is the VPN firmware has replaced the Asus firmware and offers little control over the detailed settings.
My "guess" is it should work as it'll auto negotiate address/other settings. We just plugged our TP mesh directly into the ONT and away it went. The only caveat is if the VPN has some funky routing set up to bridge between the LAN and the VPN. But can't hurt trying it.
Usually any router can connect to the ONT but you may need to be able to VLAN tag the WAN port to allow the connection to the ISP to proceed. What does the provider's support docs say about own equipment use? Some of them don't allow own kit use so check this before signing on the dotted line.
You may need to remove the VPN firmware to make a connection then re-install the firmware.
If they do supply a wifi router, could it be as simple as connecting my current router with VPN, to a LAN port on their router?
Which company is it?
Most of my family are now on AirBand fibre, and they supply a Nokia Beacon unit, but we all use our existing mesh units. A mix of Tenda and TP-Link with no issues. As you say, plug the base unit into the port on the ONT and it works. Standard software though.
At my parents, the installer did plug their Tenda into the Nokia which was in turn plugged into the ONT. It did work, but I removed the unnecessary Nokia.
The company is Go Fibre.
They are offering 150mps for £25/month, 300mps for £30, 500mps for £33 and 1000mps for £40.
I'm tempted by the 500mps, although I currently get about 70mps with FTTC and everything works fine.
Plusnet have managed to put my bill up to £54 a month for that. My registered email with them was lost a couple of years ago, so got no notice from them.
Been through this recently and originally had the mesh router plugged directly into the fibre box, the BRSK router (which is garbage) is now back in the mix as the missus still wanted a 'landline otherwise the BRSK router would now be in storage.
Do you actually need a VPN?
This is what I have.
If the WAN port is RJ45 - ie, the same size as the others - it should just work. If it's RJ11 - a bit smaller - then you'll need to use their router.
RJ11 is typical for a regular DSL connection (and by typical, I mean I've never seen anything else). If it is RJ45 then there's another device somewhere such as an ISP-supplied router or a Virgin cable box.
VPN is needed for "certain" IPTV streams I watch.
The WAN port is RJ45 and is connected to an "old" BT Broadband Modem. I got it so I could use any router I wanted.
In that case plug it in and it will most likely work fine. Worst case you can plug into the ISP router lan port instead but straight to the ONT would be my choice.
The WAN port is RJ45 and is connected to an “old” BT Broadband Modem. I got it so I could use any router I wanted.
Right. So you should just be able to take that out of the equation and plug directly into your router from the ONT.
Spoke with them yesterday.
I have ordered 500mb with a VOIP phone and keeping our current landline number. £45 per month. Better than £66 per month for 70mbs and a landline from Plusnet.
They are not quite ready to install at my address but from their postcode checker I can see they are literally about 100 metres away. Although I haven't seen many of their vans recently.
They do supply a wifi router but confirmed I can plug any router in and it will work. They did say they "recommended" using their stuff but you don't have to.
Point of order, you can't use "any" router, you'll specifically need one where the WAN side is Ethernet. I know you've said this is what you have, I'm just posting for the benefit of anyone else reading this for advice. Many people upgrading to FTTP will be coming from ADSL and an ADSL router won't work here.
The "recommended" part is most likely to be for support purposes, the ISP-supplied router is a known quantity for the Tech Support team.
Using an VPN all the time for everything at the router level is proper tin foil hat brigade stuff, and I'm surprised it doesn't cause more hassle than it's worth.
VPN is needed for “certain” IPTV streams I watch.
I'd be doing the VPN at device level. eg. if I was *ahem* doing similar I would be using a VPN on the device that I'm using to watch the IPTV on. For instance, in my entirely hypothetical example, I'd be switching on a VPN on my an Apple TV as and when it's needed.
Using an VPN all the time for everything at the router level is proper tin foil hat brigade stuff, and I’m surprised it doesn’t cause more hassle than it’s worth.
I have Samsung TV's. I couldn't find a way of installing the VPN app on it directly, the VPN provider recommended putting on the router.
It has made no difference to the functionality of anything I use, apart from the IPTV feeds, which now work.
If I get any issues I will probably just go the Firestick route but it's all good for now.
If its any help, when I changed from plusnet FTTC to plusnet FTTP, I didn't get a new router, the existing one works fine.
If you change providers I'd assume you'll get a new router from them regardless.
It has made no difference to the functionality of anything I use, apart from the IPTV feeds, which now work.
Fair enough. For some reason I had assumed you were using the VPN to alter your location, but that is probably not what you are doing.
One thing to bare in mind though is that sending everything via a VPN might mean you do not get the full download speed your FTTP is capable of. I just ran a speedtest on my Apple TV. Without VPN I got the solid 935 Mbps download speed I always get, but when I turn the VPN on I get 248 Mbps. Providers and servers will vary, but routing everything via a 3rd party might well mean you reduce your download speed and will add latency.
Fair enough. For some reason I had assumed you were using the VPN to alter your location, but that is probably not what you are doing.
I don't really know what it's doing to be honest. The IPTV feeds weren't working before I installed the VPN and now they are.
However, the VPN is sending it through a UK server????
It does reduce the speed but I can switch it on and off as required. I can also install the standard Asus firmware at any time.
Regarding speed, I only get 70 Mbps at the best of times, with FTTC. The VPN drops that to 25 - 30 but it's still sufficient for me. Although I'm looking forward to 300 Mbps full fibre.
There's only 2 of us at home, so we don't need massive bandwidth.
My guess* based on the last post is the IPTV streams might need some specific firewall ports opening on your router, which are blocked by default. The VPN bypasses this issue as that stream is carried inside the VPN tunnel so therefore not exposed to the firewall. When SIP phones first came out, this used to be a quick fix to the problem of firewall rules
*been a while since I did this stuff so could be talking carp
I would guess that the IPTV streams are being actively blocked by his ISP, the same way they block access to Pirate Bay, etc.
@zilog6128 - I think that's what happening. If the VPN is on I can access Pirate Bay, switched off I can't.
sending everything via a VPN might mean you do not get the full download speed your FTTP is capable of
I’d say ‘…will mean…’ from experience of playing with various VPNs. But if the VPN speed is sufficient for your stuff it’s not a big problem. It’d be just like inserting your own throttling into the connection. Worse was the effect on latency & jitter with the VPNs I tried.
OP, depending on your router firmware you might have some settings for VPN policy rules. You could set these to apply to the IP addresses you have assigned to your TVs and other devices that need the VPN. This would leave other traffic untouched and able to make the most of your 500Mbps connection.
To install the VPN I had to install the VPN's firmware.
It doesn't allow as much control over the settings as the Asus firmware.
I only switch it on for the TV.