TrueSpeed FTTH - bypassing crippled router

[www.GymRats.uk]

Hi all,

TrueSpeed Fibre are currently digging up the pavenents in our
neighbourhood so I've been looking into their offerings but have hit a
hiccup.

I currently have FTTC with Zen and a block of 8 static IP addresses (6
useable) and speeds around 12Mbps up and 65Mbps down.
I can get away with 2 assignable static IP addresses. Currerntly I
simply have my Zen user name and password in PPPoE client(?) on Draytek
2926 router and WAN port plugged into OpenReach box. Simple.

Naturally the synchronous speeds of Truespeed would be superior but even
their "business 200" package still appears to require their own router
although so far the "tech. Support" and sales are extremely vague to say
the least!

Perfect world I'd be able to get their 350Mbps offering, use my Draytek
to sign in and potentially then somehow push the connection through A&A
L2TP business service with multiple static IP addresses.

Has anyone managed to get around the annoyance of TrueSpeed's extreme
short sightedness and been able to hook up a router in place of their
own cripple-box?

Also, would running a connection through A&A L2TP tunnel add anything to
ping times?

Cheers - Pete

[Mark Undrill]

<snip>
As I understand it Truespeed completely lock down their router. The
customer has no access whatsoever. Not even to change passwords etc.
I've found their support to be less than vague so perhaps they're improving.

I think the best you could do is get them to put your Draytec into the
DMZ of their router. I believe they have done this for others. Then it
may be possible to use the VPN as you wish.

I don't have a Truespeed connection at present but am led to believe
that I will be blessed with one via "project gigabit" sometime in the
next year or so.

Mark

[Graham J]

Locally we have https://countybroadband.co.uk/ fibre-ing up the village.
I have some technical info from them, but as with TrueSpeed Fibre
their router does not allow user access to put it in modem mode so you
could use your own router. One of their premium services offers a
static IP but otherwise you may be limited by CGNAT.

All unbelievably short-sighted. I would be much more impressed if their
basic offering were IPv6 only and they provided an Ethernet modem
connected to their fibre.


--
Graham J

[Theo]

Graham J <nob...@nowhere.co.uk> wrote:

> Mark Undrill wrote:
> > <snip>
> > As I understand it Truespeed completely lock down their router. The
> > customer has no access whatsoever. Not even to change passwords etc.
> > I've found their support to be less than vague so perhaps they're
> > improving.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/05/rural-uk-fibre-isp-truespeed-criticised-for-restrictive-router.html
(also see comments)

Interestingly it seems they have separate ONT and router boxes, and it's the
router that's locked down.

> > I think the best you could do is get them to put your Draytec into the
> > DMZ of their router. I believe they have done this for others. Then it
> > may be possible to use the VPN as you wish.

That's what the article and comments above suggests.

> > I don't have a Truespeed connection at present but am led to believe
> > that I will be blessed with one via "project gigabit" sometime in the
> > next year or so.
>
> Locally we have https://countybroadband.co.uk/ fibre-ing up the village.
> I have some technical info from them, but as with TrueSpeed Fibre
> their router does not allow user access to put it in modem mode so you
> could use your own router. One of their premium services offers a
> static IP but otherwise you may be limited by CGNAT.

They say that you can, because that's what they told me. Since I don't have
one I can't really comment further.

> All unbelievably short-sighted. I would be much more impressed if their
> basic offering were IPv6 only and they provided an Ethernet modem
> connected to their fibre.

TBH what I would do is just get my own IPsec tunnel out over whatever
connection they provide. That could be AAISP L2TP, your own VPS or a third
party like Hurricane Electric (IPv6 only).

Theo

[www.GymRats.uk]

On 29/01/2022 08:32, Graham J wrote:

> Mark Undrill wrote:

>> I don't have a Truespeed connection at present but am led to believe
>> that I will be blessed with one via "project gigabit" sometime in the
>> next year or so.
>
> Locally we have https://countybroadband.co.uk/ fibre-ing up the village.
>  I have some technical info from them, but as with TrueSpeed Fibre their
> router does not allow user access to put it in modem mode so you could
> use your own router.  One of their premium services offers a static IP
> but otherwise you may be limited by CGNAT.
>
> All unbelievably short-sighted.  I would be much more impressed if their
> basic offering were IPv6 only and they provided an Ethernet modem
> connected to their fibre.

In all my years I've never used an ISP's router. I can't understand why
one can't simply be provided with user name and password and possibly
set WAN MAC address to match what they're expecting to be presented.
Surely their router conforms to a standardised set of connection options
and authentication protocols.
I'm wondering whether, like all(?) other ISP's the account username and
password would also be the router log in credentials. Need a bit of
insider technical knowledge. Is the only difference between the
"business" package and the "consumer" package the absence of their
router and the provision of user name/password I wonder?

The quest goes on...

[Theo]

www.GymRats.uk <nor...@here.con> wrote:
> In all my years I've never used an ISP's router. I can't understand why
> one can't simply be provided with user name and password and possibly
> set WAN MAC address to match what they're expecting to be presented.
> Surely their router conforms to a standardised set of connection options
> and authentication protocols.

It is typically because the box provides conditional access to their
network. In other words, if you got root on their box you can tamper with
the network to affect other people.

ADSL/VDSL doesn't have this property, because it's not a shared medium - you
have full use of the copper between you and the DSLAM at the telco. If you
mess with that it only affects your link.

GPON FTTP and DOCSIS cable are shared media, and so they don't want you to
connect your own kit to them in case you interfere with your neighbours.
The traditional solution to that is modem mode, where their router just does
the conditional access bit and passes ethernet through to your own box to do
the IP routing.

Unfortunately we've now gained a new front in the conditional access war
which is the in-router VOIP client. They don't want to expose that to their
users, hence they keep it in a locked-down box. That applies to BT, Sky and
other ISPs. It's actually not a big deal on DSL if you don't care about
telephony, because you can still swap out their router and lose access to
their VOIP (and use your own VOIP account instead).

Thus far it seems like these upstart ISPs have yet to get the memo.
(or sufficiently understaffed that they can't implement more than the bare
minimum)

> I'm wondering whether, like all(?) other ISP's the account username and
> password would also be the router log in credentials. Need a bit of
> insider technical knowledge. Is the only difference between the
> "business" package and the "consumer" package the absence of their
> router and the provision of user name/password I wonder?

It is interesting that the ISPReview thread indicates it's a standard
1000BASE-BX presentation at the ONT (which is a separate box running Linux,
with telnet access). I'd be very tempted to sniff the output of the ONT and
see what the traffic looks like.

Theo

[Tweed]

I thought with FTTP it was the ONT that was the device that prevented you
from messing up the shared network.

[Java Jive]

On 29/01/2022 13:17, Tweed wrote:

>
> Theo <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>> It is interesting that the ISPReview thread indicates it's a standard
>> 1000BASE-BX presentation at the ONT (which is a separate box running Linux,
>> with telnet access). I'd be very tempted to sniff the output of the ONT and
>> see what the traffic looks like.
>

> I thought with FTTP it was the ONT that was the device that prevented you
> from messing up the shared network.

Yes, in the past Theo has given me excellent technical information on
another subject, for which I remain grateful, but I do wonder about
this. Although retired now, I still have a legacy client, for whom I
did some work just before Christmas, and they have a Business Account
with BT, which gives them I think 7 static IPs, some of which are taken
up by BT's own termination box, into which is plugged directly the
client's DrayTek, which we set to the next available of the 7, with a
suitable subnet mask as per BT's instructions.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

[Theo]

Tweed <usenet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I thought with FTTP it was the ONT that was the device that prevented you
> from messing up the shared network.

In many 'altnets' (ie those which aren't Openreach), the ONT and router are
a single box. This seems more common when there isn't a split between
infrastructure owner and ISP.

For example, for at least 10 years Virgin have supplied a single cable
router, which is both network termination (modem) and wifi router. There's
a 'modem mode' by which you can turn the router part off, but you can't
replace their box. (as suffered by people with the SuperHub 3).

That's the way County Broadband do it, and the point of discussion with
Graham J as to whether they offer a modem mode (they told me they would;
he has heard otherwise).

In this case it seems that TrueSpeed /do/ have two separate boxes, but they
don't let you plug in your own router, for reasons claimed to be to do with
their VOIP service (and maybe provisioning via TR069, as a poster on the
ISPReview comments suggested).

If there is only one box, the ISP has to actively implement disabling parts
of the functionality for 'niche' users to use their own router. This seems
to be a long way down their priority lists. This is different from a
two-box setup where you just unplug the second box.

I can see the attraction of offering a single ONT, router, wifi and VOIP
endpoint, so I think this is going to be an ongoing battle.

Theo

[www.GymRats.uk]

On 29/01/2022 12:59, Theo wrote:


<Snip>

> It is interesting that the ISPReview thread indicates it's a standard
> 1000BASE-BX presentation at the ONT (which is a separate box running Linux,
> with telnet access). I'd be very tempted to sniff the output of the ONT and
> see what the traffic looks like.

Thanks for a great response Theo. It now makes much more sense and
clears up much of the confusion I was trying to get answers to.

I spoke to someone at Truespeed yesterday and the cost of their
"commercial" offering with the ONS in "bypass mode" and a block of 8
static IP addreses was up around the £80 mark and that was "only" on
their 200Mbps offering so unless I can find a clean and easy way around
their domestic offering and using something like A&A for static IP
block, for the moment it's looking like a lost cause.

Add to that there seem to be a lot of disgruntled users that signed up
for more money and lower speeds not getting "free" speed boosts like
most other ISP's have done in the past.

My other pondering is how long before Openreach start replacing the
copper last leg from FTTC to bring contended FTTP service?

Cheers - Pete

[Bruce Denney]

I simply added my own router and got them to make a DMZ to my own router, I have full control.

It is stupid as it adds an extra unneeded router (that crashes more often than I would like) but it is a workable solution.

[Brian Gregory]

On 09/01/2023 12:33, Bruce Denney wrote:
> I simply added my own router and got them to make a DMZ to my own router, I have full control.
>
> It is stupid as it adds an extra unneeded router (that crashes more often than I would like) but it is a workable solution.

As in the typical mis-named "DMZ" feature that just forwards everything
to one device on the main network, or an actual isolated DMZ network?

--
Brian Gregory (in England).