County Broadband

[Davey]

Does anyone have any experience of them?

They are trying really hard to get local East Anglian villages signed
up to their FTTP service.

--
Davey.

[Theo]

Not directly. A nearby village had them at the 'meeting in the village
hall' stage, but then COVID struck. If I search for the postcode it says
there were some online meetings in the summer, but no more info since then.

In that village houses along the A-road had Openreach FTTP (replaced 3.5km
exchange only lines I think) but most of the village was on VDSL, so
presumably County were targeting the VDSL folks.

Theo

[Graham J]

Here we have VDSL from Openreach (and all their resellers). County
Broadband have been promoting themselves very hard, and have posters in
some front gardens - they look like estate agents' boards. They have
also installed some green tubes (about half-inch plastic pipe) through
the Openreach ducts so presumably ready for their own fibre.

I send them some technical questions via their website a week ago -
received an automatic read receipt but nothing else.

I have an email address for one of their sales people so will try him
with the same technical questions. Watch this space.

When Openreach discontinue POTS in 2025 there will be some additional
merit in FTTP.

--
Graham J

[Graham J]

Graham J wrote:
> Theo wrote:
>> Davey <da...@example.invalid> wrote:
>>> Does anyone have any experience of them?
>>>
>>> They are trying really hard to get local East Anglian villages signed
>>> up to their FTTP service.
>>
>> Not directly.  A nearby village had them at the 'meeting in the village
>> hall' stage, but then COVID struck.  If I search for the postcode it says
>> there were some online meetings in the summer, but no more info since
>> then.
>>
>> In that village houses along the A-road had Openreach FTTP (replaced
>> 3.5km
>> exchange only lines I think) but most of the village was on VDSL, so
>> presumably County were targeting the VDSL folks.
>>
>> Theo
>>
>
> Here we have VDSL from Openreach (and all their resellers).  County
> Broadband have been promoting themselves very hard, and have posters in
> some front gardens - they look like estate agents' boards.  They have
> also installed some green tubes (about half-inch plastic pipe) through
> the Openreach ducts so presumably ready for their own fibre.
>

> I sent them some technical questions via their website a week ago -

> received an automatic read receipt but nothing else.
>
> I have an email address for one of their sales people so will try him
> with the same technical questions. Watch this space.
>
> When Openreach discontinue POTS in 2025 there will be some additional
> merit in FTTP.

To follow up my own post: my requirement is to use several LAN-to-LAN
VPNs so I would need to use my own Ethernet router. They eventually
responded to my questions with some answers, as follows:

- A public static IP address is available for a fixed fee of £5 per
month on a residential package.

- The router used is Altice Labs, fibre gateway router GR240BG

I looked this up but could not see answers to the following questions:

Q1. Do I get the admin username and password so I can manage the router?

Q2. Can I configure the device in Modem Mode so I can connect it to my
router's Ethernet WAN port? What will be the PPPoE credentials that I
will then need to apply in my router?

Q3. Can I completely disable the WiFi service?

It's now 4 weeks since I asked these questions, and no response yet.
Draw your own conclusions ...

--
Graham J

[Martin Brown]

You are asking for complex configurations but seem unable to find or
understand the user manuals for the router. My sympathies are with
whoever you end up with as your ISP. Customer form hell writ large.

Are you so inept with Google that you cannot find;
https://fccid.io/2ACJF-FGW-GR240BG/User-Manual/User-manual-3734154

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[Graham J]

Martin Brown wrote:

[snip]

> You are asking for complex configurations but seem unable to find or
> understand the user manuals for the router. My sympathies are with
> whoever you end up with as your ISP. Customer form hell writ large.
>
> Are you so inept with Google that you cannot find;
> https://fccid.io/2ACJF-FGW-GR240BG/User-Manual/User-manual-3734154
>

I have that manual and I have read it. Have you?

It doesn't answer my questions.

--
Graham J

[Tim+]

Page 44. Press and hold WPS button for 5 seconds to toggle Wi-Fi on/off.

Tim

--
Please don't feed the trolls

[Graham J]

Tim+ wrote:

[snip]

>>
>> I have that manual and I have read it. Have you?
>>
>> It doesn't answer my questions.
>>
>
> Page 44. Press and hold WPS button for 5 seconds to toggle Wi-Fi on/off.
>
> Tim
>

What about:

Q1. Do I get the admin username and password so I can manage the router?

Q2. Can I configure the device in Modem Mode so I can connect it to my
router's Ethernet WAN port? What will be the PPPoE credentials that I
will then need to apply in my router?

--
Graham J

[Tim+]

Not my problem. ;-). I did at least answer one of your questions. A “thank
you” would be an appropriate response.

[Graham J]

Tim+ wrote:

[snip]

>>
>>
>> What about:
>>
>> Q1. Do I get the admin username and password so I can manage the router?
>>
>> Q2. Can I configure the device in Modem Mode so I can connect it to my
>> router's Ethernet WAN port? What will be the PPPoE credentials that I
>> will then need to apply in my router?
>>
>
> Not my problem. ;-). I did at least answer one of your questions. A “thank
> you” would be an appropriate response.

Thank you.

I must admit I hadn't expected that function to be on a button. All the
other routers I've ever met had it as an option on a configuration page.

But this ALTICE LABS GR240BG doesn't appear to have any configuration
facility accessible to the user. My suspicion is that it is configured
by downloading a new version of firmware over the fibre link. This -
from the point of view of the ISP - is actually a much better solution,
since the device could be monitored remotely, probably continuously; and
it avoids the problem of the user misconfiguring it..


--
Graham J

[Tim+]

Graham J <nob...@nowhere.co.uk> wrote:
> Tim+ wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>>
>>>
>>> What about:
>>>
>>> Q1. Do I get the admin username and password so I can manage the router?
>>>
>>> Q2. Can I configure the device in Modem Mode so I can connect it to my
>>> router's Ethernet WAN port? What will be the PPPoE credentials that I
>>> will then need to apply in my router?
>>>
>>
>> Not my problem. ;-). I did at least answer one of your questions. A “thank
>> you” would be an appropriate response.
>
> Thank you.

You’re welcome. ;-)

>
> I must admit I hadn't expected that function to be on a button. All the
> other routers I've ever met had it as an option on a configuration page.
>
> But this ALTICE LABS GR240BG doesn't appear to have any configuration
> facility accessible to the user. My suspicion is that it is configured
> by downloading a new version of firmware over the fibre link. This -
> from the point of view of the ISP - is actually a much better solution,
> since the device could be monitored remotely, probably continuously; and
> it avoids the problem of the user misconfiguring it..
>
>

I would agree that it doesn’t *seem* to have the normal user interface that
you’d expect in an ADSL/VDSL router. I was a bit surprised by this but
it’s probably the future.

[Woody]

Turn the fibre router wi-fi off as described above and connect your own
router to one of the fibre router LAN ports. Yes you will end up with
double NAT but in practice it makes little or no (almost) no difference
given your network is gigabit and your fibre is not far short of that.

Equally of course if it makes no difference to you you can turn DHCP off
in your router and leave the DNS blank, then the fibre router will
handle all DHCP and DNS but I doubt that is what you actually want or
need? :-))

[Graham J]

Woody wrote:

[snip]

> Turn the fibre router wi-fi off as described above and connect your own
> router to one of the fibre router LAN ports. Yes you will end up with
> double NAT but in practice it makes little or no (almost) no difference
> given your network is gigabit and your fibre is not far short of that.
>
> Equally of course if it makes no difference to you you can turn DHCP off
> in your router and leave the DNS blank, then the fibre router will
> handle all DHCP and DNS but I doubt that is what you actually want or
> need? :-))

No, my application needs the external public address on my router's WAN
port in order to implement a LAN-to-LAN VPN, so double NAT is out of the
question.

The static public IP address is a simple £5 extra per month on any
domestic package - expensive by comparison with Plusnet or Zen, but
comparable with BT. But this is implemented at the ISP's end, not in
the router.

Has anybody seen one of these County Broadband connections in the flesh?
Or is it all vapourware?




--
Graham J

[Davey]

We just received an update to the proposal for our village (this is the
OP).
It says that, if enough people place an order, construction will start
in 8 to 10 months. Thy are offering free connection, and free 12 months
service to allow existing contracts to run out.
I can't be bothered, I don't need it.

--
Davey.

[Graham J]

Davey wrote:

[snip]

> We just received an update to the proposal for our village (this is the
> OP).
> It says that, if enough people place an order, construction will start
> in 8 to 10 months. Thy are offering free connection, and free 12 months
> service to allow existing contracts to run out.
> I can't be bothered, I don't need it.

Yes, I've seen the same elsewhere. Some places have green ducts (like a
hosepipe) labelled "County Broadband" fixed to existing BT poles.

In theory its a good idea. Not because anybody needs the speed for a
domestic service, but because the reliability is potentially so much better.

It's a good idea because by 2025 all telephone traffic will be VoIP, see:

<https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/05/openreach-to-stop-selling-copper-phone-in-118-areas-go-fttp.html>

This means that your existing copper pair whether it comes direct from
the exchange or only from a nearby green cabinet will only carry the
broadband service. Which would be fair but for the fact that ADSL and
FTTC services are on the whole not sufficiently reliable.

Nearby lightning strikes can cause the line to re-sync, and there are
any number of other things that do the same - these are the things that
it's often a real challenge to find (as Davey knows).

Ordinarily a re-sync is nothing more than a minor irritation - even if
you're streaming a video the buffering probably copes with the 50
seconds or so needed. But for VoIP it means the call will be lost and
your IP phone has to re-establish its connection with the VoIP service -
which could take a few minutes since VoIP assumes a reliable supporting
IP connection.

By contrast, the exisiting analog phone service tolerates such noise -
you might hear a click or a splat but it's no more than an minor annoyance.

FTTP is immune to all such interference. So obviously if Openreach gets
FTTP installed everywhere, everything will be fine. But I can't see it
happening.

Somehow I doubt that County Broadband have the financial support to
install completely new infrastructure with free connections and free 12
months service before they get any income from the connection and calls.
My suspicions are further heightened by the fact that they can't
answer some only slightly technical questions.


--
Graham J

[Mark]

On 14/03/2021 15:39, Graham J wrote:
>
> I must admit I hadn't expected that function to be on a button.  All the
> other routers I've ever met had it as an option on a configuration page.

Many Netgear routers have an illuminated-when-on wifi push switch on the
top panel, next to the WPS push switch.