UK specific - Vodafone Home Broadband

[laravente]

Hi

Looking to move my home broadband connection from Virgin cable across to an FTTP service, probably from Vodafone as I can get an attractive deal on their 500/70Mbps service but have a few questions about their service that hopefully somebody can answer https://omegle.onl/ https://vshare.onl/.

1. Do they use CGNAT?

2. Do they use IPv6 or IPv4?

3. Can I connect my own firewall/router (pfSense in my case) direct to the ONT and swerve using their all-in-one wifi/router box?

4. I've read that you can request a free static IP to be assigned, is that (still) true?

5. They also include a dongle for a backup 4G connection, could that be used with a pfSense box for a failover connection or is it tied to their own modem/router

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

[Cynric]

@SimonHayterUK Your comments about restricted hardware for PfSence are misleading. Both PfSence and OPNSence are based on FreeBSD which has a very wide hardware platform.

Discussion about dongles in relation to firewall software isn't much help either as the dongle is connected to the router.

I'm happy to discuss BSD as I used to be a code contributor to the project.

[SimonHayterUK]

Yes and no, while it's true you can get most things work and yes it's Free BSD,  most often it's hassle and not out of the box, a prime example is it's recommended to use intel nics instead of realtec, because generally they are better supported from the offset with no messing around. Also, the community is a lot more helpful when you use such devices as they are familiar with ones that work out of the box.

In relation to the dongle, Im sure there are others you can use but I doubt there is any support for the one that is bundled with the router by Vodafone, unless you have heard something I haven't.

Using a WAN2 as a failover is one of the most recognised methods in any business. USB is fair less reliable hence why Intel does not release wired usb 3.1 nics, so my recommendation would always be to use a ethernet modem or 4g/5g router. And that's not even mentioning the fact the dongles have smaller antennas. Then we can also way more what about the positioning of the device? 4g and 5g can work great outside but the reliability and speed quickly drops off once in doors, so being able to position the device somewhere in the building is a huge plus whole a dongle, yea you can use passive usb cables, but why... My 2 cents

[Cynric]

@SimonHayterUK RealTec is not a problem, use pkg-add(8) and pull the relevant kmod. 

The dongle is attached to the VF router which itself is supposed to fail-over to 4/5G. I'm not going to suggest in the slightest that the change over is anything but slow. But hey, all you need is an off-the-shelf 4/5G portable router attached to your LAN and away you go as it will be always in circuit. You'll have to adjust the gateway settings.

If you really want a "full fat" 4/5G fail over solutions there are plenty of commercial grade ones, but they are far too expensive for my home use.

[SimonHayterUK]

Hi, 

You sound familar with PFSense and in that case you could use it. A lot of people assume its easy to use software, and I put you in that catagory and I shouldn't have.

Let me explain a little more about the backup solution Vodafone. First off, it's just a 5G DATA sim card and a dongle in a box. That sim card can be placed into anything, and it works straight of the bat, Vodafone have not restricted it in any shape or form. You can even use when your broadband is UP!  My solution includes buying a 4G Router through you most likely could use 5G router but that would be pointless because of the monthly DATA CAP. 

The Huawei AI Cube (B900-230) is a single port router with 4G, the default IP address range runs on 192.168.8.1 and has its own DCHP server built in. So on PFSense you can easily setup a LAN port as a failover port, and use gateway 192.168.8.1 for when assuming your normal gateway e.g 192.168.1.1 is down.

It's also worth mentioning almost everyone uses WIFI as their perfered connection method nowadays, so another method would just to have the Huawei AI Cube (B900-230) turned on 24/7 running solo not connected to any other network. Then you can setup your devices to connect to that hotspot for when Vodafone FTTP is down, through, in my experience, on CityFibre, I've been had 99.99% SLA. I've had more power outages (4 this year (20hours+)) than I have connection issues. But, the ONT is only 12v so I have it running through a powerbank that provides 12v out, so when there's a power out, the ONT stays on, and so does one access point, and the powerbanks DIY kits I bought also do 19v which is perfect for a laptop, might sound overkill, but as I work from home, time is money, and can also watch Netflix while I wait. 

The reason I recommend the Huawei AI Cube (B900-230) is because it can be hand for only £32 from CEX, and similar pricing on eBay, it even has Alexa built in, bluetooth speaker, and a lot more. It far outperforms any USB dongle would.