Full Fibre question

Pat38493

Does anyone know whether the network ports on a full fibre on the little box they install on the wall (I think it's referred to as the ONT), are "normal network ports".

In other words if I plug a network cable directly in there should it work on my PC?  

I have recently had full fibre installed an I'm having some issues where I keep having to reset the router regularly.  I'm wondering if plugging in to those ports will help me test whether the problem is local (local cable or router) or something in the ONT or outside.

Obviously I'm going to call Talk Talk as well but from perusing their community forums, it looks like their full fibre service is quite new and disorganised so they take ages to diagnose problems - I'm assuming anything I can test myself will help.

Peter999_2

Hi Pat38493.    Yes, the network cable will work if you plug it directly into your PC which is a good way to test the connection is working.    Your laptop/desktop will then have a IPv4 address that is contactable directly from the internet so make sure you have a good firewall.    

Incidently, I have had full fibre from TalkTalk since 2015 so they should have got better in the last 8 years but sadly they seem to get worse.    I left them this year to go with a new ISP (first time in 8 years that another ISP has been available for me.)

Pat38493

Peter999_2 said:

Hi Pat38493.    Yes, the network cable will work if you plug it directly into your PC which is a good way to test the connection is working.    Your laptop/desktop will then have a IPv4 address that is contactable directly from the internet so make sure you have a good firewall.    

Incidently, I have had full fibre from TalkTalk since 2015 so they should have got better in the last 8 years but sadly they seem to get worse.    I left them this year to go with a new ISP (first time in 8 years that another ISP has been available for me.)

Yes well they are doing a rollout with Freedom Fibre in our area in the North West, and so far it's been a bit shambolic, although they have been determined to get it working eventually.  I think they've been to my house about 6 times before finally getting the equipment all installed and switched on last Friday (although some of the issues to be fair weren't their fault - e.g. neighbour dumping rubble on access points etc).

What's really odd is that up to now I have not received any emails or communication from Talk Talk directly at all, other then the verbal discussion to place an order for the service which I was told would be free for at least 6 months and in parallel with my existing service.  I guess this is because there is no landline numbers available on the service in our area yet.

My working theory right now is that Freedom Fibre have not told Talk Talk to activate or authorise something at their end - what seems to happen is that if I reboot the router, everything works perfectly for a short while (usually less than 10 minutes), and then it just stops responding to all requests (even though the router interface continues to report that everything is working fine).

I'm glad I've got my existing service still operating otherwise it would be very frustrating.

Peter999_2

The first thing I did was dump the TalkTalk "super" router as it was awful.  The router would drop out and require a reboot every couple of days and the port forwarding just never worked correctly.    My new ISP provided a Technicolour DGA0122 which seems to be very good

Pat38493

Peter999_2 said:

The first thing I did was dump the TalkTalk "super" router as it was awful.  The router would drop out and require a reboot every couple of days and the port forwarding just never worked correctly.    My new ISP provided a Technicolour DGA0122 which seems to be very good

Thanks - yes the router they have supplied is called Talk Talk Hub 2 according to the interface and it looks pretty simplistic.  In fact I cannot even find any screen where you can look at the router telemetry and error log to see what is going on.

So any commercial router that you can buy would work ok with that?  I used to have a custom router when I was with BT but since I've been with Sky I've been using their router as it connected to the Sky TV boxes.  Unfortunately Talk Talk have the monopoly on full fibre in my village (I am not sure for how long), so I will have to re-think things if I eventually move over to the fibre service.

Do you know if the 2 ethernet ports on the ONT should both work - one is labelled 2.5G and one is labelled 10G.  The engineer plugged the router in to the 2.5G one.

Peter999_2

I don't think the 10G link will work along with the 2.5G. I would expect the 10G to be disabled but ready for future use when speeds get higher.    I used an Asus which was great but now old.  My next one will be a Wifi 7 but that will cost a few hundred pounds.   My parents use a TPLink AC1200 router which works great for them and is £34.99 at Amazon at the moment