Ardgowan:

 

OP here — sorry for causing confusion!

 

To hopefully clarify things, her Vodafone plan didn't include a modem, it's BYO. I noticed that the ONT has wifi and initially assumed I'd be able to set that up as her WIFI router but frustratingly that seems not to be the case. So my next idea was to redeem the two Decos from Vodafone and use one of those as her primary router.

 

In terms of the Decos being "free", it's just in the sense that she won't have to pay more to get them, other than to commit to 24 months with the same plan with Vodafone, which I suspect she will do anyway (I will check with her of course).

 

Vodafone use the term modem and router interchangeably (at least in their phone support). With fibre am I right thinking the ONT is the "modem"? Seems the only requirement Vodafone mentions is that "your modem must support WAN VLAN tagging with IPoE". So if the Decos support that, they should be fine. According to @bcbear and @scuwp above, this actually does work.

 

HOWEVER, I've had a rethink and given my friend's demographic, the simplest solution is the best one, so I've changed her Vodafone account to include their modem. So in the end I won't get her to redeem the Decos anyway. Sorry if anyone feels I wasted their time with this thread but I'm grateful for the shared knowledge nonetheless.

 

Its been a useful thread to talk about capabilities.

I find the easiest way with the ONT is to think of it simply as a Fibre to Ethernet converter as for all intents and purposed for the client thats what it does. It actually does more behind the scenes but that's all out of your control (I wish end users could make use of the POTS / VOIP features). You can actually plug a laptop or PC directly into the Ethernet port - Add VLAN tagging of 10 on the interface on the PC and set it to DHCP (With vodafone as they don't do any PPP authentication) and it should work - Never tried with Vodafone but I did that with MY ISP when I first got Fibre to test it before configuring a "complex" router so I knew any issues were my config as it was my first time on Mikrotik equipment ;)

If its a small location the basic vendor routers tend to do a reasonable job these days - The range isn't strong and the number of devices supported often peaks around 16 but that sounds like plenty. If you can avoid being on a long contract I would as its a pain if you end up having to pay out a contract when you move or see a plan that bundles better with other services you want or your current provider just plain pisses you off.