Fibre connection magically working?

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Fibre connection magically working?

djyotta

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#274586 30-Aug-2020 12:29

Hi all, this is my first post.

I'm reaching out to the community with my NZ UFB related questions due to finding it difficult to get detailed information about the network parameters from either Chorus or my ISP.

Context:

* Having had no personal internet connection since Dialup, I'm completely out of the loop and have ancient equipment

* I have acquired various arbitrary routers from family or otherwise because I collect things like that in the rare event they're useful

* This year, I got ADSL for the first time to make work from home bearable during COVID-19

* Fibre was not an option at the time, as it would have been unlikely to get a fibre connection during lockdown

* This month, since finding ADSL to be somewhat slow (marginally better than the 3G/4G service I had on my phone - mainly just heaps more data), and Chorus begging me to install fibre at my place, I decided to go ahead and switch to fibre

Then the rollercoaster ride began!

So when I signed up with my ISP I asked to have them send me their router as I wanted no trouble. I was working from home again, and wanted the connection ASAP. Given that the fibre was in the ground and the ONT on the wall on the 17th, I (and my ISP) thought I'd have an active connection within 2-3 days.

Alas, there was a miscommunication/timing issue between installing fibre and ordering the connection through my ISP which resulted in me not getting connected for about 10 working days. Also, my ISP seemingly forgot to send my router, so I had a couple of days of active connection but unable to use it (ADSL fallback sigh).

When my connection was first activated, since I still had no router, I decided to plug my PC direct to the ONT because I run Linux and I figured I could perhaps configure it properly. To my surprise, internet worked out-of-the-box with a direct connection to the ONT!

First question: How is this possible? I didn't configure VLAN or PPPoE or anything....

I disconnected my PC from the ONT though due to a personal concern that my default firewall setup may not be secure - I think I also had enabled SSH which is probably not the best idea for a public facing machine.

I decided to stick to the painfully unusable ADSL connection until the router from my ISP arrived.

Turns out, the router from my ISP never came so I decided to take the risk and plug my PC back directly to the ONT - so I could at least work with out issues. But, mysteriously, the connection no longer magically worked. So I went and bought a router. I specifically looked out for one that supports VLAN tagging as I thought this was required. I figured that there may have been a brief moment where the network was misconfigured at ISP side and so my PC could connect no issue. I assumed that this had been rectified and now I'd require a properly configured router.

After some time trying to get my ISP to divulge the network parameters (honestly, I don't think they actually know themselves), I managed to get internet working with the new router I'd purchased. And that was that...

But now that it's Sunday and I have time to try some things, I decided to try using my ADSL router's LAN port - just in case it worked. To my surprise, this did work! So I'm thinking to return the new router I purchased as it seems unnecessary.

So I called my ISP and asked how it's possible that my old router (I'm almost 100% certain it does NOT support VLAN tagging) just magically seems to work. They didn't seem to know, but also didn't seem to think it should matter if there are VLANs or not. One important thing to note at this time is that they discovered my ONT is NOT tagging the traffic when it should be. So they put a request to their provisioning team to fix that.

Another important thing to note, is that I had suspicions that direct PC connection would also work again now, given my old router was now working and it was configured to use IPoE (not PPPoE). Yes, direct PC connection to ONT was working again.

My second question: is it possible that things are working now only because my ONT is not yet tagging traffic? ie, I'm getting lucky? Is it possible that this will all break once my ISP/Chorus configures my ONT to tag the traffic?

Lastly, it sounds like this whole VLAN thing really doesn't matter.... unless perhaps you have a VoIP phone (I don't have a landline so no need for VoIP over fibre). Does anyone know the real deal about whether VLAN tagging is actually necessary? Or is it just for QoS?

Thanks so much for your time. I hope someone here can help clear up what's going on.

NOTE: I hold a CCNA (expired) so I have at least rudimentary knowledge of the full network stack, though I confess I am no expert and only know the theory of VLAN, TCP/IP etc but very little in practice - hence my extreme confusion in why my connection is magically working considering I barely configured anything. So yeah, I do know how to configure things at least in principle, though I sometimes find this very difficult in practice due to being familiar only witha CISCO CLI and home routers have horrendous GUIs and Linux networking tools just being plain undocumented.

EDIT: I decided to add a timeline highlighting the "mysterious" aspect of this journey:

* 17th Aug: Fibre connection in the ground and ONT on the wall. Fibre plan ordered with ISP same day (btw, don't do that! wait at least 24hrs)

* 18th Aug: Phoned ISP for network settings. They told me to use PPPoE if I use my own router (but their website says to use IPoE). Both on the call and on the website I was instructed to use VLAN 10

* 24th Aug: Phoned ISP to ask why I'm still not connected and not received my router from them. They hadn't even sent it. They claimed the were waiting for Chorus to do a thing. I told them that Chorus has already done it, so not to wait. Asked them to send my router now, and focus on sorting the connection ASAP

* 26th Aug (morning): Phoned ISP to ask for tracking number for my router - they said they still hadn't sent it. But the escalated my connection and got it connected later that day. They also claimed to have requested the router to be sent immediately.

* 26th Aug (afternoon): Just after they e-mailed me telling me the connection was active, I tried plugging my PC into the ONT. It worked. I then disconnected my PC because I was concerned about security risk.

* 27th Aug (morning): Phoned ISP to ask for tracking number for router again. Found out they still had not sent it. I started flipping tables. Asked them not to send one, and went and bought my own. In the mean time, whilst waiting for my wife to come home with the router, I tried plugging my PC direct into the ONT. It did NOT work at all.

* 27th Aug (afternoon): Tried using my new router, had some trouble, ISP was unable to provide information about the settings. I accidentally fixed it. No idea. Too busy to care. Everything was happy as larry. Was using PPPoE

* 28th Aug: Found the web page of the recommended router configuration on ISP website says to use IPoE instead of PPPoE. So configured my new router to use IPoE instead. Still worked fine.

* 30th Aug: Tried using my old ADSL router (it has a WAN port), with IPoE. Everything works fine! Also tried direct PC connection to ONT, and that worked too! Phoned my ISP and found that my ONT is NOT tagging traffic with a VLAN. This (according to the ISP) is a misconfiguration.

The mystery is why direct PC connection worked sometimes and not other times, and how I can have a working connection without VLAN tagging.

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
79289 posts

Uber Geek

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#2552359 30-Aug-2020 12:59

Welcome to Geekzone... First of all, I think the most important question is - what ISP are you using as not all ISPs require VLAN and not all ISPs require PPPOE credentials.

Second depending on the fibre plan you are using, the old router might not perform well enough with the connection - it may not have enough power to router a large number of packets when you need it...

Gordy7

1906 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#2552362 30-Aug-2020 13:17

Welcome to Geekzone.

Nice lengthy report.... frustrating I guess.... hope you have not lost too much hair 😄

I have scanned your report a couple of times and can't see who your ISP is... someone here may have been able to help you out with your router config.

I was with an ISP that supported PPPoE and IPoE.... when testing the different modes I found that the ISP took a fair bit of time to adjust to a new config.

Anyway, good to read that you are up and running.

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

djyotta

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2552364 30-Aug-2020 13:26

freitasm:

Welcome to Geekzone... First of all, I think the most important question is - what ISP are you using as not all ISPs require VLAN and not all ISPs require PPPOE credentials.

Second depending on the fibre plan you are using, the old router might not perform well enough with the connection - it may not have enough power to router a large number of packets when you need it...

Thanks for your reply.

I'm with Slingshot currently, and the original post is referring to my experience with them. I deliberately avoided mentioning them as I feel I've dished on them enough (I was pretty upset with them over the delays considering they got my internet working just in time for me to go back into the office - they have promised a month of internet free as compensation).

On their website, and on the phone, they have said they use VLAN 10. Whether it's a requirement... well I guess it's not. Though no idea what is "officially" required (ie, it could be that they have untagged traffic and do not realise it). I brought this up with them, specifically asked if it's possible there is untagged traffic on their network and whether they are ok with that. Sounds like they're not too sure but the person I spoke to didn't seem to think it's an issue if it seems to work.

As for my old router not being capable to serve fast internet:

* I know it only has 100Mbps links

* My fibre connection is currently 50Mbps (same plan is being offered now at 100Mbps).

* I'm not a heavy internet user. I use about 80GB per month for my Wife and I. Used to get by on 25GB per month on my cell with 3G/4G and never ran out of data, but that was when I was single.

* IF my old router can be configured to keep the connection active (appears to be fine atm...), then I'm more than happy with the 100Mbps eth link to my ONT.

* Using the Chorus speed test utility, I see no appreciable difference between my old router (100Mbps TP-Link TD-W8950N) and the newly bought one (1Gbps TP-Link Archer A8). They both top out at about 46-50mpbs (though on Friday I was getting 50Mbps throughout). At first I thought my 100Mbps TP-Link was a little 'choppy' during the speed test (more variance in sustained speed), but it looks like it's to do with being Sunday usage on the network rather than the router as the 1Gbps TP-Link did the same thing.

* I have noticed that the 100Mbps TP-Link seems very slow to establish a high speed link. In the first 30 seconds to a minute (feels like), the speed test tops out at 2/1Mbps down/up. But after a while, it goes up to 50Mbps and repeated tests maintain the expected 50Mbps link.

Hopefully that answers both your questions. In short, I'm really not interested in trying to get GbEth. It just needs to better than ADSL2+ with 1 second (no kidding) ping times and only 15/1Mbps down/up, as that was almost (but not quite) enough for work from home for remote access into my VM at work. We only have our phones + the main PC so I'm not concerned about a 100Mbps bottleneck at the router.

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
79289 posts

Uber Geek

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#2552366 30-Aug-2020 13:28

Thanks - moved to the Vocus sub-forum.

djyotta

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2552367 30-Aug-2020 13:31

freitasm: Thanks - moved to the Vocus sub-forum.

Thanks - sorry I should have picked up on that it goes in the Vocus sub-forum.

djyotta

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2552369 30-Aug-2020 13:35

Gordy7:

Welcome to Geekzone.

Nice lengthy report.... frustrating I guess.... hope you have not lost too much hair 😄

I have scanned your report a couple of times and can't see who your ISP is... someone here may have been able to help you out with your router config.

I was with an ISP that supported PPPoE and IPoE.... when testing the different modes I found that the ISP took a fair bit of time to adjust to a new config.

Anyway, good to read that you are up and running.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I was not sure whether to be forthcoming about the ISP or not. My focus really is more about whether it's technically "unusual" that my configuration is working from a networking perspective, or if it's not uncommon that ISPs are a little bit lax in the specific configuration - especially in regard to VLANs.

Although, the more I think about it, I figure the technical requirements really are ISP specific.

I suspect they are specifically supporting my particular configuration for some reason - or perhaps it's my ONT is a Chorus model type 300 that is saving me... I wonder if the ONT is really all that matters. Especially if IPoE is supported.

richms

28187 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2552371 30-Aug-2020 13:38

All that and still I am no wiser which ISP you have.

If you plug in and it works when untagged, then your ISP is using DHCP. There are timeframes on the leases and you cant just get as many as you want from them, so when it didnt work then it was probably because the last least was still active.

Its working without vlan tagging because you are not applying tags when plugging straight in, and the mystery ISP has it "misconfigured" to not be applying tags, so it will just work. Once they "fix" their "misconfiguration" then it will stop working until you bring up an interface on vlan10 for it to work over. This is the default for most ISPs so that they can also apply priority tags since they both have to be done together. Their voice service may use the priority tags to try to work better if the network at some point becomes congested.

Edit: sorry, it was doing the thing when the post wasnt submitting and I did it again later on and I see that many people had replied in the interum.

Richard rich.ms

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

djyotta

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2552386 30-Aug-2020 14:23

Regarding the post timing, no problem. And I'll be sure to refer to my ISP as Slingshot from now on so it's clear.

In terms of things breaking (without VLAN tagging) once the ONT is "fixed" to tag with VLANs: I suspected that might be the case.

In terms of DHCP lease, I wondered if that would have something to do with it. I was kicking myself for not first releasing the DHCP lease on my router before switching back to direct PC connection... maybe next time I will try releasing the DHCP lease and see if it works again.

Is there any chance that untagged traffic may still work even after my ONT is reconfigured?

Is it possible to telnet into the ONT and configure it to strip the VLANs on incoming traffic and tagging VLANs on outgoing traffic?

I can return my new 1Gbps TP-Link by 2nd September for a refund, so I could wait until then to see if Slingshot can confirm that they've reconfigured the ONT. If my old 100Mbps router still works then, I guess I can safely return my new one. Sadly, OpenWRT probably won't install on my 100Mbps router due to hardware constraints (low memory). Just my luck. That could have saved the day.

RunningMan

8956 posts

Uber Geek

#2552467 30-Aug-2020 16:26

It's not really the ONT being fixed as such, it's just whether Slingshot have had the connection correctly provisioned with the VLAN. No, you can't telnet into the ONT, the LFC is the only one that can configure it - in current deployments it's not much more than a media converter or bridge with ATA port(s).

Before you return the new router, what is the old one? If it's fairly old and doesn't have enough memory to cope with OpenWRT, chances are pretty good that it won't provide decent throughput on a UFB connection, even if it is only 50/10. Oh, and please just use the reply box, rather than quoting entire posts in every reply as it just means there's twice as much text to read.

djyotta

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2552566 30-Aug-2020 18:51

Thanks for that - I wasn't sure if the ONT is pass through or not. Sounds like it is basically passthrough.

Yeah, my old TP-Link is too old for OpenWRT due to the memory limits. I doubt throughput will be an issue for me personally though as ADSL with 20/1 Mbps down/up was just about ok. I think it was the upload that was causing the repeated keypresses on my remote workstation issue while working from home.

I wonder... had I not told Slingshot the traffic was untagged, could I have used my old router for ever... or until they noticed? 🤣

I'll keep a look out. Hopefully they provision the VLAN tagging before the 7 day return period is up on my new TP-Link router. If so, and my old router works, I save couple hundred bucks. I'm uncertain whether to call them and check up on it as there's probably a small chance they forget to do it... I'd hate to remind them accidentally, but I'm also curious to know when/if it happens...

Re. quoting: I have found in the past it can get very confusing on forums especially when the posts get out of sync. I do seem to have trouble communicating clearly, I've to date been unable to improve this. Quoting the post is my way of tracking the context. But I'll refrain from doing that as much as possible.

It sounds like my overall question is basically answered.

Summary:

* my non VLAN capable router appears to work because I got lucky and Slingshot did not yet provision the connection with VLAN tagging

* don't order fibre connection with an ISP within 24hrs of the physical cabling and ONT installation - it will cause you a word of pain

* connecting directly to the ONT will work as long as you know how to tag the traffic with VLAN - not that you better have a good firewall installed

Thanks to you all for your help, I really appreciate it. As I said, it's hard having this sort of discussion with the Slingshot because maybe 25% of the time I end up talking to someone who simply refuses to be helpful just because I have my own router.

I have to decide whether to return my new router or not by Wednesday 2nd September 2020. If my old router is still working, and Slingshot has provisioned the connection with VLANs by then, I'll post back here with the outcome and mark it as solved. I guess I'm still hopefull I will get away without VLAN tags as I figure if they're adding the tags on their end, they can strip them on their end too... maybe I can even request this (it sounds like some ISPs can provision it this way on request).

RunningMan

8956 posts

Uber Geek

#2552592 30-Aug-2020 19:39

ISPs can have connections provisioned without the VLAN tag (and some do this as a matter of course), but you lose the ability to prioritise traffic and access the CIR guaranteed throughput. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.1Q if you want to start some reading on this. Slingshot may well leave it untagged if you request this.

On the old router, I'd suggest running a few speedtests and multiple other up/downloads at the same time to make sure it's going to cope. It may have 100 Mb/s ports, but the CPU will often be maxing out on an ADSL connection, and you're now asking even more of it.

djyotta

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2557693 5-Sep-2020 23:11

I can confirm that when Slingshot provisioned the router with VLANs the old router stopped working. As expected. I decided not to keep the old router (assuming Slingshot even would provision without VLANs on request) as it did indeed seem to be causing intermittent connectivity issues for some reason.

Thanks everyone for your helpful advice. Much better than what Slingshot could explain to me.