Hello Community,
After many decades in the internet wilderness, we are about to be dragged into the 21st century as FTTP has just been installed this part of west Wales. We go live early in the new year.
A bit of background - After a few years and around 15 Openreach engineers, we opted for a Welsh Government initiative which provided 4G hardware. We have been using that (MikroTik kit) for a few years and, although the expected minimum download speed is 30 Mb/s, we are getting around 80!
We have signed up for the 900 Full Fibre offering but I haven't a clue which router is coming with this. We have a smallholding and, with a background in IT, I have set up quite a complex network with a lot of static IP addresses in the 192.168.0.n pool. Coincidentally I have used two ancient Plusnet routers as hubs in the network. I attach a high-level topology. (The yellow lines are all physical ethernet.) There are a few cameras - like the Lamb Cam, all connected via ethernet as WiFi is not that reliable between the sheds. Apart from the MikroTik kit, the routers have DHCP disabled and generally act as ethernet hubs.There is also a hardwired VoIP device which my dear wife has configured. There is the usual black arts going on there as I don't understand how that works properly with EE's carrier grade NAT and the bloody WAN ip address changes!
I have combed Plusnet's website to the nth degree but cannot find the detail on the functionality of the Hub2 router if, indeed, that is what we are having
The MikroTik modem, which is up on the roof, is 192.168.0.3 and the router - in the lounge - is 0.5. The modem currently handles DHCP
As I would rather eviscerate myself than change all the IP addresses to the 192.168.1.n class to which I think the new router defaults, so I hope I can at least change the IP address of the new one.
(By the way, RouterOS on the MikroTik devices is quite powerful. I assumed that we would get really basic versions so I used its macro language to send the resource usage and LTE data to our Home Assistant monitoring system. To be honest, there has never been a problem with the resources but the cell towers have had some glitches. I shall miss the LTE interface's ability to send text warnings though. I use this extensively for any hassle with the heat pump, freezer temperatures etc.)
After the Openreach engineer has installed and tested the kit - I wonder which ONT will be used too - I will attempt the following:
- Disable the LTE interface and DHCP server on the Modem - As the device is also acting as a hub between the Deco Mesh system and the rest of the network I don't want to do away with it;
- Change the IP address of the new PN router and alter its DHCP pool to match that of the MikroTik device;
- Bounce everything and see what works!
I just noticed how verbose this topic is so I apologise profusely. If anyone can point me to any detailed docs on whatever version Hub I am likely to receive, I shall be extremely grateful!
Bye for now,
Gerald.
