Capabilities of PN Hub - New FTTP Customer

[#1]

My attempt to replace the PN Hub One with a TalkTalk router failed miserably. Firstly, I found three of them! Two have four ethernet ports and the other has two. I only have a suitable power supply for the small one. It announces itself as a Huawei HG523a device.

My cunning plan was to set it up exactly like the Hub One so I could just swap them and the devices would know no difference. Firstly, the wifi password cannot contain any special characters - not even an underscore. Secondly, I could not disable the DHCP without killing the link to the rest of the network. I suspect that I will have to set up a static route for it to know the gateway.

In the meantime, my dear wife has had a gutsful of it all and ordered a rather clever outdoor Deco. I wonder what the range is on that as I used Google Earth this morning to measure the run from the house to the Hub One in the north shed and it is 104 metres.

I must admit, though, these Deco P9's have been good - especially since I stopped the master being a router. 

[#2]

We had a message saying that Openreach engineer was on his way.

Unless he is provided with a very capable off-road vehicle, I don't think we will be getting the fibre installation today...

[#3]

Circumstances outside of our control. We will have to reschedule gor a later date.

Bet that's what you will get, unless as you say a suitable 4x4.

Happy snow day.

[#4]

We had some heavy snow so that was fair enough. However, another engineer arrived after a couple of days ("Working on behalf of Openreach" or similar wording on the van) but he immediately told us that he could only do the internal work as the outside needs traffic control.

Fair play to him though, the work he did complete was very neat. (He installed their own version of the CSP box outside which is smaller than the standard Openreach one.)

We are yet to hear of any other update.

In the meantime, I have got around to drawing up the current setup to help me work out the changes needed for the Gigabit Ethernet - attached.

In an attempt to get some sort of resilience, my plan is to disconnect both ethernet cables from the modem near the roof and connect them together. As the MikroTik AP will be replaced with the PN Hub Two, that will allow the Gig Ethernet to get to a new Gigabit Ethernet switch which replaces the PN Hub Zero in an enclosure under the decking.

That means that the new Outside Deco (which has twin 2.5 G Ethernet ports, by the way) will get fast Ethernet backhaul.

(I don't think my wife has seen the attached diagram yet - only did it last night - as she hasn't told me "It's no wonder that we have network problems"!)

The Technicolor router in the shed can't handle the high speed but the cameras down there don't need it.

As ever, any comments would be gratefully received.

[#5]

Well, we are still awaiting installation!

The first engineer turned up a few weeks ago - subcontracted by Openreach - and decided he could only do the internal work as the pole is on a 60mph road and would need traffic control.

After a couple of weeks, another engineer turned up intended to complete the installation. However, we had no notification of this "appointment" and - unusual for us - we were visiting family in Cardiff. He left the fibre coiled up on a fence opposite the house.

Plusnet phoned this morning stating that they have a new date but we had a call from an engineer yesterday saying he would be with us today.

Some communication path issues between the two companies, methinks!

No sign of him yet though but the weather is [-Censored-] here again.

We live in hope!

As my dear wife wants a simpler network - although she has added a couple of new generation TP-Link Mesh systems indoors and out - I have configured the new router to have the same basic config as the MikroTik. That would allow us to quickly fall back to 4G if we have teething problems.

Thanks for all the advice.

Gerald.

[#6]

Fair play to the Openreach engineer, not only did he arrive and work in a nasty easterly wind with a pile of rain he also routed the fibre "cable" neatly. The link did not work at first but he told us that he would make some phone calls when he got home and dried out. Again, he kept his word and the link sprang into life then he phoned us to let us know.

The max download speed is around 400 Mbps at the moment so I assume it will increase after a while.

Router is behaving apart from the Broadband Performance Test. The external link doesn't seem to work (https://speedtest.btwholesale.com/)

Thank you all for your help. We'll keep the MikroTik LTE going for a few days as a backup.

Bye for now,

Gerald.

[#7 · Accepted solution]

@germarsh  That speed test was shut down over a year ago so it's not going to work.

AI tells me ......

The BT Wholesale Broadband Performance Tester was officially retired on January 10, 2025. The service, which allowed users to measure their broadband speed and performance, is no longer operational, with users directed to alternative, third-party, or public speed test tools. 

[#8]

@germarsh 

The max download speed is around 400 Mbps at the moment so I assume it will increase after a while.

Full fibre doesnt have a 'training period' like older products, it goes at the provisioned speed immediately.

[#9]

Oh dear - I had better tell my wife the news! 

As the installation engineer could not get the link to work whilst he was here, he did not have any chance of using any clever tools.