Any AT&T (or other) Fiber running AsusWRT direct to ONT (bypass)?

[bengalih]

Just curious how many people we had bypassing their Fiber modem to go direct to ONT?
I've got it set up and seems to running pretty well, but I can't find any active community discussing the issues.

Thought I'd get a thread up here if anyone else is interested...

 

[tommyv2]

Just curious how many people we had bypassing their Fiber modem to go direct to ONT?
I've got it set up and seems to running pretty well, but I can't find any active community discussing the issues.

Thought I'd get a thread up here if anyone else is interested...

Yes? For years? I've never even plugged in my ISP equipment, ever. Or am I missing some other setup that you're asking about?

 

[bengalih]

Yes? For years? I've never even plugged in my ISP equipment, ever. Or am I missing some other setup that you're asking about?

So what method are you using and what ISP? I needed to follow a process to root my ISP modem to extract certificate keys which I then needed to load into a custom wpa_supplicant version running on asus. Do you have a similar setup?

 

[Deleted member 22229]

Bypassing the gateway here as well ATT fiber. Just using the dumb switch bypass and it works very well. There are many threads on it over at DSL reports ATT sub forums.

 

[bbunge]

Fiber, as I know it, does not use a modem but an Optical Network Terminator or ONT as you have stated. My CenturyLink fiber terminates in a "box" outside my house and I am plugged into that with CAT5 for both phone and internet. The internet cable goes direct to my Asus router. The phone service is conventional two wire connection.

 

[bengalih]

Bypassing the gateway here as well ATT fiber. Just using the dumb switch bypass and it works very well. There are many threads on it over at DSL reports ATT sub forums.

Haven't really found any active threads there. Any reason you are using the dumb switch as opposed to moving off completely? My understanding is that the dumb switch requires the ISP modem online at least when the connection first starts ?

 

[bengalih]

Fiber, as I know it, does not use a modem but an Optical Network Terminator or ONT as you have stated. My CenturyLink fiber terminates in a "box" outside my house and I am plugged into that with CAT5 for both phone and internet. The internet cable goes direct to my Asus router. The phone service is conventional two wire connection.

The ONT is usually a box they place in the wall near your connection. It looks like a chunky CAT5 connection box. I suppose they could put it outside and run just a wire from it to the room. I believe that with some ISPs (like yours - the ONT may be all that is necessary). With AT&T they require authentication via certificates to get onto the network. This requires you to either keep their modem inline to do the authentication (as a "dumb" device) or else to extract the certificates and somehow get another piece of software/hardware to do the authentication. I have implemented this using the wpa_supplicant on the asus to provide the authentication.

It sounds like CenturyLink is much more straight forward for this.

 

[tommyv2]

All of this sounds complicated. I just change my WAN VLAN to 35, put in my PPPoE username and password and I'm set. Didn't realize other ISPs made it more complicated than that.

 

[yamvmax]

I'm using an asus rt-ac68u run directly to the ont on verizon fios. No issues.

 

[bengalih]

I didn't realize AT&T was such a PITA with all this. That being said, I guess I'm interested in finding other AT&T users who had to jump through the hoops like me

 

[Deleted member 22229]

Haven't really found any active threads there. Any reason you are using the dumb switch as opposed to moving off completely? My understanding is that the dumb switch requires the ISP modem online at least when the connection first starts ?

Because it's simple to do and works. My fiber has never gone down the only time i had to reauth was because of a storm that knocked out power for 2 days. A good UPS keeps things going for short outages of 4 to 5 hours or less.

 

[Ronald Schwerer]

I changed to Frontier FIOS (1Gbps) a few months ago. I had the installer run about 100' of underground rated Cat5E from the ONT to my office and install an RJ45 wall jack. With the 1Gb plan, the router is free (for 1 yr) so I let him install it. But as soon as the truck left, I disconnected theirs and plugged in my AC68U. It took about 15 minutes to get a WAN IP lease while the ASUS router complained "something wrong with ISP DHCP". (I should of released the lease from their router before unplugging) but it eventually started working. However, I notice that it takes a couple extra minutes each time I reboot the router before I get a WAN IP. BTW, the lease expires every 30 minutes.

 

[bengalih]

Because it's simple to do and works. My fiber has never gone down the only time i had to reauth was because of a storm that knocked out power for 2 days. A good UPS keeps things going for short outages of 4 to 5 hours or less.

I was just curious because in my setup where wpa_supplicant handles the auth, I have yet to see it have to reauthenticate after it first connects. I have been running it in debug mode to see anything it is doing and it does absolutely nothing after the first successful auth. I'm not complaining, just interested to know how it works. If the auth is required for the IP address, or for encryption, and why it never needs to check the creds again unless apparently it is rebooted.

My wife had complained that a game she plays on her phone has seemed to be loosing connection since we got the fiber installed. Shortly thereafter I did notice a couple funny things on my phone...apps like Maps or Youtube flashing some info like they were "back online" though I normally don't see that on my home network. I setup a ping script which is hitting 8.8.8.8 every second and on average I have 1-2 lost pings a day. This might be more just a lost packet as I never see anything in the wpa_supplicant having to re-auth, so I don't think I'm actually loosing connection.

My overall connection did seem flaky the first 24 hours I had it, but for the most part it also seems to be pretty solid.

I'm curious those of you with fast fiber what you usually get on your speed tests using just the ASUS, and if you have tested actual speeds with remote users accessing your networks?

I was also interested in upgrading to a better ASUS, but wanted to find out if others using the wpa_supplicant method were able to get it running on some of the beefier models.

 

[DylanG]

I connect directly to the ONT with Verizon FIOS. The only annoyance is they won’t release an IP for many hours so I carry over the MAC address with every router replacement. Good luck to the average customer who comes home with a new router from Best Buy being able to figure that out.

I’ve always been curious if that was a decision Verizon made at the technical level for whatever reason or if it’s real intention is to keep people paying to rent routers. Being Verizon, I suspect the latter.

 

[whitey019]

1Gb Verizon FIOS. Asus RT-AC86U directly to ONT.

 

[Ronald Schwerer]

I'm running my RT-AX3000 WAN over about 100 ft of Cat5E to the ONT (Frontier FIOS 1Gb). Frontier's WAN IP lease is only 30 minutes. When I swapped out their router, by the time I figured out how to fix the problem, the lease had already expired. I do notice that it takes 1-2 minutes to get a WAN IP after I reboot my router. Since I don't need to do that very often, it isn't a problem.

 

[Deleted member 72428]

Apologies for being a total noob but how can I set up my router to connect directly to ONT without having to use the BWG210 on AT&T fiber? Can someone point to a thread or a page please? I am really annoyed that even in passthrough mode I am getting an extra hop with BWG210 and would love to get rid of it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[joltdude]

The Verizon Fios thing isn't hard... the gotcha is having to release the DHCP on their router, then unplug their WAN connection from their router after its released... then plug it into your asus router and voila... (only gets slightly trickier if you have MOCA involved) .... AT&T is a different matter...

 

[JoshS]

Apologies for being a total noob but how can I set up my router to connect directly to ONT without having to use the BWG210 on AT&T fiber? Can someone point to a thread or a page please? I am really annoyed that even in passthrough mode I am getting an extra hop with BWG210 and would love to get rid of it.

Thanks in advance.

Look at https://www.dslreports.com/forum/uverse. They have lots of info on how to get rid of the BGW210.

 

[Smokey613]

I am connected directly to the CenturyLink ONT and the lease time is 30 minutes.