Third party router with FTTP

[cookiemonsteruk]

@anaseem 

@Neil+Stevens 

Or port you sky landline over to the likes of Vonage they send out a voip adapter box then you can retain a sky landline number with their service. If at any stage you want to revert to sky internet calls the old sky number ceases to be portable back to openreach landlines and you would need a new landline number

[anaseem]

So for all FTTP Ultrafast, the landline is always VOIP and old school copper,

Which means I would always need to have Sky Router connected to make use of the phone service (does my standard dect phone still work?)

How is everyone else using their own routers with Sky FTTP ?

The plan was to was my own router and my own wireless AP, that makes 2 boxes. But if I want to continue to use Sky Phone, then I need to carry on using SR 203.

Is that even possible ? Do Openreach install multi port ONT, where I plug in SR203 for the phone and then my own router into another ONT port ?

Its all abit much ! 🙂

[jamesn123]

@anaseem 

If you have VOIP with Sky whether that is through Superfast or Ultrafast the Sky hub is required for your call package as there is no 3rd party solution that offers a workaround. I would imagine this is because there is special configuration contained in the Sky hub to get VOIP working with Sky servers.

Your standard dtec phone works with Sky voip as you just plug the phone into the back of the hub in its phone port just like you would a normal BT/Openreach socket. 

[smudgester]

BT/Openreach's long term (or even short term) plan is to do away with PSTN (copper  based phone lines) completely eventually. Sky are not the only ISP who are doing VOIP phone calls with their Fibre product (BT, for one, also do it).

With the Sky product, you don't use the master socket at all

[TimmyBGood]

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@anaseem wrote:

So for all FTTP Ultrafast, the landline is always VOIP and old school copper,

Copper within the address up to the ONT: fibre beyond there

Which means I would always need to have Sky Router connected to make use of the phone service (does my standard dect phone still work?)

Yes: the DECT base station plugs into the dedicated phone port on the Sky Broadband Hub, which acts as a VOIP ATA

How is everyone else using their own routers with Sky FTTP ?

Without Sky Talk (or in a double-NAT)

The plan was to was my own router and my own wireless AP, that makes 2 boxes. But if I want to continue to use Sky Phone, then I need to carry on using SR 203.

Is that even possible ? Do Openreach install multi port ONT, where I plug in SR203 for the phone and then my own router into another ONT port ?

No: although a multiport ONT does exist, it's to supply service  from more than one ISP to an address

[TimmyBGood]

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@smudgester wrote:

Sky are not the only ISP who are doing VOIP phone calls with their Fibre product (BT, for one, also do it).

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When BT put in our FTTP they left PSTN live on the copper arriving at the master socket for more than a year before telling us to switch over to using the socket on the Smart Hub 2 for voice calls (which, to be fair, went very smoothly).

[smudgester]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@smudgester wrote:

Sky are not the only ISP who are doing VOIP phone calls with their Fibre product (BT, for one, also do it).

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When BT put in our FTTP they left PSTN live on the copper arriving at the master socket for more than a year before telling us to switch over to using the socket on the Smart Hub 2 for voice calls (which, to be fair, went very smoothly).

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I am going on what the Openreach engineer told me yesterday 😊 Pretty sure he told me that once the Fibre line had been connected/activated then the existing copper from the pole to the master socket wouldn't work. Though this could be because I had an overhead fibre install (which followed the same path as the copper) and he had to do something to the copper line to avoid interence ?

[TimmyBGood]

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@smudgester wrote:

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Pretty sure he told me that once the Fibre line had been connected/activated then the existing copper from the pole to the master socket wouldn't work.

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I don't think there's any technical reason why that has to be the case, and electrical signalling over copper can't 'interfere' with pulses of light over glass.  There could be some mechanical reason (removing copper to get fibre through the same hole, perhaps) but that would seem unlikely.  The main reason ISPs want to get users off PSTN is that supplying data-only (FTTP/SOGEA/SOGFAST) is rather cheaper for them to buy from Openreach / BT Wholesale.

Note that FTTP 'activation' at an address may well trigger the ceasing of PSTN over copper arriving there, but that's a billing thing, not a technical consequence of the arrival of the new technology.

[jamesn123]

@smudgester @TimmyBGood 

Usually they say that because once FTTP has been deployed to the address the copper cabling gets disconnected at the cabinet/exchange

[smudgester]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@smudgester wrote:

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Pretty sure he told me that once the Fibre line had been connected/activated then the existing copper from the pole to the master socket wouldn't work.

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I don't think there's any technical reason why that has to be the case, and electrical signalling over copper can't 'interfere' with pulses of light over glass.  There could be some mechanical reason (removing copper to get fibre through the same hole, perhaps) but that would seem unlikely.  The main reason ISPs want to get users off PSTN is that supplying data-only (FTTP/SOGEA/SOGFAST) is rather cheaper for them to buy from Openreach / BT Wholesale.

Note that FTTP 'activation' at an address may well trigger the ceasing of PSTN over copper arriving there, but that's a billing thing, not a technical consequence of the arrival of the new technology.

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Ah, yes, that may have been it. The engineer did say that the pole was 'extemely busy and congested already'

[TimmyBGood]

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@jamesn123 wrote:

@smudgester @TimmyBGood 

Usually they say that because once FTTP has been deployed to the address the copper cabling gets disconnected at the cabinet/exchange

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Ours certainly wasn't ; )

I guess eventually they might want to free up the wiring loom space in the exchange buildings (although it's not exactly prime real-estate here) or even to salvage the cabling there for scrap value.

[TimmyBGood]

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@smudgester wrote:

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The engineer did say that the pole was 'extemely busy and congested already'

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Could be: that's certainly an issue in some places.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/02/an-unusual-capacity-problem-on-openreachs-uk-fttp-pole... 

[alexmay]

Just to bring this topic back to it's orignal subject, I have managed to get my UDM Pro to connect to Sky FTTP.

I had to use the WAN2 port for some reason. This goes via an RJ45 SFP module (from Ubiquiti). Only setup I have is IPv6 with /56 prefix. If I swap the working connection to WAN1 port, everything drops and I've been trying for a couple of days with WAN1 so no idea.

Hope this helps anyone setting up their own router. And thank you all who replied when I also asked.

Alex

[LootInTheBoot]

This is my first post on this forum... I've been looking into using my existing Asus RT-AC86U with Sky Q Hub for a few days, and this thread has given me the definitive answers I've been looking for... so thank you all! (esp post 44.)

Since there has been mention of dual WAN, I thought it may not be out of place to describe my scenario, and potentially ask for some advice, if that's OK?

I currently have Virgin Cable in Modem only mode and two Asus 86Us, one as primary running DHCP and the secondary in access point mode. I've had Sky broadband light for a few years but never used it. However, as part of a deal I'm getting Sky super fast activated and the intention is to use Sky BB as failover (or load balancing) putting my primary Asus wireless router in Dual WAN mode. (Virgin isn't as reliable as I'd like, and tends to drop a few times per year.) I found this post since my first attempt failed having hit the DHCP error since I hadn't entered the Option 61 details (I had no idea until researching).

If I'm reading correctly all I need to do for the second WAN connection (Sky) on the Asus router is enter the Option 61 credentials. I'm not sure at present about the IPv6 settings, but I'll enter those details if I'm given the option.

I wonder if anyone has any advice or any gotchas that I might be missing?

[cookiemonsteruk]

@LootInTheBoot 

Dhcpv6 pd ipv6 isn't supported on all sky lines

The process would be:-

Select dual stack ipv4/ipv6

Enable dhcpv6 dynamic on the wan

Enable pd/prefix delegation on the wan

For address creation on the lan select stateless/slaac