3g/4g Backup for FTTX

I posted this over on Zen's customer forum but haven't received any replies.

I remember back in the (bad) old days, Zen offered dial-up backup for ADSL connections. I have been on FTTC for some years and now just recently upgraded to FTTH/P (300 down/50 up). I have already had one short outage on the Openreach network and, clearly, there is very little that Zen can do about these. But how about a backup service over an alternative access method such as 3g/4g cellular?

This could be by exposing the PPPoE server over the Internet or via a VPN connection. This would allow continued use of allocated public IP addresses (and thus any services running over the FTTX connection) during an Openreach outage.

I find it hard to believe this has not been thought of so why is it not offerred by Zen or any other provider that I know of? Any idea, anyone?

Thanks.

BT Business offer it (as standard I think), including the SIM. It's certainly included in some of their products.

I don't know about BT Consumer.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 16-Mar-20 12:18:14)

Have only had 3 short outages generally late at night since I had Zen FTTP activated at home in Jan '18

Not seen 4G backup offered as an option but then I'm not running services over it so the outages aren't that much of an issue so haven't looked to be honest.

If it's just to keep you working, maybe a PAYG SIM?

BT Consumer that would be the Halo products

AAISP allow you to make an L2TP connection (essentially PPP-over-IP) via any third-party ISP, so you can keep your static IP allocation during an outage. You can even take it standalone for £10/month.

But they don't offer any faster than 160/30 on FTTP, and the standalone L2TP is capped at 100Mbps and 1TB/month.

If keeping a static IP for inbound connections is important to you, then you could also buy a small cloud VPC with a secure tunnel to your local network (e.g. Wireguard or OpenVPN).

There is no separate SIM, the 4G USB Dongle is selfcontained.

It works well and kicks in almost immediately - slight delay in case there is a modem reboot ocurring and does not drop out until around 10 minutes of uninterrupted service is seen.

I have the 4G Assure but my router and dongle are in a "Grey Spot" were coverage is weak, however it gave 20-25 Down and 4 Up.

One issue is that it is linked to both your account and the Hub or ONT - I had a new hub supplied and when my line failed a month or so back, 4G failed to kick in as the Dongle was not recognised as paired with teh Hub/Modem - BT had a replacement to me in under 20 hoiurs!

That is good to know. My FTTC service was very solid.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

AAISP allow you to make an L2TP connection (essentially PPP-over-IP) via any third-party ISP, so you can keep your static IP allocation during an outage. You can even take it standalone for £10/month.

But they don't offer any faster than 160/30 on FTTP, and the standalone L2TP is capped at 100Mbps and 1TB/month.

If keeping a static IP for inbound connections is important to you, then you could also buy a small cloud VPC with a secure tunnel to your local network (e.g. Wireguard or OpenVPN).

Interesting idea which I had not thought of. One of the reasons I run services at home, however, is that often VPC/VPS IP addresses are blacklisted due to the previous tenant's nefarious activities.