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The installation consists of a wall mounted ONT, which as best as I can identify is a Nokia G-010G-Q. This is then connected to the ISP-provided Zyxel VMG8825-T50.
Speaking to the engineer, the network is using GPON and not XGSPON, which is a bit of a surprise for a GBVS network built in 2023. The connection is made with IPoE, so no PPPoE to worry about.
There isn't a great deal of options when it comes to plans, with just the one speed (1000/1000) offered for £20 a month (£35 if not using a government voucher). The network uses CGNAT but a static IP can be configured for £5 extra per month. There is no IPv6 at present (although the FAQ on their website will tell you otherwise), however I believe this is currently in the works and expected to be live in the near future.
First experiences have not been brilliant, but it's early days and things are improving. For the first 24 hours or so I had regular issues with mobile devices not getting any connectivity for a lot of apps/websites (but not all), and wired devices would also see random drops frequently. Clicking a link would often bring up an error along the lines of 'server cannot be reached' or some form of DNS error. I had raised this with their support team, who have been generally responsive and helpful in sorting some of these issues so far. Since moving to a static IP however, things seem to have settled down a lot and I haven't noticed any issues so far since, so there was either an issue with their core network that has since been resolved or there is an underlying issue with their implementation of CGNAT. Ping times generally seem slightly more consistent with the static address too, regularly hitting 10ms to 1.1.1.1 (I'm based in the North East which will impact these times somewhat).
Speeds are a vast improvement on the previous VDSL connection (which due to distance was around 56/10), but is possibly a bit disappointing compared to results from other full-fibre ISPs. Results tend to fluctuate a bit but generally speaking most speedtest.net results come in at around 600/700, but I've seen downloads as low as 350-400 and uploads as high as 910.
I took a few tests earlier and got the following results over a wired CAT5e connection:
568/657
407/797
621/645
713/772
626/758
A fast.com speedtest came out to 690/730 and a TBB test returned slightly slower results:
I tried connecting my PC directly to the ONT but the speeds were fairly similar there too, so I don't think it's an issue with the supplied router.
I've seen a number of people on other FTTP connections getting around 900/900 on wired connections, so this seems a little lower than it should be. I'm the only user on my LAN so there shouldn't be any local congestion at all. It may just be that the OLT backhaul is limited or the wider core network doesn't quite have the capacity. I did chat to the engineer briefly and I think he said in passing that the backhaul for the village was 1Gb but he may have been referring to something else or misspoke.
Generally though, it's substantially cheaper than my VDSL service with Aquiss (who have been great) and on the whole seems to perform fairly well so far. Hopefully the support team can work through some of these speed issues
Edited by Toonshorty (Tue 06-Jun-23 19:40:21)