ONT question

If you plug a laptop directly into an ONT, would you be connected to the internet?

Is this a trick question....?

Yes - presuming there was an active ISP service and if your ISP was using say PPPoE you had the necessary PPPoE client running on the laptop to authenticate yourself.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

If you plug a laptop directly into an ONT, would you be connected to the internet?

To expand Pheasant's answer slightly: you *could* get connected to the Internet that way, but it it will probably not happen automatically. Depending on your ISP, there may be manual configuration required to configure your laptop's ethernet port in the same way as the WAN port on the ISP's router.

* The connection may use either IP/DHCP or PPPoE. If it's IP/DHCP and you're lucky, simply plugging it may "just work". However even then, some ISPs also require some special DHCP options to be set. For those which use PPPoE, you'll need to enable a PPPoE client, and you'll need to know the correct username/password to use.

* In addition to this, the connection may or may not require VLAN tagging. If it does, you have to configure a subinterface with the correct tag. (And some ISPs use "vlan 0" - i.e. priority bits only - which not all clients support)

In short: plugging in a laptop to the ONT and *not* getting connected to the Internet, does not prove that there's a problem. More likely you have just not configured the laptop correctly.

If you can specify which ISP you're using, other people can probably give you the correct configuration for that ISP.

Trick question: NO
Active ISP: Yes
PPPoE: Yes
What would you suggest as an PPPoE client?

The reason I asked is because I suspect that the ISP supplied router is faulty and in the absence of another router, I wanted to check thee was actually a service on the fibre. The ONT has all green lights.

The service was only installed yesterday; initially the PON light was on but following extra work by Openreach skillset externally, it went out.

Now when you plug in the router it shows there is no internet suggesting the right logon credentials have not be entered. Re-entered them but no joy.

The other odd thing about the router is that when hardwiring my laptop into the router, the taskbar icon remains as a globe but ipconfig reports I have a DCHP address and i can at least logon to the router where it states I have no internet connection.

Have checked out the ethernet link cable between the ONT and the WAN port and that looks fine to me.

Router is ZYXEL VNG8623-TSOB V5.50 (ABPM.5)C0

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/al...

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Trick question: NO
Active ISP: Yes

I think that's "Maybe" at this stage, as there may be a provisioning fault. Anyway, which ISP?

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

PPPoE: Yes
What would you suggest as an PPPoE client?

Windows, macOS both have built-in PPPoE clients. Linux almost certainly too (I don't have a Linux desktop to hand to test with)

Testing this way does give you some additional clues. Using Wireshark or tcpdump on the ethernet link, you can see whether your PPPoE discover (PADI) packets are being sent, and whether any responses are coming back (PADO). Nice overview here. Then if PPPoE is established, you'll be able to see if the PPP session itself establishes, and if not, what the problem is (e.g. bad username/password).

However, unless you've successfully configured this to work with the specific ISP previously - including the correct VLAN tagging if required - then *not* getting a PADO response doesn't necessarily mean a problem with the ISP.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Router is ZYXEL VNG8623-TSOB V5.50 (ABPM.5)C0

Is this an ISP-supplied and pre-configured router, or one that you have provided yourself?

If it's supplied and pre-configured, then another approach is to put a managed switch between the router WAN port and the ONT, and configure a mirror port on the switch to send a copy of all WAN->ONT and ONT->WAN packets. Then you stick a laptop running wireshark or tcpdump on that port, so you can see the packets being sent and received.

However, in this situation, the fact that the link doesn't come up by itself is good enough to raise as a fault to the ISP. You may have a green light, but either Openreach or the ISP may not have correctly configured the traffic path.

That reads like a provisioning issue / incomplete install.

You're best off in the first instance following up with the ISP on Monday if the router does not come online by then.

Testing using a laptop/own PPPoE client is all very well, but you may be wasting your time if its not fully provisioned...end up chasing your tail over something out of your control.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Trick question: NO
Active ISP: Yes

I think that's "Maybe" at this stage, as there may be a provisioning fault. Anyway, which ISP?

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

PPPoE: Yes
What would you suggest as an PPPoE client?

Windows, macOS both have built-in PPPoE clients. Linux almost certainly too (I don't have a Linux desktop to hand to test with)

Testing this way does give you some additional clues. Using Wireshark or tcpdump on the ethernet link, you can see whether your PPPoE discover (PADI) packets are being sent, and whether any responses are coming back (PADO). Nice overview here. Then if PPPoE is established, you'll be able to see if the PPP session itself establishes, and if not, what the problem is (e.g. bad username/password).

However, unless you've successfully configured this to work with the specific ISP previously - including the correct VLAN tagging if required - then *not* getting a PADO response doesn't necessarily mean a problem with the ISP.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Router is ZYXEL VNG8623-TSOB V5.50 (ABPM.5)C0

Is this an ISP-supplied and pre-configured router, or one that you have provided yourself?

If it's supplied and pre-configured, then another approach is to put a managed switch between the router WAN port and the ONT, and configure a mirror port on the switch to send a copy of all WAN->ONT and ONT->WAN packets. Then you stick a laptop running wireshark or tcpdump on that port, so you can see the packets being sent and received.

However, in this situation, the fact that the link doesn't come up by itself is good enough to raise as a fault to the ISP. You may have a green light, but either Openreach or the ISP may not have correctly configured the traffic path.

To answer the questions posed here:
ISP: Cloudscape Connect
Source of router: Supplied by ISP preconfigured BUT ....
Logging onto the router, it is necessary to change the default password (Which I did and did a screenshot with the new password shown). Router reboots but doesn't allow me to log back in with either the new or old password, So had to reset the router back to factory defaults, Great back into the router with the same steps taken. This time new password OK. Went to supply the ISP logon credentials only to find they were already present and correct.

You said "You may have a green light, but either Openreach or the ISP may not have correctly configured the traffic path" - I concur, and it seems that a dialog between Cloudscape and Openreach is currently under way, I think I will take a back while they do their magic.

This thread is an example of asking the question you're *actually* trying to get an answer for, rather than asking around the problem.

The thing that goes through my mine is, if there was an issue and the engineers had to do some work on in the splitter node to get it to work has your CBT port be wrongly connected to a different splitter (if there was more than one in the splitter node).

If I'm barking up the wrong tree please don't shoot me down.