In reply to a post by Brunel:

But I'm distinctly unimpressed with the Plume Pod router they've supplied.

Could this be the same device that Virgin Media use as Wi Fi boosters?

https://getsupport.plume.com/hc/en-gb/articles/44058...

https://getsupport.plume.com/hc/en-gb/categories/440...

Could well be. Looks very similar.

I would guess that the Plume pods are 99% not capable of routing 400+ mbit without issues such as bufferbloat and that is before you get into anything more taxing.

Best option IMO would be to use a router that is able to do the job and use the Plumes in bridge mode purely for wifi which I think they can handle.

If you are not happy regarding the privacy aspect then junk them for some Unifi or Ruckus APs.

THIS post is over a year old so things may have changed since then.

Edited by smouty (Fri 26-Aug-22 14:05:42)

For the record, item 5 is now fixed and the problem RPi is now on my network and running fine. Chris's suggestion was correct: some miserable bit of software I had run on the thing had altered the /etc/dhcpcd.conf file to hardwire a static IP address without telling me. This was the same static address that I had provisioned in the router for the RPi, so I never noticed. A salutary reminder to be careful exactly what dodgy software you run on your kit.

Even though this issue is shown to be not a Plume Pod problem, I'm afraid I don't love it any better.

I’ve just received an email apologising for the delay so I’m assuming I was correct that I was originally told that the expected installation date would be Sep. this year.

The delay is no real issue for me tbh.

Hi Chris, do you have any setting you could share getting PFSense to work with the Swish network please?

Hi,

Beyond setting the connection type to DHCP the only other setting I'm aware of you'll want to modify is:
Option modifiers = supersede dhcp-server-identifier 255.255.255.255

Best,

Chris
Swish Fibre Team

Perfect thanks for the info Chris!

In reply to a post by Thaumaturge:

Well, the day I thought would never, ever come finally did last Monday afternoon. 2 blokes from Swish installed a 400/400 FTTP connection. Installation was very straightforward, took a couple of hours, would have been less if the engineer hadn't left his laptop at the previous job and had to go back for it.

Experience so far is a bit mixed. It mostly works and I do get the advertised speed - a little over, in fact. But I'm distinctly unimpressed with the Plume Pod router they've supplied.

1) It's basically a mesh network hub - they want you to buy several of the things. My network is predominately wired, so it's not a good fit. There is only one downstream port on the router, so I now have to connect everything through my switch. This is fairly old box, it still works fine, but its ports are only 100M. So I now have a 400M internet connection throttled through a 100M switch. Previously I could connect the important devices on my network - my desktop, my wife's desktop, and our main NAS box, directly to the router at 1G, and only had less important stuff on the switch.

2) It plugs directly into a power socket. It's footprint is such that you can't use the neighbouring outlet(s) on a ganged socket - in my case 2 others are not usable, and I don't have many spare. Also all my sockets are low down by the skirting board - this inhibits finding a good spot for best wifi coverage. I had my old router on a shelf fairly high up which seemed to be best. I suppose I could put a 4-way extension up there, but I'm not keen on running a 240v cable up my wall.

3) It doesn't have a browser management interface. You have to manage it using a horrid app on a phone. This is grey on grey, uses very small size fonts, and at my advanced age I have considerable trouble reading it. Frustratingly, Plume do have a web app which I could use on my desktop screen, and enlarge to be easier to read, but when I tried to login to this it told me my account was not authorised to use it. It seems Swish can't or won't make it available to their customers here.

4) All the router stats and info are stored in "the Plume cloud", aka Plume servers somewhere, likely outside the jurisdiction of any GDPR rules etc. Both Plume and and Swish seem less than forthcoming about precisely what is collected, why, where it is stored, for how long, and how it is divvied up between Plume and Swish. There are examples, but I've not found a definitive list. One link* I followed on the Plume website to their Privacy Policy gave me a 404 error. Aside from the major privacy implications, it also means that without an internet connection the router can't be managed, and there aren't any status leds on it.

5) It doesn't play nicely, or indeed at all, with one of my Raspberry Pi machines. DHCP doesn't seem to work, and it doesn't get assigned an IP address. This a bit of a bummer because the RPi runs headless, and without an IP address I can't SSH to it to see what's going on. I've put it back on my old Fritzbox 7530 router and it's perfectly OK. 3 other RPis (2 wired, one wifi) on the network are also all fine, and all four are running much the same Linux based OS, so why this one is being victimised I have no idea. Neither, at present, do Swish support, who are allegedly on the case, though to be fair it is still fairly early days.

I'm on a 6 month free trial right now. If I persist with Swish I will almost certainly junk this load of rubbish and buy a proper router. Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations, please? I'm not a power user, I don't game and I don't stream all that much. Wifi performance isn't that important, but I would like something with 4 genuine 1G ports on the back.

* https://support.plume.com/hc/en-us/sections/36000630...

It was for all these reasons that I decided not to use the Plume router (and was never set up with this), especially the network management and cloud issues.

I am *now* happily using the TP-Link Archer C7 router - after Swish swapped out the ONT as it wasn't playing nicely with the router (see my earlier posts), and getting Gigabit Ethernet on all LAN ports.

An added bonus is that the C7 enables you to set up a VPN - you need to have a static IP address for this, at (only) £3 / month. I can now access files remotely (music, photos), and a certain public broadcaster's .co.uk websites, while on holiday.

I'm also running several RPi's on my LAN, and can SSH into them happily from my Apple Mac.

If you run Tailscale on your devices you do not even need a static IP.

Pros - it is very easy to setup and use.

Cons - It relies on a central service to connect.