Lightspeed - Port Forwarding Issue

Hi all,

Been with Lightspeed for a few months, great service & great speed! (1GB up & down)

Recently, I have been setting up my Home Assistant and I am at the point where I am setting it up for remote access via VPN, etc.

Upon configuring the Port Forwarding via the Nokia app, I've found that I still can't connect to it.

So, I dug around and found this on Lightspeed FAQ page - https://myaccount.lightspeed.co.uk/s/article/Port-Fo...

if you have a server running on your LAN that you wish to connect to from the Internet, then this isn’t currently available and is something we are looking into and can hopefully offer soon.

Bit disappointed... I've sent them an email to find out when they will support it, but I thought I'd post this here in case anyone else come across this issue.

They are using CGNAT which is causing you the problems, whether you can call them up and ask them for a static IP I do not know.
I have friends who are thinking of going with them but they have CCTV which requires port forwarding, I have warned them about CGNAT.

Some VPN providers provide a way round CGNAT like:
https://www.purevpn.com/uk/blog/cgnat-port-forwarding/
However I've not used them or even tested them.

Edited by BB4Tickton (Thu 04-Jan-24 08:58:45)

Thank you, that's useful to know - wish I knew earlier!

Will see what they say when they reply my email.

In reply to a post by hypertony:

if you have a server running on your LAN that you wish to connect to from the Internet, then this isn’t currently available and is something we are looking into and can hopefully offer soon.

Bit disappointed... I've sent them an email to find out when they will support it, but I thought I'd post this here in case anyone else come across this issue.

You can use some sort of reverse tunnel such as Cloudflare Tunnel, ZeroTier, or ngrok so that devices on your home network are reachable from the internet.

I use AAISP's L2TP service to gain static IPv4 and IPv6 addresses - that works through CGNAT etc. by making an outgoing tunnel where the far end is visbile on the internet.
I don't suffer CGNAT, but using L2TP means I keep the same addresses regardless of the ISP or 4G/5G service I use - very good for a switching to 4G if the FTTP ever goes down.

In reply to a post by behuk:

You can use some sort of reverse tunnel such as Cloudflare Tunnel, ZeroTier, or ngrok so that devices on your home network are reachable from the internet.

Thanks, some investigation is needed. Cheers for the tips!

They have announced static IP!

£6 a month. Good price?

Anyone signed up to it yet?

Neither good nor bad, some providers want £10 a month for it, some lock it behind business plans or higher service tiers. £6 is reasonable but also enough of a saving if you're prepared to try and work around the requirement and use something like Tailscale.

I currently use Tailscale but it's a faff to remember to turn it on/off and often conflicts with my work's VPN.

So, yeah I think £6/m is reasonable for peace of mind.

Not a good price. Plusnet will give you a static IP for a one off £5 charge. As part of the BT group they probably have a lot more IPv4 addresses at their disposal. Alt nets have to pay a lot to get them, but £6 a month, I wouldn't pay it.