Which provider on OFNL

Hi all

I'm planning to move into an OFNL-enabled home later in the year, and am looking for recommendations of which ISPs are good, and which to avoid, from those who have contracted with OFNL. I'm also keen to get a static IP address, so if you know of any ONFL ISPs who can provide this, along with costs, I'd love to hear about it.

Having reviewed all of the suppliers and their package options (as well as the quality of their websites!), my preferred options so far are:

MTH Networks - 300/300 £52/mo + £30 setup
Pure Broadband - 360/180 £54/mo + £20 setup
Air Broadband - 300/300 £52.50/mo + £50 setup
Kinetic Telecom - 360/180 £66/mo + £45 setup

I've contacted all of the above to enquire about Fixed IP availability so will see what they say; so far Kinetic have said they do offer it, but only on their business service which costs £1/mo more... but also then incurs an additional £100 on top of the £45 consumer setup charge.

Has anyone heard any more about Sky's/ONFL's press-release last year that Sky would offer broadband services via OFNL in "Summer 2020"?

And what's with the long list of "Business ISPs" listed on the ONFL website? The majority don't seem to mention OFNL on their websites or include OFNL postcodes in their postcode lookups (they just return the standard BTW response about the site/address being blocked). Do any of these actually offer reasonable SOHO/Small Business packages to those connected to the OFNL network, or is this really just to allow their larger corporate clients who find themselves in an OFNL location to obtain leased lines and the like?

Whilst I'm looking forward to "full fibre" and 300Mbps+ speeds, including seemingly far better upload speeds than reasonably available from Openreach, I'm somewhat nervous of having to leave Zen who have provided excellent service for the last ~6 years. I notice one of the few posts about ONFL on here suggested to the last OP that they contact Zen and ask if they would offer services with ONFL, but I assume that went nowhere ;.(

Can you not get a service direct from OFNL rather than any third party?

You may find that even if you do not have a static IP address, the address does not change often..

I believe See The Light is OFNLs sister brand which provides the retail service, and therefore one of the 8 or so options. However not currently on my short list, in the same way BT hasn't ever been on my FTTC short list!

Just after posting my question last night, I found a PDF of a leaflet from Redraw Internet, another one of the OFNL ISPs, which mentioned that static IPs are available so I also emailed them and they were one of the first to respond... a static IP is available on their consumer packages for £3/mo. However they 'only' offer the 360/72 package according to their website, rather than the 300/300 or 360/180 options from the other suppliers.

MTH have also confirmed they can offer a fixed IP, will hopefully get their pricing and responses to my enquiries to some of the others tomorrow.

Does anyone also know if ONFL ISPs are really just reselling a whitelabelled service where ONFL provide all connectivity to the Internet eXchange Point, or if traffic is handed off to the ISPs somewhere in the same way most ISPs using Openreach and BTW unbundle part of the service and receive and route all their consumer traffic through their own network.

In reply to a post by olicuk:

Does anyone also know if ONFL ISPs are really just reselling a whitelabelled service where ONFL provide all connectivity to the Internet eXchange Point, or if traffic is handed off to the ISPs somewhere in the same way most ISPs using Openreach and BTW unbundle part of the service and receive and route all their consumer traffic through their own network.

I suspect everyone has to use the OFNL ONT. It appears to have a BT type telephone socket. It would be worth checking that you can use your own VOIP hardware and a VOIP provider of your own choice.

Michael is correct. OFNL backhaul the traffic from their ONT to Telehouse or one of the Equinix datacentres from where it eventually connects to the Internet.

Their exclusive access at residential and commercial developments is not entirely viewed as a good thing within the industry now that FTTP has a greater footprint, and there is an obvious competition issue.

Hi, i found your post via a google search and it looks similar to my search, with a twist...

I've been with See the Light since last year and im looking around for a static IP address - did you manage to find out who offer static IPs and what deals there were?

Thanks!

If it helps we can offer OFNL service and normally provide a static IP by default.

We also offer IPv6

Please free to message here if we can help

excellent, yes please! How do i found out further info? thanks

In reply to a post by HMSWoofDog:

excellent, yes please! How do i found out further info? thanks

Click on their Nick in the header, that takes you to their public profile and from there you can send a PM.

You can also read and send from your private profile. Keep an eye open for a flashing envelope at the left of the main menu, which notifies you of an incoming message.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 02-Jan-21 01:06:49)

you are on what is affectionaly known as an Openreach lock out site