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A detailed look at the router provided by my ISP

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Re: A detailed look at the router provided by my ISP

#151
post #88
post #30

In the Netherlands we now have a law where ISPs must allow your own choice of network equipment. This means they must give you the required information on how to connect your own device with their network. I have a fiber connection, which I connected directly to a Ubiquity router through a suitable SFP module. My ISP supplied the information on the fiber type and which VLAN ID's to setup for internet, TV and telephon…

Do you know if this applies to cable modems too? Are they required to allow a 3rd party modem that they normally wouldn't provide to customers?

I'm not completely sure about this, as I don't have a cable connection to my house (only fiber) so I never paid attention. But AFIAK the major cable providers here allow you to configure the supplied modem-router into passthrough mode (thus, only acting as a modem) so you can install your own router behind it.

I have never met someone who attempted to install their own cable modem. I do know that the cable modulation standard (DOCSIS) is wildly complicated, so even buying the right type of cable modem for your connection would be challenging. There may also be licensing issues involved that would prevent you from buying such modem completely.

Re: A detailed look at the router provided by my ISP

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello, OP here, I've actually spent considerable amount time to find a code execution. I know you'll want to learn details of FUN_004122c0 but here is the decompiled version of iptables part from ghidra: undefined4 FUN_004045a0(int param_1,int param_2) { int iVar1; int iVar2; char pcVar3; char cVar4; code pcVar5; undefined auStack544 [256]; undefined auStack288 [260]; FUN_00412530(auStack544,0,0x100); FUN_00412530(au…

i guess you already tried issuing commands like i mentioned?! i am still confused by this code but to me it looks like this has been originally written in another language but maybe this is just what it looks like after de-compiling. seeing this function would likely be more interesting.

Yep, I tried. No luck there

Re: A detailed look at the router provided by my ISP

#153
post #30

In the Netherlands we now have a law where ISPs must allow your own choice of network equipment. This means they must give you the required information on how to connect your own device with their network. I have a fiber connection, which I connected directly to a Ubiquity router through a suitable SFP module. My ISP supplied the information on the fiber type and which VLAN ID's to setup for internet, TV and telephon…

How can you do without the modem? Which ubiquity product is that?

Fiber internet (at least where I live) is just a TCP/IP connection. You could even connect it straight to your PC and it would work.

So, I use a SFP module that it suitable for the wavelength and mode of my fiber connection, and plugged that in an Ubiquity Edgerouter. In case of my ISP I had to configure a VLAN on the external interface, as they use separate VLANs for internet, TV and telephony. Once you configure the VLAN, the router will receive an IP address over DHCP and you'll be online.

Re: A detailed look at the router provided by my ISP

#154
post #143
post #30

In the Netherlands we now have a law where ISPs must allow your own choice of network equipment. This means they must give you the required information on how to connect your own device with their network. I have a fiber connection, which I connected directly to a Ubiquity router through a suitable SFP module. My ISP supplied the information on the fiber type and which VLAN ID's to setup for internet, TV and telephon…

This law is a tech-support nightmare. You can call your ISP with any arbitrary piece of non-branded random AliExpress $#@$ of a network eq. and they must walk you through configuring it? That does not make much sense to me.

Or it is strong motivation to be the perfectly standard dumb pipe the user wanted to pay for in the first place.

Re: A detailed look at the router provided by my ISP

#155
post #56
post #30

In the Netherlands we now have a law where ISPs must allow your own choice of network equipment. This means they must give you the required information on how to connect your own device with their network. I have a fiber connection, which I connected directly to a Ubiquity router through a suitable SFP module. My ISP supplied the information on the fiber type and which VLAN ID's to setup for internet, TV and telephon…

I have Spectrum cable Internet. I use their modem, but I supply my own router, and they've never given me any trouble. In fact, they recently upgraded my modem (from a Scientific Atlanta 2203C to a Ubee E31U2V1) and they didn't send me a router. The Ubee E31U2V1, like the Scientific Atlanta 2203C before it, only has one Ethernet port, and their official guide to getting the new modem working involved rebooting an ext…

> I'm not going to be stupid and try to "uncap" my modem to get more speed

I think this modem "uncapping" thing has mostly been an urban myth. Maybe there were some really early cable modem systems in the 90s where that would have been possible, but AFAIK with DOCSIS the speed is regulated by the CMTS [0], not the modems.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_modem_termination_system

Re: A detailed look at the router provided by my ISP

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the provision of Internet that's the problem, it's the customer service requests. e.g., AT&T could provide perfect service to the home endpoint, but the customer bought some aftermarket router from their cousin, who had configured it for Verizon. Customer calls AT&T to holler. Tier 1 support doesn't know what that particular router config GUI even looks like, so it gets bumped to T2 or T3. Ultimately to find…

> provide all the troubleshooting for every non-technical customer who just wants to watch Netflix but doesn't even know what a router is People who don't even know what a router is don't buy their own equipment. Those who buy better routers don't require support for them, they call when there's a problem between the ISP and the router.

I disagree. If it is standard practice to BYOR, family or friends might give one to grandma, saying "use this, it will save you money".

I used to install satellite TV and saw this all the time. People would get old receivers from friends and family. Fortunately for me, the receivers were proprietary to that service (we don't use generic pay TV receivers in Canada) and the old ones were built like tanks. If people could have supplied any old cheap generic receiver, I probably would have had a bad time.

Re: A detailed look at the router provided by my ISP

#157
post #143
post #30

In the Netherlands we now have a law where ISPs must allow your own choice of network equipment. This means they must give you the required information on how to connect your own device with their network. I have a fiber connection, which I connected directly to a Ubiquity router through a suitable SFP module. My ISP supplied the information on the fiber type and which VLAN ID's to setup for internet, TV and telephon…

This law is a tech-support nightmare. You can call your ISP with any arbitrary piece of non-branded random AliExpress $#@$ of a network eq. and they must walk you through configuring it? That does not make much sense to me.

No, they have to provide the required values.

Re: A detailed look at the router provided by my ISP

#158
post #143
post #30

In the Netherlands we now have a law where ISPs must allow your own choice of network equipment. This means they must give you the required information on how to connect your own device with their network. I have a fiber connection, which I connected directly to a Ubiquity router through a suitable SFP module. My ISP supplied the information on the fiber type and which VLAN ID's to setup for internet, TV and telephon…

This law is a tech-support nightmare. You can call your ISP with any arbitrary piece of non-branded random AliExpress $#@$ of a network eq. and they must walk you through configuring it? That does not make much sense to me.

Parent note that the ISP provide a router anyway. It's safe to assume that most people will simply use that, if not for the support just because it is already there.

Re: A detailed look at the router provided by my ISP

#159
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ISPs hate it because it it makes their lives a lot harder - in cable networks, they now have to deal with a zoo of endpoints on a shared medium vs. a small set of standardized devices. In other words, ISPs hate it because it forces them to actually do their jobs and be ISPs. The Internet itself is "a zoo of endpoints on a shared medium", and ISP stands for Internet Service Provider.

>The Internet itself is "a zoo of endpoints on a shared medium", No, the shared medium in this case is referring the last part of the cable network where everyone in a neighborhood is transmitting effectively onto the same cable. All it takes is a single device with a broken configuration to spew crap onto the wrong channels, taking down the whole neighborhood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS#Physical_layer On t…

That is a really good point and one I hadn't considered.

Is it really that easy for a single device to take down a neighborhood? For example, could a bad actor trivially disrupt a node with a modified modem? I guess that would be difficult to defend against.

I don't know enough about docsis to say if it has any protections against out-of-spec devices.

I don't know why I'm surprised when things outside my area of expertise are fragile, considering things inside my area of expertise are fragile.

Re: A detailed look at the router provided by my ISP

#160
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure my new CenturyLInk fiber router is similar. I tried to create a PPoE connection from my WRT1900 direclty to century link using the same credentials and I couldn't connect to my internet. However, now I am motivated to create a bridge and find out why. For CenturyLink fiber I have two boxes: Box A: the exterior fiber enters this box, the tech said it was a "translator"; and the port 4 ethernet on it go…

> PPoE with my credentials which were somehow hardwired because no one ever told me my username/password They make it very hard to use your own "Box B", but I've set this up twice now (most recently last week). Get the username and password from CenturyLink (the tech that installs the service has this, or call them). Then, google search "century link vlan 201 wan tag". The trick is you need a router that has this fun…

Be aware that for many cheap routers you can't do the VLAN tagging the "normal" way via the web interface. Like this: https://blog.mapstrata.com/post/internode_openwrt/

For people with cheap/crappy hardware like me, if you have to set VLAN2 via the sub-interface then your config needs to look like this:

  config interface 'wan'
    option ifname 'eth1.2'
    option proto 'pppoe'
    option username 'your_internode_username@internode.on.net'
    option password 'SecretPassword'
All of the above can be set via the GUI, except the "eth1.2" part. The above works if you happen to be with Internode.
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