Recent posts

#1

Networking & Routers / Re: Networking solution help

Last post by zappaDPJ - Today at 18:16:25

I've used these as cheap APs where you aren't critical about high throughput. (They'll do about 200Mbps on 5GHz.) I have three (and a spare) at Dad's place, and one I use when travelling.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09N72FMH5

At the moment they're £42, but they fairly regularly dip down in price to £30.

They can act as routers (useful in hotels), or as repeaters, or as stand-alone WiFi Access Points (with a three port ethernet switch built in). They have a pretty straightforward webpage based config.

Thanks, those look promising. Would they present as a seperate network to my existing WiFi connection?

#2

Networking & Routers / Re: Alta Labs Route10 on IDNet...

Last post by Simon - Today at 14:05:10

Thanks for your review!

#3

Networking & Routers / Alta Labs Route10 on IDNet rev...

Last post by chaz6 - Today at 13:56:21

I was previously with V***** M**** and I switched to IDNet as soon as CityFibre was ready for service at my property. Until recently I was using an Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite (aka ERLite-3) but unfortunately it was no longer up to the task, as it does not support hardware offload for ipv6+vlan+pppoe (it supports /either/ ipv6+vlan or ipv6+pppoe but not both!). This resulted in the router effectively locking up whenever there was any non-trivial amount of IPv6 traffic. I looked around for a suitable replacement, and I ended up getting a good deal on an Alta Labs Route10 which was an ex-review unit. What follows is my experience so far.

Good:-

• The router feels like a quality device
• I was up and running quickly
• Good IPv6 support
• Two SFP+ ports and four 2.5G ports

Not so good:-

• There is nowhere to configure static routes
• You cannot set MTU on a specific interface (e.g. 1508 for WAN) - you can only enable "jumbo" frames on LAN
• You cannot configure local addresses (e.g. unique local unicast)
• The zone-based firewall seems limited to WAN and LAN zones
• Requires a controller, either in the cloud or self-hosted
• The self-hosted controller is not easy to manage (e.g. the docker container has no data volume to make manged upgrades easy)
• Managing dhcp reservations is fiddly
• You cannot disable the DHCPv6 server or manage reservations whatsoever
• It lacks common configuration management features you would expect (e.g. show | compare, commit confirmed, write memory, etc)
• The power supply is an uncommon 54V DC to the inclusion of PoE support - all my other networking gear is supplied from a single 12V DC PSU for which spares are very easy to obtain
• There is no console port - instead there is bluetooth

Despite all of the negatives, I am hopeful that most of the issues will be fixed via future software updates.

More information: https://www.alta.inc/route10

#4

Networking & Routers / Re: Networking solution help

Last post by nowster - Today at 13:55:15

I've used these as cheap APs where you aren't critical about high throughput. (They'll do about 200Mbps on 5GHz.) I have three (and a spare) at Dad's place, and one I use when travelling.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09N72FMH5

At the moment they're £42, but they fairly regularly dip down in price to £30.

They can act as routers (useful in hotels), or as repeaters, or as stand-alone WiFi Access Points (with a three port ethernet switch built in). They have a pretty straightforward webpage based config.

#5

Networking & Routers / Re: Networking solution help

Last post by zappaDPJ - Yesterday at 23:59:30

Due to a lot of conflicting advice I need a bit more hand holding on this.

The connection into my studio along with WiFi only got a partially installation due to the audio cabling challenge (64 channels) which took precedence.

What I currently have is a CAT(something) cable running between my router and the live room of my studio. The cable plugs into a network switch which serves a number of devices including my workstation. Totally irreverent but the workstation connection which runs from the network switch and then though multiple cables and sockets has a throughput over 30Mbps faster than my PC which is on a short run directly into the router

Anyway, my studio live room is a total WiFi dead spot. Is there something can I plug into the network switch which is situated in the live room, preferably plug and play.

#6

IDNet Help / Re: Status notifications

Last post by nowster - May 09, 2025, 14:03:09

Also available here: https://www.idnet.com/network-status.php

#7

IDNet Help / Re: Status notifications

Last post by zappaDPJ - May 09, 2025, 13:28:13

 http://www.idnet.net/statusrss.php if you need the link. Thanks Bill

#8

IDNet Help / Re: Status notifications

Last post by Simon - May 09, 2025, 11:43:23

Thanks for the update, Bill. 

#9

IDNet Help / Status notifications

Last post by Bill - May 09, 2025, 11:29:35

The RSS feed for status notifications seems to have been uprated... previously it just showed major events like outages etc, but now it seems to be showing more detailed figures (Currently Active connections, Recent disconnects) for each "type" of connection (Fibre Heroes, Openreach etc).

Interesting, and good to see such a degree of transparency..

#10

IDNet Help / Re: Openreach Fibre PPPoE MTU ...

Last post by nowster - Apr 29, 2025, 16:09:22

If the kit at both ends supports Path MTU Discovery, there's no fragmentation.