City Fibre

[superleeds27]

You must be new to the Networking sub forum?

It comes down to a simple choice, do you want to buy a product from a company who knowingly chose to ignore CVE patching for years, knew it had shipped products that left users data shares exposed to the internet and kept shipping the same flawed firmware for years after being informed, and only begrudgingly did anything when the largest distributor/retailer in the US explained they either fixed the products or the brand would be pulled. Asus were then investigated in the US and forced to agree to fines and 25 years of external auditing which should make things better right? Oddly after that a competitor reviewed FCC test data and discovered they had literally re-used the same data to get FCC certification for multiple products. Obviously a mistake, just like one of the longest product threads in the network sub forum regarding not one, but two generations of products with modem chipsets that couldn't maintain a stable FTTC connection. That thread outlasted at least two Asus forum reps who promised the earth and failed to deliver. We never got much on the interfaces dropping, but anecdotal testing showed poor hardware design along with poor soldering and inadequate cooling, which is a strange problem for products that invariably look like they are technological dingleberries that belong in the Transformers franchise.

So, if you like garbage tier products networking products from marketing companies who have literally zero respect for your safety or security online and who only care about milking you, then ANUS Asus is the brand for you! If you would like at least the most basic level of competency and support, patches provided in a timely manner for CVE’s and just not to be lied to continually, then literally buy anything else. Seeing people use, let alone recommend them on the networking sub forum of a supposedly enthusiast orientated site makes me cringe.

I mean, there's not much else left is there in terms of consumer? Netgear which are meh for software, tplink who never update there firmware...

Who's left?

 

[no_1_dave]

I mean, there's not much else left is there in terms of consumer? Netgear which are meh for software, tplink who never update there firmware...

Who's left?

Exactly this, plus most routers I see recommended lack things like 2x 2.5gb ports and dual WAN unless you spend quite a bit more or learn to use a NUC from aliexpress
Many recent Asus routers come well recommended and well reviewed and include 2.5gb with dual wan etc

I know it's an enthusiast forum, so recommending higher grade more costly gear is normal. But it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea

 

[Caged]

My ideal home router would be a MikroTik box with a couple of 2.5Gb ports and 3-4 more 1Gb ports on a switch chip, with a quick enough ARM CPU to do 2Gbps of routing with a PPPoE WAN. No Wi-Fi needed.

 

[danlightbulb]

Log into your account and it will show install date etc. if not contact them via WhatsApp, for all the stated owning hours say they are shut, you will likely get a reply out of hours. You should also get a text the day before from CF confirming the slot, pay attention to it, it may not be the slot you actually booked!

Had a look through my emails and there is no account number provided so I can't register on their site. All I've had so far is a direct debit confirmation that's it. Will try messaging them.

 

[Avalon]

I mean, there's not much else left is there in terms of consumer? Netgear which are meh for software, tplink who never update there firmware...

Who's left?

Netgear make solid consumer grade routers, better yet why not the GL.inet Flint 2 for example? It’s available brand new for £100-145 and able to run *WRT. Something like the TPL ER7xx derivatives are multi 2.5Gb and despite your suggestion, TP Link are usually quite welcoming of feedback and interested in pushing firmware in the event of a CVE or replicatable issue. The Deco Pro’s aren’t bad, but I would suggest feature light and make better AP’s than routers, same with Nest and Eero. I haven't personally had the pleasure, but Synology reputedly aren't awful.

Exactly this, plus most routers I see recommended lack things like 2x 2.5gb ports and dual WAN unless you spend quite a bit more or learn to use a NUC from aliexpress
Many recent Asus routers come well recommended and well reviewed and include 2.5gb with dual wan etc

I know it's an enthusiast forum, so recommending higher grade more costly gear is normal. But it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea

Nobody is recommending a 1Gb router where the requirement is stated as 2.5Gb. As above, why not a Flint 2 for £100-145? It is specifically developed to offer OpenWRT compatibility from a brand with a solid reputation for hardware/firmware update/support and ticks your stated requirements. When you say ‘review’, presumably you are on about a paid for advert? Just having read one of the contracts that comes with free Asus hardware for reviews, they are very, very restrictive.

As to costing more, thats not how it works, you can buy functionally better kit for the same or less money. Also short term you are obviously right if comparing to options like an ER8411 or UDM Pro or SE, but they’re 10Gb LAN and WAN and will NAT at near that speed, the Asus never will, so you’ll buy a 5Gb version and a 10Gb version and even at todays price for the 2.5Gb, thats going to be way more. As to learning to use a NUC, you turn it on, boot from a USB and within a few minutes have your chosen distro installed, allocate your interfaces and you’re done, after that, it’s just like any other router. In all honesty, I wouldn't bother with the Topton Ali boxes either, except possibly the 1u based stuff with native 10Gb. You can pickup an ex. corp. SFF for £35-45 and a suitable i225-T2 NIC for £30 and my Deco x20 kit was £99 for two nodes which give better coverage than a single router. Throw the rest of the budget at a mixed media 4x2.5/2x10Gb switch and you have vastly more speed, flexibility and functionality for similar money to the Asus with a cheap/easy upgrade path to 10Gb. I’ve run two such boxes recently, 6th and 7th gen which run 8-18w idle.

 

[Avalon]

Had a look through my emails and there is no account number provided so I can't register on their site. All I've had so far is a direct debit confirmation that's it. Will try messaging them.

Check the Yayzi forums, the new whatsapp number was set-up yesterday, communication and announcements need to be briefed out before changes are made, but the new set-up promises vastly improved peering and lower latency hopefully, as well as IPv6 blocks.

 

[superleeds27]

Netgear make solid consumer grade routers, better yet why not the GL.inet Flint 2 for example? It’s available brand new for £100-145 and able to run *WRT. Something like the TPL ER7xx derivatives are multi 2.5Gb and despite your suggestion, TP Link are usually quite welcoming of feedback and interested in pushing firmware in the event of a CVE or replicatable issue. The Deco Pro’s aren’t bad, but I would suggest feature light and make better AP’s than routers, same with Nest and Eero. I haven't personally had the pleasure, but Synology reputedly aren't awful.



Nobody is recommending a 1Gb router where the requirement is stated as 2.5Gb. As above, why not a Flint 2 for £100-145? It is specifically developed to offer OpenWRT compatibility from a brand with a solid reputation for hardware/firmware update/support and ticks your stated requirements. When you say ‘review’, presumably you are on about a paid for advert? Just having read one of the contracts that comes with free Asus hardware for reviews, they are very, very restrictive.

As to costing more, thats not how it works, you can buy functionally better kit for the same or less money. Also short term you are obviously right if comparing to options like an ER8411 or UDM Pro or SE, but they’re 10Gb LAN and WAN and will NAT at near that speed, the Asus never will, so you’ll buy a 5Gb version and a 10Gb version and even at todays price for the 2.5Gb, thats going to be way more. As to learning to use a NUC, you turn it on, boot from a USB and within a few minutes have your chosen distro installed, allocate your interfaces and you’re done, after that, it’s just like any other router. In all honesty, I wouldn't bother with the Topton Ali boxes either, except possibly the 1u based stuff with native 10Gb. You can pickup an ex. corp. SFF for £35-45 and a suitable i225-T2 NIC for £30 and my Deco x20 kit was £99 for two nodes which give better coverage than a single router. Throw the rest of the budget at a mixed media 4x2.5/2x10Gb switch and you have vastly more speed, flexibility and functionality for similar money to the Asus with a cheap/easy upgrade path to 10Gb. I’ve run two such boxes recently, 6th and 7th gen which run 8-18w idle.

Flint 2 does look interesting, it is something I've been keeping an eye on, just not seen many reviews for it.

 

[no_1_dave]

why not a Flint 2 for £100-145?

If you want Dual WAN you lose both your 2.5gb ports
Would make more sense to have one of the 1gb ports be the 2nd WAN like on other routers

 

[Glanza]

Just got this email from No One

Here at No One Internet, through rapid expansion we have decided to partner up with industry leader Home Telecom who are based in Horsham, West Sussex and operate 24/7, to support our growth as a smaller ISP. We have made this decision because as we continue to grow, we need more back-office support to help us with billing, credit control, and service. Home Telecom are extremely well set up to power the back-office side of operations and assist with the ongoing support of our valuable customers.

We have chosen them as they have been established for over 14 years and are renowned for their fantastic customer service, which is rated “Excellent” with 4.5* from an incredible 10,000 reviews on Trustpilot, making them the highest ranking in the industry by number of reviews.

There is nothing for you to do and there will be no interruption to your broadband package or customer service. Your price and package will remain the same, No One Internet will continue to deliver your broadband service with billing and support delivered by Home Telecom. They will take over the billing of your No One Internet account from the 15th March and GoCardless who collect the payment on your usual date, will present 'Home Telecom' as the collecting bank.

There is further good news, with our expansion we are able to offer far more services than before, including BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and many more of the now established local AltNet suppliers at your postcode.

You will receive a welcome email from the Home Telecom team introducing themselves very soon.

 

[GregI]

@Avalon This fumble was the last straw for me: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-routers-offline-faulty-update

Not as bad but they had a £25 rate my gear promotion where they don't actually pay out unless you hound them constantly and even then it's not right. The prices are also sickening. £339 retail for a dual band router which they can afford to now sell for £200... makes you wonder what profit margins they have.

Also about the review stuff it is just all paid ads unless you get someone you know isn't a shill. e.g this Flint 2 review is what you would expect just cold hard data and know what they are talking about: https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/0...w-part-2-wifi-6-2-5gbe-wireguard-performance/

Instead of relying on ads to tell me if a product is good I tend to just look at forums. The Flint 2 currently has some problems based on their own forums but atleast the company is reading it and responding. They got mediatek (the chip maker) in their offices last week to try and diagnose why the problems are happening. When the Flint 2 goes on sale for about £120 I'll be buying it.

 

[Rawr]

Just got this email from No One

I'm a bit confused about the entire thing really Home Telecoms website suggests they're only handling the billing/backend while No One is suggesting HT is handling the support as well as the billing/backend. Which is it lol? I'd hope it's the former really, considering the support has always been great from No One. If it's the latter I'm a bit worried. To be honest I'm a bit worried anyway, it seems like these are the people who've bought out a bunch of customers from Cuckoo(though admittedly it did seem Cuckoo's choice), and the reviews on ISP Review for HT don't look that inviting either despite HT's supposed high trustpilot rating.

Overall it's not a great look for those of us who didn't even join that long ago. We thought we knew what we were getting into, and now we really really don't anymore. :/

 

[ChrisD.]

supposed high trustpilot rating

I've found Trustpilot to be full of fake reviews (both positive, and negative from competing companies), I've never trusted it wholly.

 

[Rawr]

I've found Trustpilot to be full of fake reviews (both positive, and negative from competing companies), I've never trusted it wholly.

It's definitely not that useful, or well you have to sift through and try and find information that might be useful. I only mentioned it because they tried to use it as a positive in the email they sent really, where it clearly isn't.

 

[Caged]

Trustpilot seem to be quite easy to game by companies soliciting reviews for individual interactions, so stuff like "how was this one delivery handled", "how did we answer your support query today" but then presents them as if people are reviewing the service as a whole. It's clear from reading the reviews what the context of them being written is.

I find it more useful to read the 1-3 star reviews and seeing if there are consistent problems that are actually a providers fault, and not people complaining that their road is being dug up and it's noisy.

 

[madindehead]

I don't suppose anyone has any success convincing a landlord to allow City Fibre to install the network in their building? My landlord owns the whole building and has apparently refused permission for City Fibre (my ISP has told me this when I tried to order via email) to install the totally free equipment for anyone to get a connection. Total lunacy.

 

[zpos]

I'm a bit confused about the entire thing really Home Telecoms website suggests they're only handling the billing/backend while No One is suggesting HT is handling the support as well as the billing/backend. Which is it lol? I'd hope it's the former really, considering the support has always been great from No One. If it's the latter I'm a bit worried. To be honest I'm a bit worried anyway, it seems like these are the people who've bought out a bunch of customers from Cuckoo(though admittedly it did seem Cuckoo's choice), and the reviews on ISP Review for HT don't look that inviting either despite HT's supposed high trustpilot rating.

Overall it's not a great look for those of us who didn't even join that long ago. We thought we knew what we were getting into, and now we really really don't anymore. :/

Someone on ispreview has sifted through some of the t&c and it looks like they have the rpi increase buried and also some nastiness around late payment fees.

So no doubt at some point they'll likely introduce that on renewal.

I wouldn't trust trust pilot at all. They seem to side with the retailer and I've been threatened for my review being removed unless the retailer can validate my order details - so much for being able to remain anonymous for genuine poor experiences.

 

[danlightbulb]

Check the Yayzi forums, the new whatsapp number was set-up yesterday, communication and announcements need to be briefed out before changes are made, but the new set-up promises vastly improved peering and lower latency hopefully, as well as IPv6 blocks.

Sent a WhatsApp msg at 1pm, no reply as yet.

 

[MrRockliffe]

I'm a bit confused about the entire thing really Home Telecoms website suggests they're only handling the billing/backend while No One is suggesting HT is handling the support as well as the billing/backend. Which is it lol? I'd hope it's the former really, considering the support has always been great from No One. If it's the latter I'm a bit worried. To be honest I'm a bit worried anyway, it seems like these are the people who've bought out a bunch of customers from Cuckoo(though admittedly it did seem Cuckoo's choice), and the reviews on ISP Review for HT don't look that inviting either despite HT's supposed high trustpilot rating.

Overall it's not a great look for those of us who didn't even join that long ago. We thought we knew what we were getting into, and now we really really don't anymore. :/

Tech = No One
Support = Home Telecoms


Will wait to see if anything changes

 

[superleeds27]

@Avalon This fumble was the last straw for me: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-routers-offline-faulty-update

Not as bad but they had a £25 rate my gear promotion where they don't actually pay out unless you hound them constantly and even then it's not right. The prices are also sickening. £339 retail for a dual band router which they can afford to now sell for £200... makes you wonder what profit margins they have.

Also about the review stuff it is just all paid ads unless you get someone you know isn't a shill. e.g this Flint 2 review is what you would expect just cold hard data and know what they are talking about: https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/0...w-part-2-wifi-6-2-5gbe-wireguard-performance/

Instead of relying on ads to tell me if a product is good I tend to just look at forums. The Flint 2 currently has some problems based on their own forums but atleast the company is reading it and responding. They got mediatek (the chip maker) in their offices last week to try and diagnose why the problems are happening. When the Flint 2 goes on sale for about £120 I'll be buying it.

Does seem like the firmware has quite a few issues after reading the forums. You'd think the issue with the chip they'd be able to sort their self too, I know Asus and other manufacturers have used the same chip and they don't seem to have the same issues.

 

[Disco_P]

ASUS aren't that bad, plus there is plenty of support for how to use them (eg setting vlan to 911 for cityfibre). I bought a second hand ac86 for about £80 a few years ago, it's a single unit that does everything I and my 3 flatmates need. I've probably spent less than 30 minutes setting it up.

The people who hate on them the most have very different requirements to this.