BT gfast PPPOE settings for pfsense

Caged said:
I would put money on no copper rearrangement work taking place to improve your G.fast connection - the future is fibre, Openreach are barely maintaining the copper network now. FTTC cabinets that fill up are being left that way.
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No planned FTTP for me as far as I can see. I reckon I won't see it for at least 5 years yet. No cable services (Virgin) in the area, and CityFibre are in the next city, but no planned rollout her in the village
 
Don't think the Openreach will not replaced new cable to shortern the line length. I did ask the engineer how can I get my G.fast full rate 330/50 as he told me they can arranged a new re-route cable to get below 150m away from the cabinet but has warned me it very unlikely to do this because it will involved wayleave grant premission, cable length cost, labour work cost plus vat will be very expensive bill. I think your BT Hub are better to use it for G.fast than the Openreach Modem. But they did find the fault at the port swap to gain extra speed on my G.fast from there as the pair was shared with other property which it shouldn't have happen.

My G.fast only get 181/28 on Openreach Modem but my zyxel gfast router give me better sync higher than then the openreach modem. You could try this G.fast filter but it discontinued as it pretty good as it gained 7-9Meg extra as I got one of it from here: https://www.run-it-direct.co.uk/adsl-vdsl-filters/gfast-plug-in-filter/
 
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bulldog147 said:
Don't think the Openreach will not replaced new cable to shortern the line length. I did ask the engineer how can I get my G.fast full rate 330/50 as he told me they can arranged a new re-route cable to get below 150m away from the cabinet but has warned me it very unlikely to do this because it will involved wayleave grant premission, cable length cost, labour work cost plus vat will be very expensive bill. I think your BT Hub are better to use it for G.fast than the Openreach Modem. But they did find the fault at the port swap to gain extra speed on my G.fast from there as the pair was shared with other property which it shouldn't have happen.

My G.fast only get 181/28 on Openreach Modem but my zyxel gfast router give me better sync higher than then the openreach modem. You could try this G.fast filter but it discontinued as it pretty good as it gained 7-9Meg extra as I got one of it from here: https://www.run-it-direct.co.uk/adsl-vdsl-filters/gfast-plug-in-filter/
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I can't use the Home Hun as I can't put it in modem only mode. There's no option for it.

I did look at buying a Draytek Vigor 166 but they're out of stock everywhere.
Which modem do you use?

The engineer said the faceplate was losing around 30mbit on the down speed. He thinks that the extra g.fast filtering is filtering too much for the length of line I'm on.
 
My faceplate on the socket are the same as this pic here: https://www.run-it-direct.co.uk/images/VDSLMK4NTE5CMK22019FRONT.JPG
When I took that front cover off and plugged into test socket with G.fast filter I get 10-15Meg loss of sync rate. Put the front cover back in without G.fast filter has increase sync rate by 15Meg more. And another extra 5Meg more with shorter dsl cable 0.50cm long to the router from the master socket from this online here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254019279485? . My G.fast router are Zyxel XMG3927-B50A and it expensive cost £160-170. And it pretty good one as it got all full stats on it and you can also use third party software to run from it called dslstats to monitor the g.fast here: http://dslstats.me.uk/

I found ebay used G.fast router start at £19.99 bidded here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284800947271
 
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bulldog147 said:
My faceplate on the socket are the same as this pic here: https://www.run-it-direct.co.uk/images/VDSLMK4NTE5CMK22019FRONT.JPG
When I took that front cover off and plugged into test socket with G.fast filter I get 10-15Meg loss of sync rate. Put the front cover back in without G.fast filter has increase sync rate by 15Meg more. And another extra 5Meg more with shorter dsl cable 0.50cm long to the router from the master socket from this online here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254019279485? . My G.fast router are Zyxel XMG3927-B50A and it expensive cost £160-170. And it pretty good one as it got all full stats on it and you can also use third party software to run from it called dslstats to monitor the g.fast here: http://dslstats.me.uk/

I found ebay used G.fast router start at £19.99 bidded here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284800947271
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Funny enough I was looking at that RJ11 cable, and was wondering if it would make much difference.

I've also messaged the seller on that router and will do some research on it.

And I'll see what BT say later today when I call them.
 
You won't regret that Gfast router Zyxel XMG3927-B50A - best router I ever have pretty spot on wifi on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz (I use 5GHz) and easily get 249Meg throughput from it. One G.fast router are much better than waste two power sockets from both Openreach G.fast Modem plus your own router.

The RJ11 cable does make lots difference between 2metre and 50cm as you gained more Sync rate.

I did check with these RJ11 dsl cable:

2metre:
226/44

1metre:
245/45

50cm (ebay):
266/47
 
I'll grab that cable and see how it helps.

If I buy that router it'll be for the modem only. My pfsense box has been amazing in the last couple of weeks of using it - couldn't go back to a normal router now
 
I had another engineer out today who fitted a new g.fast labelled faceplate. The speeds halved to ~100 down and ping was over 50ms. He's now removed that again and installed a blank faceplate and old style microfilter tail.
He said relying on speed test results are inconclusive and need to monitor line sync speeds instead.

I'll get a modem/router bought, and have ordered a cat6 RJ11 cable.
I'll keep it monitored.

It's a shame that they're only interested in getting me above the minimum speed, rather than getting it as best it can be.
I'm seeing a loss of speed between sync speed and speed test results - it still could be a fault with my setup / settings - but BT can't seem to help with this.
 
mushtafa said:
I had another engineer out today who fitted a new g.fast labelled faceplate. The speeds halved to ~100 down and ping was over 50ms. He's now removed that again and installed a blank faceplate and old style microfilter tail.
He said relying on speed test results are inconclusive and need to monitor line sync speeds instead.

I'll get a modem/router bought, and have ordered a cat6 RJ11 cable.
I'll keep it monitored.

It's a shame that they're only interested in getting me above the minimum speed, rather than getting it as best it can be.
I'm seeing a loss of speed between sync speed and speed test results - it still could be a fault with my setup / settings - but BT can't seem to help with this.
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Any photo screenshot what the faceplate look like? Sound like the engineer isn't doing a very good job! What does BTw checker say on Range A Clean and how far away from the G.fast cabinet to your property? And how long left in contract with BT for G.fast? As my G.fast is with UnchainedISP last year 2021, pretty very good ISP for G.fast service and Keith are making sure everything working spot on with Range A Clean estimate speed (not the minimum speed)

If your speed are -100 down and ping was over 50ms - something isn't right. My G.fast with UnchainedISP get 266/47 with low ping of 9ms.
 
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The face plate he tried:

Openreach™ G.fast Faceplate & NTE5C MK2 Socket

Openreach G.fast filtered faceplate supplied complete with NTE5C Mk2 master socket. This unit is specifically designed G.fast connections offering speeds that improve on VDSL & VDSL2, currently up to 330Mbps!
www.run-it-direct.co.uk www.run-it-direct.co.uk

What he's left me with:
xrEG2Pb.jpg


My estimates:
9RizM79.png


The engineer on Friday said the line was routed past the property and comes back on itself, and we're probably at 300-350m distance - so at the max for gfast really. He suggested the proper gfast faceplate was over filtering a poor line which resulted in the excessive drop of performance. He did suggest they could potentially splice the cable in a different spot and reduce the line length by around 100m. The engineer today said they wouldn't do that due to customer favouring and it would affect the rest of that network.

My argument is that the proper gfast faceplate isn't working with the gfast service - so something must be faulty - but because no faults are being found and I'm now above the minimum guaranteed speed - it's good enough.

The hub is showing faster speed test results than pfsense though - I might have an issue with my settings - but finding the correct settings I need seems impossible. BT certainly can't help with that.
 
The filter isn't G.fast as that for VDSL/VDSL2. The proper G.fast filter: The MFS2B0G-UK is functionally a low pass filter which separates the transmission of POTS signals and G.fast/DSL band signals. It features a very low insertion loss of G.fast signal up to 212 MHz and a high attenuation to prevent POTS signals transients to impact the stability of the data throughput.

Your BTw checker on VDSL2 say 65.8 on low on Range A that's probably the reason of why your G.fast is very low sync rate. My BTw checker on VDSL2 say 74 on low on Range A and I am within between 150m and 180m from the cabinet
 
Today's engineer couldn't give me a reason to why the gfast filter made the connection worse, and said that because this old one works, it's good enough.

I can live with 200 down - just a shame the up is lower than expected.

I've now just noticed that my unraid speedtest docker is now showing a speed of 94 down rather than 200 that the PC is showing. Best restart some bits - nothing is ever simple!
 
Best wait until your short cable and Gfast router arrived and hopefully it will be lots better. The G.fast filter does help as it addition extra gain 8-12Meg on top but it does help. Maybe ask BT to sent out one more time engineer to put the G.fast faceplate back on with your new router and short length cable for improvement. And ask the engineer polite does my G.fast port swap isn't sharing with any neighbour as it happen to me once as two joint port swap are very BAD for G.fast indeed.
 
He's left me with the gfast faceplate, I'll do some more testing when the cable and modem arrive.

I did suggest a shorted/higher quality cable - he said it won't make any difference - sake of £10 I bought one to try.

The hunt for the correct settings continue! Makes me wonder if this more advanced hardware/software is too advanced for me :o
 
You're polishing a turd unfortunately, G.fast isn't being deployed any further because the physical conditions that it needs to be a decent product for the most part don't exist in the real world.

If you're above the speed you were quoted when you signed up for the service then there will be a reluctance to do anything other than offer you to walk away from the contract.

If you don't have any telephones connected then the filter isn't really doing anything - you could connect your modem directly into the test socket behind the faceplate if you have an RJ11 -> BT cable, that would give you the best connection with the fewest things in the way.
 
Where did you get the modem? Did the engineer not offer to replace it when it was slower than the HomeHub?
 
I did ask the engineer if I could do away with the filter, but he told be it was required.

The modem I'm using now is an old one the installation engineer had on his van. They won't give me a new one, as BT has supplied the hub with built in modem so should be using that. I've decided I don't want to use it - so it's my job to replace it.

I've bought a Zyxel XMG3927-B50A and CAT6 RJ11 cable - they should be here by the weekend so I'll continue to test once they arrive.
 
The router arrived today - it's doesn't seem very user friendly so far. There is no option to switch modes - modem/bridge etc, and can't establish a connection yet

EDIT: Just checked the firmware and notice it's not exact. I wonder if this was an ISP supplied router which is slightly locked down? There's no branding on it or on the software.

It shows V5.17(ABMT.6)b5_D0_20211206. The latest firmware is 5.17(ABMT.6)C0 release 24/12/21. I'll attempt an update and see what happens

EDIT2: No option found to change firmware. Found hardcoded user details for KCOMengineering. Turns out this is an ISP supplied router with different firmware. I've found a guide to update it, but it appears SSH has been disabled.
 
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