City Fibre
- Thread starter PzR Slim
- Start date
Soldato
Are you telling me I wasted an afternoon reading 48 paragraphs about wayleaves and services agreements and local council guidance and national house builder guidance for nothing?
Glad it's sorted and that logic prevailed.
Yep, I apologise to anyone who read through all that.
Associate
I live in Leeds and I got connected to the Cityfibre FTTP network about a month ago. The Cityfibre installers were from Scotland and very friendly (they did a tidier job than the Openreach people two years prior).
Sadly, Vodafone routed me via Scotland - so I cancelled them in the cooling off period. Latency is important to me... I still got my BT Openreach FTTP line running on the side (but I already cancelled it now) - and I am getting good pings (around 6-10ms) to most major UK based services despite BT routing everything via London.
Since the beginning of April more ISPs than just Vodafone are available at my address via Cityfibre...
After long elaboration and choosing between Zen, No One and Yayzi, I decided to go for a 12 months contract with No One...
Now I will receive my No One Internet router today (support said it would be a TP-LINK AX1500 Archer (WIFI 6 router)) - and the connection will go live around midnight... Don't really care about the WiFi capabilities as I got my own Unifi AP network at home...
I'll keep you posted about the pings... Fingers crossed they're better than those on Vodafone... According to No One support, I should be able to ping their "London core" (not quite sure if they mean their BNG, their Speedtest servers, or something else) at around 8ms... If that would be the case, then it would be pretty comparable to BT...
A bit worried about their routing, peering and the (perhaps?) lack of CDNs(?)...
Sadly, Vodafone routed me via Scotland - so I cancelled them in the cooling off period. Latency is important to me... I still got my BT Openreach FTTP line running on the side (but I already cancelled it now) - and I am getting good pings (around 6-10ms) to most major UK based services despite BT routing everything via London.
Since the beginning of April more ISPs than just Vodafone are available at my address via Cityfibre...
After long elaboration and choosing between Zen, No One and Yayzi, I decided to go for a 12 months contract with No One...
Now I will receive my No One Internet router today (support said it would be a TP-LINK AX1500 Archer (WIFI 6 router)) - and the connection will go live around midnight... Don't really care about the WiFi capabilities as I got my own Unifi AP network at home...
I'll keep you posted about the pings... Fingers crossed they're better than those on Vodafone... According to No One support, I should be able to ping their "London core" (not quite sure if they mean their BNG, their Speedtest servers, or something else) at around 8ms... If that would be the case, then it would be pretty comparable to BT...
A bit worried about their routing, peering and the (perhaps?) lack of CDNs(?)...
Soldato
Going straight to London is probably for the best. Not far from Leeds and my old Yayzi connection went straight to london resulting in 7ms pings to servers there. Currently my Youfibre connection appears to go via Manchester first and so pings to London are 10ms/11ms. Not exactly a meaningful difference but hey lower is better right 
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Associate
That's good to know. I was wondering if Zen with their BNG in Manchester would be able to offer better pings - but then again - most important (game) servers or online services are in London or will be routed via LondonGoing straight to London is probably for the best. Not far from Leeds and my old Yayzi connection went straight to london resulting in 7ms pings to servers there. Currently my Youfibre connection appears to go via Manchester first and so pings to London are 10ms/11ms. Not exactly a meaningful difference but hey lower is better right
Soldato
Not sure if anyone else has noticed, but if you're on Reddit you can sign up for Yayzi on a 30 day rolling contract with the first month free if you sign up and then message them your order reference on Reddit.
Associate
Got connected with No One this morning as scheduled...
All seems fine... Pings are pretty comparable to BT (maybe 1-2ms higher on average) - and you can tell that everything's routed via London with No One too (as all the Speedtest servers recommended to me are in London).
I don't always seem to get the full 940mbit/s on the download on most of the Speedtest.net servers (which was the case with Vodafone or BT) - I seem to be stuck around 890mbit/s most of the time... But the upload is always at bang on 940mbit/s up.
I have a feeling those little issues have something to do with the new TP Link router they're using (i.e., TP-LINK AX1500 Archer (WIFI 6 router)).
The router also has issues getting IPv6 running via PPPoE on Cityfibre...
So I guess the speed might also be a hardware issue...
EDIT:
Changing between Speedtest.net servers does appear to make a difference... Getting 940mbit down on the Trooli and Vodafone servers... Maybe not a hardware issue then
QUESTION:
Any recommendations for a decent and well performing router for Cityfibre (with VLAN tagging, PPPoE and IPv6 without any overhead issues)?
I don't really care about WiFi performance as I'm using my Unifi APs, and 2.5Gig WAN & LAN would be nice for future proofing.
All seems fine... Pings are pretty comparable to BT (maybe 1-2ms higher on average) - and you can tell that everything's routed via London with No One too (as all the Speedtest servers recommended to me are in London).
I don't always seem to get the full 940mbit/s on the download on most of the Speedtest.net servers (which was the case with Vodafone or BT) - I seem to be stuck around 890mbit/s most of the time... But the upload is always at bang on 940mbit/s up.
I have a feeling those little issues have something to do with the new TP Link router they're using (i.e., TP-LINK AX1500 Archer (WIFI 6 router)).
The router also has issues getting IPv6 running via PPPoE on Cityfibre...
So I guess the speed might also be a hardware issue...
EDIT:
Changing between Speedtest.net servers does appear to make a difference... Getting 940mbit down on the Trooli and Vodafone servers... Maybe not a hardware issue then
QUESTION:
Any recommendations for a decent and well performing router for Cityfibre (with VLAN tagging, PPPoE and IPv6 without any overhead issues)?
I don't really care about WiFi performance as I'm using my Unifi APs, and 2.5Gig WAN & LAN would be nice for future proofing.
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Anything that is even the slightest move away from long commits is a good thing, I hope thats successful as the owner said he will make it more longer term if it works out.
At wholesale level CF is 1 month commit.
TBH the router you have is perfectly capable of gigabit or as near to it as you will get, you're going to spend £120-190 and not get much for your money now, and later on that money will buy you more/better kit when you have the option of a faster profile.
If you have a Unifi ecosystem, then the obvious answer is something Unifi based, the firewalling side is literally getting a kick up the rear to bring the kind of functionality that has been missing for years (probably not an issue if you are an average home user), they are in that part of the release cycle where they drip feed new releases out, the UXG-Max just lacks the local controller - you presumably already have that running from the AP's? - but has 2.5Gb WAN and 4x2.5Gb LAN and will IDS/IPS upto 1.5Gb/s, failing that the options are either step down to 1Gb ports with the UCG-Ultra which does have an onboard controller or the UX which has a built in wifi6 AP, both can IDS/IPS at 1Gb/s or jump up to the UDMP/SE which fits better if you use Protect etc. but the camera's feel quite backwards compared to the ColorVu/TiOC options.
Going outside the Unifi ecosystem, the GL.inet Flint2 would be my thought, it's got a lot of things going for it, and until recently 2.4Ghz wifi had a driver issue, it's been resolved with a roll back, but obviously initial teething issues. You do get full access to OWRT though, and once the driver issue is resolved properly it's a little beast for not a lot of money with 2.5Gb LAN/WAN and access to all the good stuff that OWRT brings to the table like AGH etc. If you want a lot of flexibility, this is probably the best option.
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Associate
Yeah - I was thinking about the Flint - but I've heard lots of mixed things (bugs etc) and I'm not too keen on troubleshooting too much (already doing that with Unifi too much haha).
Indeed, I'm running my Unifi controller on a Raspberry Pi.
I'd really only need a "dumb" box even without Wifi that has enough headroom and WAN/LAN ports to be future proof for a couple of years... The Flint does seem to tick a lot of boxes...
In fairness to the TP Link, its WiFi 6 performance is really good. I might actually just keep it and sell one of my Unifi APs maybe... The old UAP-AC-Lite is still working well but with WiFi 5 it's really not giving the same speeds as the TP Link.
That really only leaves me with the issue that the TP Link router from No One does not work well with Cityfibre & IPv6 for some reason... Is that a reason to pay £135 for a Flint? Maybe
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Cityfibre updated DB already, I now have a install date on Yayzi for 30 April on their online checker, which is a SDU lead time.
I informed the ISP I ordered with whats going on but told them to wait until Friday to query as CF told me they would update them themselves.
I informed the ISP I ordered with whats going on but told them to wait until Friday to query as CF told me they would update them themselves.
Associate
I managed to get IPV6 working on the TP-LINK AX1500 Archer router, which 'No One' internet sent to me. These are the settings which have worked on mine.
I hope this helps you to get IPV6 to work for you.
Associate
I managed to get IPV6 working on the TP-LINK AX1500 Archer router, which 'No One' internet sent to me. These are the settings which have worked on mine.
I hope this helps you to get IPV6 to work for you.
Nice - will test this now. Just to confirm - are you on cityfibre? No One told me that they didn’t see those issues on openreach connections
Associate
I managed to get IPV6 working on the TP-LINK AX1500 Archer router, which 'No One' internet sent to me. These are the settings which have worked on mine.
I hope this helps you to get IPV6 to work for you.
Maaan - you're a genius! Confirmed working on Cityfibre
No need to buy my own router now...Got a score of 10/10 on https://test-ipv6.com/
THANKS SO MUCH!
Ive been with No-One for 4 months now after i switched from Octaplus networks. My router was the Merku which seems to work well. Its hooked then into the Lan and my ARuba wifi setup.... Annoyingly they have sold out to that other company. My only negative for No-One is your IP address is down south, ive complained about this as it plays havoc with my 2 factor at work and sites, as it thinks im a hacker LOL, but they said they only state a UK ip, not regional....speed wise its fine, i still have old faithful Virgin 1 gig. Reliability of City Fibre was suspect last year i did have outages of over a week at some point. Ive got this now for 2 years. Ping wise not much in it to be fair between them and Virgin, up speed is nice to have and i,ll see how reliability is this year VS Virgin which to be fair in the 10 years ive had it has been rock solid.Maaan - you're a genius! Confirmed working on Cityfibre
Got a score of 10/10 on https://test-ipv6.com/
THANKS SO MUCH!
I can't say a lot of positive things about reliability when it comes to CF. Ideally you expect to be notified of planned works and them to be carried out at anti-social times of the day, unfortunately that's rarely the case. Things just happen, and it's generally only by checking other CF ISP's to see if they have the same issue that you know it's a CF issue vs an ISP issue. ISP wise it's a very mixed bag at this stage, some are up-front about issues, notify you - or at least make the info available - others you get absolute radio silence unless it happens on a working day during working hours and only then if they feel like it. For all the inherent issues VM has at this stage with inherited infrastructure and legacy networks, other than renewing or disconnecting I didn't have to call them at all in 3 years. I'd call it a good week if I don't have to check my ISP's forum to see what went on/why, and half the time they are waiting for CF to inform them after the event.
Associate
I'm so pleased it's all working for you. It's a great pleasure to help. Just to confirm, I am with City Fibre.Maaan - you're a genius! Confirmed working on Cityfibre
Got a score of 10/10 on https://test-ipv6.com/
THANKS SO MUCH!
Associate
As a matter of interest, 'No One' internet has a status page. When one subscribes to this website, they will keep you updated, when things happen.
City Fibre Status page. I hope this helps.
Associate
Useful - thanks!