Equipment needed for Fiber?

[randomName]

I've about had it with cable service in my area. Packet loss fluctuates up to 56%, up to 453ms packet jitter. Rain is always effecting service. I've looked up Fiber for my house and it's available. What do I need in terms of a router and modem for it? I have my AX86U, and my cable modem, MB8600. I checked and ATT Fiber is available. Do they force you to use their equipment? I would prefer not to use anything but my own..

 

[degrub]

ATT will require you to use their router. They terminate the fiber at an ONT, inside the the house as it requires power. From there it is an ethernet connection to their router WAN port at least the with equipment provided 1-2 years ago. For service install, they will locate the router near the ONT and get the connection up. After that you can move the router anywhere you have an ethernet connection that goes from the ONT to a location. For example, i have an ONT on the wall, ethernet cable to a MOCA2.5 modem to connect over coax to my wiring closet in the house. Ethernet out from the wiring closet moca 2.5 modem into the ATT router WAN. From there i connect to my router with an ethernet cable from the lan port of the ATT router to my router WAN port.

They will normally do an aerial drop of the fiber to the house. If the community requires underground, they should comply. Otherwise, you can provide an underground conduit for them to pull the fiber through to the house exterior wall. Direct burial not recommended unless you protect the cable with an overlay of tile or similar.

i set up an empty electrical box in my wall and drilled through the outside sheathing to provide an entry point. With existing cable, you may be able to use that entry point for the fiber.

it probably will take an "advanced" tech to do anything but a std. drop. You have to talk with the first installer tech that comes out and explain exactly what you want. They have several std installs and the ability to customize but it may take discussion with their supervisor.

Your router will be fine. i have one using ATT fiber at my mother's house. Double NAT doesn't really matter.

 

[randomName]

Thanks for the reply.


UPDATE: Had the ISP provider come out and change the cable line drop to the house and the packet loss is now gone.

 

[degrub]

Coax drop ?
they should have been able to test that easily. Surprised their line quality monitor did not pick it up. Maybe not a high enough loss rate. Or no incentive until complaints roll in.

 

[randomName]

Yeah the line was close to 10yrs old the tech estimated. I tagged the line with the replacement date by sticking a note onto the line.

Yeah it's weird They've been out before and literally bypassed a new coaxial line replacement. Every. Time. It's been like this for 7-8yrs.

 

[coxhaus]

Maybe the squeaky wheel got the grease this time.

 

[randomName]

Maybe the squeaky wheel was right for 7-8 years and the ignorant techs were also lazy overpaid idiots.

 

[randomName]

How reliable is the 'Internet Speed' test with our Asus Routers? Would reliability differ from my AX86U to my AC86U? Frimware 386.5 vs a 386.2?

 

[degrub]

as reliable as the server some where on the other end and all the hops. in between.

it could be an indication of throughput from the router to the server, but it is not always a good test for determining if the bandwidth from your ISP is up to what was sold. That is why they say "up to x speed". Once you go onto the internet there are many variables at play. THe modem stats can tell you the line sync rate which would establish an upper bound minus protocol overhead (5-10 %) to the ISP line termination on the other end of the cable. The cable's capacity may be far higher than what you are paying for.

 

[randomName]

I considered the possibility of the connection to the server testing speed, pl, jitter, etc. Usually if my bandwidth decreases and I'm seeing packet loss and jitter to me it's been a reliable way to tell if there is a problem on the line, as of the past couple of weeks. Before I had the line replaced speeds were not consistent and that's also when I was having really bad packet loss and jitter as the test also indicated. Even game servers indicated packet loss via in-game netgraphs aside from being unplayable so there was more data backing up the router 'Internet Speed' test results. But as far as packet loss the test isn't making any mistakes, right?

 

[degrub]

The issue is where the loss is occurring.
Pingplotter, traceroute, etc may be slightly more useful