Hey all!
Hope we’re all well.
I went to a customers house today and saw this, am I right in thinking that the thing on the wall is a modem, or is the modem still in the router (black sky box)?
I only ask because I reckon I’ll get PFSense up and running one day, and it’ll be nice to know if I can plug straight into whatever box is running it.
Sorry to ask this, I’m in Construction and not full on with tech, but I always appreciate you guys and girls help 
Cheers,
Chris
The thing on the wall is a “media converter” or ONT.
It takes the optical (fibre) connection in, and directly changes it to ethernet.
Then a RJ45 comes out to the router/modem combo box from the supplier.
It is odd to see it in RJ45 form, and tempting to just plug straight in to an Ethernet Nic…
[edit: looks like you can just connect the RJ45 to a computer / router / machine of your choice. Our supplier seems to just need you to have PPoE and VLAN aware device, and the username/passphrase details. I presume other networks will be similar. so YES, connecting own router looks feasible!!]
What Trooper said is correct, that is an ONT (Optical Network Terminal). It takes the place of a modem that cable internet uses. PON is the type of fiber technology used, basically like cable internet but in fiber form. A bunch of houses share a single line that gets split at a box on the street somewhere. It is common for ISPs to share the single fiber going to the street with anywhere from 16 houses to 128 houses, though usually the networks tend to try and keep the fiber at 1:32 ratio. While the home has an ONT, the street side box is called an OLT.
Most fiber ISPs use this technology as it is fast and cheap and easy to deploy. GPON is the most common and used up to 1/1gb internet, XG-PON is the next one up and almost no one uses it because while it supports 10 down it only supports 2.5 up. Most ISPs skip straight ahead to XGS-PON for above 1gb since that supports up to 10/10gb. GPON and XGSPON can co-exist on the same boxes which is another reason for its use. So some houses can remain on GPONs while those who are getting 2gb and 5gb internet now can be swapped out as they upgrade to an XGSPON (they just swap a single SFP+ on the street box end). And future installs will move to 25G-PON which is being tested by ISPs now (for rollout within 5~ years) and will support up to 25/25gb internet services to customers, this 25G is also backwards compatible with GPON and XGSPON networks. Beyond that is 50G-PON, but those are not even in real testing at ISPs yet.
It is important to note that as PON is a shared line technology just like cable, in the evenings when the fiber is heavily used your speed can drop as total bandwidth of the incoming line is exceeded just like cable networks. This happens less and isnt as noticeable to users because fiber has more bandwidth (or it has historically) and has a lower over-subscription ratio. Cable often uses a 100:1 over-subscription for residential which is why it bogs down so much in evenings and night.
https://community.fs.com/blog/how-to-design-your-ftth-network-splitting-level-and-ratio.htmlI have something similar but made by Huawei. Can I get something that will eliminate the Huawei ONT? But that means that I may have yo deal with the upstream hardware that is also likely made by Huawei as well?
How does one get less invasive traffic monulitoring in addition to using pfsense+openVPN to a VPN provider?
It depends from one ISP to the next, who’s yours?
Rough example from someone in Vietnam: Replace ISP ONT/ONU with PON Stick (SFP Module) - Hisense GPON LTE3415 and OpenWRT - YouTube
Thanks for that Troop 
When the time comes I’ll know what to do!
and @EniGmA1987 , thank you very much for that full explanation, always interesting to know the background of things
Thanks for the question! We got it, but I never looked at it.
I had thought they would send some signal like DSL or whatever, but it seems it’s PPoE. #TheMoreYouKnow
We had some company diggin micro trenches in the town for like a year, all told. but prices of plans are real affordable.
I presume there was some government initiative to install it all.
Have they been doing your town?
Ah, no digging here - though there is a provider in our area that’s doing high speed (150-500Mb) called Trooli. I was half tempted to use them, thing is I really like having a ‘simple’ phone line. Partly for business reasons but also because if the internet goes down, I can still make calls. Not too important, but the mobile network does go down sometimes - or I have to stand in the rain outside to make a call!
If you live in the UK “simple” phone lines are gonna be gone in the VERY near future, PSTN lines carrying VDSL are being migrated to EASD (VDSL with no dial tone in english) and all “landlines” will be VOIP, this eliminates MILES of Voice cabling back to the exchange as the only copper is the link from DSLAM in the cabinet to you premises, this is already causing havoc with piles of kit that uses “out of Band” signalling on PSTN (Intruder alarms etc) but it IS happening and your landline will go dead in the next 36 months!!!
Just be aware “Passive Optical network” (PON) tech uses the demarcation device (ONT) to ID your line, I have never read the T&Cs for service, but given you can screw up other users lines by messing with it be careful what you do.
Most ONTs use a MAC and or Serial number to register the end point, so i advise you “spoof” both onto the network.
You will need a router with a GBIC port to host the GPON stik and make sure you can “see this” before you touch your ONT.
Some use 192.168.1.x as the control subnet, if you are daft enough to have that as a LAN subnet, best of luck routing to the GPON-Stick config page!
Easy enough to fix, move you LAN subnet to 172.16.x.x or 10.x.x.x, but make sure you can see the setup page (Http/SSH/Telnet) from your LAN.
You then just smash in teh ONT serial and MAC, reload and away you go, you may need PPPoE logins (same credentials as the ONT used), but be aware you will gain NO speed increase, your “netgear nigthawk” gaming crapper won’t have this interface and you would be WELL advised to keep the ONT handy for any “warranty” issues.
The Single drop uses an angled SC connector (I forget the TLA, but it isn’t a normal one) to prevent reflections back into the PON splitter, so don’t mess with the supplied connector and above all don’t do anything you can’t reverse…
I am tempted to do this as I am having PON backup lines installed on a few sites due to PlusNet Business becoming defunkt in the UK and I would sooner put the backup straight into the router than have some piece of ISP supplied e-waste hung of a wall wart in the mix, but my allergy to 13A plugs on IT kit is worth £200+Vat for the GPON stik, I am not sure how you would justify it for PFsense rig or similar where an SFP(+) NIC to host the GPON stik is not a slight expense, if you plan on going Fibre > Gpon-Stik> GBIC -Copper Media converter you are just being plain silly!
Very true. In the US everyone started phasing out POTS over a year ago (same as PSTN). No one will take new customers and there are no federal requirements for maintaining the lines any longer. Many areas in the US have been completely shut off already.
I don’t know what the requirements are in Europe for VoIP emergency services, but I assume they are similar to the US. Here, all businesses are required to have a 24 hour battery backup on their VoIP lines that have alarms attached to them (fire alarm mostly) so that alarm signals and emergency calling can go through in power outages. The government also requires the providers of the VoIP lines to have battery backup in their facilities, but residential users are not required to have it. It is recommended, but it is the responsibility of the home user of the VoIP line to buy their own battery backup power supply, it is not provided for them.
I dont believe there has been a large scale power outage emergency yet that didnt also destroy the lines themselves anyway, so the system effectiveness as for whether phones and alarms will still work like POTS was designed to is still to be determined. On the other hand, there do seem to be very few disasters ever that impact power on a scale that dont also do damage to an area and destroy the lines, and this was true during POTS times also, so kinda same situation.
So whether Europe governments require battery backup or not, it is likely a good thing to maintain if you want the peace of mind that the line will “always” work. It doesnt use much power, so if the battery is only powering the unit providing the VoIP then a small battery can easily last days. One the size meant for running PCs a few minutes can go over a week on battery.