Installation of BT OpenReach’s new 1.6Gbps FTTP Service

Intro

BT OpenReach have fairly recently launched a new FTTP service, which they are offering to ISPs who use the OpenReach FTTP network. This gives a theoretical maximum download speed of 1,600Mbps and an upload speed of 120Mbps. They’re rolling this out across their network and it is quickly becoming available to more customers.

I recently upgraded my 900Mbps package to 1.6G and have, below, documented the minor intricacies of this.

The Install

The install requires a visit from OpenReach, and the usual 5+ week wait time which comes with that. They simply need to swap your ONT for a new one. It would seem sensible if they just posted them out and asked people to do it themselves, but efficiency isn’t in BT’s manifesto. Here’s the new ONT:

The ONT

I had presumed the OpenReach ONT would come with a 10Gbps Ethernet port on it. It actually comes with a 2.5Gbps copper Ethernet port. I’m ashamed to say, as somebody who was pretty heavily involved in Enterprise and Service Provider networking only 4 or so years back, this new standard passed me by. 2.5Gbps seems to be developing as the new access layer standard, with many new switches being 2.5g, and 2.5g NICs costing pretty much the same as 1g NICs. Both 2.5Gb Ethernet and 5Gb Ethernet are designed to run over Cat5e, which means they’ll retrofit into most existing installations.

Upgrading your Network

The observant amongst you will have noticed that this is the first time residential broadband has gone above 1Gbps. This is significant, because the vast majority of consumer hardware (routers, switches, network cards, etc.) run at 1Gbps. As such, you may need to upgrade your network to take full advantage of the 1.6Gbps speeds.

Your ISP will likely send you a new router, not least because the old one probably doesn’t have a 2.5Gbe port on it. Do some research into the capabilities of this router. Zen, for example, will send you Amazon’s Eero Pro 6 router. This has 1x 2.5Gb port and 1x 1Gb port. As such, you won’t get 1.6Gbps on a single device. To take advantage of the full speed, you will need to be downloading heavily from 2 or more devices – at least one of which is on WiFi. Honestly, I don’t see much benefit in this unless you have a freakishly busy household. Zen will send you an Amazon Eero 7 Max, for an additional £20 per month. This does come with 10Gb ports so a single device with a 10Gb NIC could take full advantage of the bandwidth.

My network already has 10Gb capabilities and I have a few devices connected at 10G. Problem is, I have no 2.5Gb ports so cannot connect the new ONT to my existing hardware. After researching around, I opted to buy the relatively inexpensive MokerLink 8 Port 2.5G Ethernet Switch with 10G SFP, 8 x 2.5G Base-T Ports. This allows me to “convert” the 2.5Gb ONT to 10Gb – I connected the ONT and a 10Gb port from my existing router into this switch. This is working well – no complaints so far.

I also found these interesting SFP+ modules on fs.com. They seem to support multiple rates. I contacted FS Support via their chat and they told me this wouldn’t work in a device which does not natively support 2.5Gb/s rates on an SFP+ port. They e-mailed me the next day saying they were wrong and in fact it would work. I had ordered the MokerLink by this point, so I haven’t tried it. Worth a punt if you want a fairly tidy set up.

Here’s the MokerLink in action:

Router Config

It’s easy enough to configure a router not supplied by your ISP to connect to the service. Just set up PPPoE using the username and password provided by your ISP. Here’s the relevant config from my Juniper SRX. This will give dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6. If your ISP doesn’t provide IPv6, you can skip that bit.

interfaces {
    xe-0/0/19 {
        unit 0 {
            description "WAN to OpenReach ONT";
            encapsulation ppp-over-ether;
        }
    }
    pp0 {
        description "PPPoE to Zen";
        unit 0 {
            ppp-options {
                chap {
                    default-chap-secret "*****";
                    local-name "zen*****@zen";
                    passive;
                }
            }
            pppoe-options {
                underlying-interface xe-0/0/19.0;
                idle-timeout 0;
                auto-reconnect 10;
                client;
            }
            family inet {
                negotiate-address;
            }
            family inet6 {
                dhcpv6-client {
                    client-type stateful;
                    client-ia-type ia-pd;
                    rapid-commit;
                    client-identifier duid-type duid-ll;
                    retransmission-attempt 9;
                    update-server;
                }
                dad-disable;
            }
        }
    }
}

Is it actually 1.6Gbps?

Yaknow what..? Surprisingly, it is. I’m getting 1609Mbps down and 114Mbps up. Pretty happy with that.

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