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In the Netherlands we now have a law where ISPs must allow your own choice of network equipment. This means they must give you the required information on how t

• markus92 7y ago
  It's been more common for DSL too, but I haven't heard of anyone using their own DOCSIS modem for Ziggo though. Have you?
• lima 7y ago
  Same in Germany! ISPs hate it because it it makes their lives a lot harder - in cable networks, they now have to deal with a zoo of endpoints on a shared medium vs. a small set of standardized devices. As a customer, I like it.
  • pdonis 7y ago
    > ISPs hate it because it it makes their lives a lot harder - in cable networks, they now have to deal with a zoo of endpoints on a shared medium vs. a small set of standardized devices. In other words, ISPs hate it because it forces them to actually do their jobs and be ISPs. The Internet itself is "a zoo of endpoints on a shared medium", and ISP stands for Internet Service Provider.
    • saber6 7y ago
      To bolster your point: Honestly they don't need to do much - the infrastructure is already there as a matter of being able to turn people's service up/down/on/off. There is always a provider-managed CPE device that functions as the service demarcation point. This is the point where your contracted service speed is enforced (shape + egress queue and ingress policing). You can have literally whatever router (dumb, smart, next-gen, whatever) spewing bits at X rate. The CPE will essentially normalize (police) that bit rate to your contracted speed (upstream scenario).
      • detaro 7y ago
        Not true for actually shared media on the last mile. (also, if it's not on Customer Premises it's not a CPE)
    • josephmosby 7y ago
      It's not the provision of Internet that's the problem, it's the customer service requests. e.g., AT&T could provide perfect service to the home endpoint, but the customer bought some aftermarket router from their cousin, who had configured it for Verizon. Customer calls AT&T to holler. Tier 1 support doesn't know what that particular router config GUI even looks like, so it gets bumped to T2 or T3. Ultimately to find out that the customer's cousin had hardcoded DNS to some internal Verizon system that's not visible to AT&T. Repeat x100K. ISPs job isn't just "provide the Internet," it's also "provide all the troubleshooting for every non-technical customer who just wants to watch Netflix but doesn't even know what a router is"
      • ClumsyPilot 7y ago
        Well, my understanding is that once you have your own router, it's up to you to ensure its configured correctly.
        • pdonis 7y ago
          Exactly. I have my own router (and cable modem, for that matter), and I don't call Comcast when one of them breaks; I fix it myself, since I own them.
          • kitteh 7y ago
            Problem is you'll eventually reach a point where the problem is deep and requires them to escalate, and if you aren't checking the box of tested customer cpe they'll stop. Example of this is when I found a Comcast backbone link with an incorrect/inconsistent MTU setting. Had to go back channel in the end to someone on the ibone team, but I had no chance in hell of getting that fixed promptly via regular support.
            • pdonis 7y ago
              > you'll eventually reach a point where the problem is deep and requires them to escalate, and if you aren't checking the box of tested customer cpe they'll stop I've been a Comcast customer for more than 20 years (in two different states) and have never encountered a problem like this, so I expect such problems are extremely rare. Every issue I've had has been of the kind where Comcast's support person can see right away that there's a problem on their end because they can't even see my cable modem's status even though I confirm to them that it's powered up and the cable is connected (and of course I have to go through the dance of rebooting it multiple times before they'll be satisfied). Most of the time they put me on hold for a while and then come back and the problem is fixed (I assume because some tech in the background rebooted or reset something that was borked). Once they had to send a tech to my house and it turned out there was a bad connection in the junction box they had installed outside.
    • CameronNemo 7y ago
      I work at an ISP of sorts. It is a regional research and education network. We are owned by our members. Heterogeneity is definitely par for the course, but that does not stop us from trying to roll out some ubiquity where we can. Many of our CPE routers are the same make and model, and that makes maintenance and analysis much less error prone. I.e. better service for our member institutions. If you want an ISP whose competitive advantage is dealing with whatever crazy shit the edge throws at it, then that is your prerogative. But having some ground rules and baseline behavior makes it so that the ISP can focus on more rewarding tasks, such as negotiating peerings, establishing direct tunnels, improving network observability, and predicting necessary backbone upgrades.
      • pdonis 7y ago
        > having some ground rules and baseline behavior Doesn't "if you choose to use your own cable modem/router, it must meet the DOCSIS 3 specification" do this? That's the rule Comcast made me follow.
    • pathseeker 7y ago
      >The Internet itself is "a zoo of endpoints on a shared medium", No, the shared medium in this case is referring the last part of the cable network where everyone in a neighborhood is transmitting effectively onto the same cable. All it takes is a single device with a broken configuration to spew crap onto the wrong channels, taking down the whole neighborhood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS#Physical_layer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS#Physical_layer On the Internet it stops being a shared medium the minute it gets out of the cable network into fiber/ethernet switched+routed interconnections.
      • ficklepickle 7y ago
        That is a really good point and one I hadn't considered. Is it really that easy for a single device to take down a neighborhood? For example, could a bad actor trivially disrupt a node with a modified modem? I guess that would be difficult to defend against. I don't know enough about docsis to say if it has any protections against out-of-spec devices. I don't know why I'm surprised when things outside my area of expertise are fragile, considering things inside my area of expertise are fragile.
        • lima 7y ago
          > Is it really that easy for a single device to take down a neighborhood? For example, could a bad actor trivially disrupt a node with a modified modem? I guess that would be difficult to defend against. Yes, similarly to how you could jam a radio frequency. Fortunately, this is rare and only ever happens due to hardware failures in modems.
  • pas 7y ago
    Can't they still just provide you with a "modem" and give you full IP access through that? What difference does it make if they put the modem inside our outside your premises? (Eg they put a switch/DSLAM/modem into a box on the street and then they give you a cable?)
  • metters 7y ago
    They also hate it, because they cannot charge rent, like for the ISP owned router.
    • lima 7y ago
      That's very uncommon in Germany, most ISPs provide a router for free and only charge for upgrades to more expensive ones.
• hedora 7y ago
  The US has (had?) some network neutrality rules around discriminating against different types of hardware, but AT&T just does it anyway. (They require you to use their DSL modem + router + wifi and it has broken support for adding a second router behind it.)
  • strbean 7y ago
    Dealing with the same thing with AT&T fiber. There was word of a hack involving putting your router behind a switch with the AT&T router after cloning the MAC, then booting them both up and letting your router pick up the DHCP responses along with the AT&T router. Once the AT&T router had done its proprietary handshake, you could disconnect the AT&T router. Unfortunately I had no luck with that - my loose theory is that my EdgeRouter was doing a ping check to see if the IP was already taken before accepting the DHCP lease... I was able to get "IP passthrough" mode working with the AT&T router though. The key hiccup was that the AT&T router had to be on a different subnet than my router's LAN subnet.
    • jonpurdy 7y ago
      I just moved to SF and got AT&T gigabit fiber in mid-February. I followed this guide and got it working at gigabit speeds (eventually): https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/comments/cjw9jt/howto_bypass_att_gateway_with_erx/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/comments/cjw9jt/howto_bypa... It's been working great since I set it up; highly recommended! Hardware offloading needs to be enabled and QoS disabled for gigabit speeds (~900Mbps both ways, simultaneous ~500Mbps both ways). If you send me an email (hn-202003@jonpurdy.com), I can send you my exact configs.
• msla 7y ago
  I have Spectrum cable Internet. I use their modem, but I supply my own router, and they've never given me any trouble. In fact, they recently upgraded my modem (from a Scientific Atlanta 2203C to a Ubee E31U2V1) and they didn't send me a router. The Ubee E31U2V1, like the Scientific Atlanta 2203C before it, only has one Ethernet port, and their official guide to getting the new modem working involved rebooting an external router, so there's no possible way they have a problem with customer-owned routers. Which works out great for me. I can use OpenWRT with no hassle. More to the point, I see the cable stuff as "ISP land" in that it's directly interfacing with their internal hardware, and so has to dance to their tune very directly, whereas Ethernet and TCP/IP are common, and so will obey my rules in my home. I don't expect my modem to perform adblocking, which is why my router does it, and I'm not going to be stupid and try to "uncap" my modem to get more speed, so I don't see a point to being able to provide my own cable modem. As long as I can own the router which provides the only path in and out of my LAN, I can do everything I'm capable of doing anyway, as far as I can see.
  • pmh 7y ago
    > I don't see a point to being able to provide my own cable modem Other cable providers (e.g. Comcast) charge you a monthly fee (~$5-15) to rent their modem. Buying a modem gets cost effective pretty quickly.
    • AmericanChopper 7y ago
      I use my own one because the $2 Huawei ones perform really poorly, they’re the source of a large portion of general internet performance issues for a lot of people.
  • LeonM 7y ago
    > I'm not going to be stupid and try to "uncap" my modem to get more speed I think this modem "uncapping" thing has mostly been an urban myth. Maybe there were some really early cable modem systems in the 90s where that would have been possible, but AFAIK with DOCSIS the speed is regulated by the CMTS [0], not the modems. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_modem_termination_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_modem_termination_system
• thinkloop 7y ago
  How can you do without the modem? Which ubiquity product is that?
  • philg_jr 7y ago
    Typically, FTTH doesn't require a "modem". In my case, I have VZ Fios in the northeast US. Their termination point at my house has an RJ45 Ethernet connection. It goes directly to my pfSense router.
    • ksec 7y ago
      So they actually have an ONT somewhere and provides you with a RJ45 Ethernet port only? This is brilliant! Why aren't more ISP doing it? I dont want another ONT / Modem / piece of equipment in my flat.
      • NickNameNick 7y ago
        Same in New Zealand. There's a Huawei ONT fixed to the wall in the cupboard under the stairs, which is owned by the fibre network company. I have a short length of cat6 connecting that to my own router, and the fibre network company patched the far end to my choice of ISP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Fast_Broadband#Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Fast_Broadband#Technolog...
      • PhantomGremlin 7y ago
        Usually (always?) the way FiOS works is that every subscriber gets his own ONT. That ONT can be configured to output network bits on either an RJ45 port or using MoCA. For many people MoCA is more convenient because most houses and apartments are already wired for "cable", ie RG-6 for television purposes. FiOS is offered as a "triple play" service: internet, TV, and phone. Cable is the TV part of that. There usually isn't an existing Cat 6 connection from the ONT to the living area of the "flat". (Except we don't have "flats" here in the USA). So Verizon will use MoCA to send bits to a more conveniently located wireless access point that they can also supply. When Verizon installed my FiOS I didn't want to deal with MoCA or their access point, so I had them run Ethernet from the ONT to my den. I'm not clear on your objection to an ONT. They way GPON works is that the ONT has to be somewhere nearby; if it's not in your flat it still has to be elsewhere in the apartment building.
• hiram112 7y ago
  What's you cost and speed of the fiber? Also, if you didn't need so much bandwidth, is it possible to just order a basic 100Mb/10mb connection for a nominal fee of, say, 30Euro? The speeds in the US aren't actually that bad, but you're basically forced to pay for everything: paid cable TV, equipment rental fees, etc, and your $40 plan ends up creeping towards $100 / month after the fees and taxes, with increases every year.
  • ProZsolt 7y ago
    Don't know about NL, but in Hungary and a lot of other EU countries you can get 100Mb/10Mb for about 10 EUR, gigabit for 20-30.
    • hiram112 7y ago
      Central / East Europe sounds like a paradise sometimes. Cheap rent, more conservative cultures, and fast internet at low speeds. What I'm guessing, though, is that 10EUR internet and 200EUR apartment rentals are the equivalent of our $70 internet and $1500 one bedroom apartments when adjusted for salaries.
  • thedance 7y ago
    This varies greatly by locale and is not uniform across the USA. In Berkeley, California I have fiber service that terminates in my own equipment, no rented equipment and no bundled services (TV, phone, etc). It's nominally symmetric gigabit service for $40/month.
  • hugofloss 7y ago
    For me, in NL, it's about 55 Euro per month for 200/200 fiber and TV (including fees and taxes). Unfortunately this increases every year in NL as well.
• cameronh90 7y ago
  As far as I'm aware, UK doesn't have a law like this, but I've never had a situation where an ISP cared, they just tell you that if you have problems they might not be able to help. I think you get interop issues with TV and landline with those ISPs where everything is bundled into one fibre, but the internet bit usually works fine.
• r1ch 7y ago
  Do you know if this applies to cable modems too? Are they required to allow a 3rd party modem that they normally wouldn't provide to customers?
  • LeonM 7y ago
    I'm not completely sure about this, as I don't have a cable connection to my house (only fiber) so I never paid attention. But AFIAK the major cable providers here allow you to configure the supplied modem-router into passthrough mode (thus, only acting as a modem) so you can install your own router behind it. I have never met someone who attempted to install their own cable modem. I do know that the cable modulation standard (DOCSIS) is wildly complicated, so even buying the right type of cable modem for your connection would be challenging. There may also be licensing issues involved that would prevent you from buying such modem completely.
    • r1ch 7y ago
      I know some cable ISPs outside NL will allow it if your modem is from a reputable brand without any known issues (and compatible with whatever DOCSIS version they're using of course). Ziggo's "connectbox" modem/router even in bridge mode has quite poor latency stability so I was hoping I could use this law to persuade them to activate an Arris SURFboard or some other decent brand modem.
• jedimastert 7y ago
  I don't know if it's "law" in America but I've never seen a major ISP give any more guff than sometimes making a technician come out to read the modem's MAC address. I've never had a ISP's router or modem on my networks
  • robotnikman 7y ago
    Same. From my experience you can use a modem of your choice, you just need to provide your MAC address to your ISP and its good to go.
• avip 7y ago
  This law is a tech-support nightmare. You can call your ISP with any arbitrary piece of non-branded random AliExpress $#@$ of a network eq. and they must walk you through configuring it? That does not make much sense to me.
  • tejtm 7y ago
    Or it is strong motivation to be the perfectly standard dumb pipe the user wanted to pay for in the first place.
  • ThePowerOfFuet 7y ago
    No, they have to provide the required values.
  • m3at 7y ago
    Parent note that the ISP provide a router anyway. It's safe to assume that most people will simply use that, if not for the support just because it is already there.
    • blaser-waffle 7y ago
      Yeah this. My mom isn't ever going to add a 3rd party router. Even most of the technical people I know (well paid python devs, etc.) probably wouldn't mess the on-prem ISP gear. I do network engineering for a living, so I totally would, but I'm an outlier compared to the rest of the population.
• grawlinson 7y ago
  It's the same in New Zealand, my particular ISP offers IPoE[0]. I have a repurposed PowerEdge R210II connected as a firewall/router. [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPoE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPoE