BT Full Fibre 900 (Halo 3+)
Hi,
I have just upgraded my broadband to BT Full Fibre 900 (Halo 3+ FTTP) here in the UK which consists of a new BT SmartHub 2, hybrid connect (4G Mini Hub) and unbreakable WiFi (Black WiFi Discs). Has anyone tested the Firewalla Gold with this setup for compatibility?
-
Hello from Nottingham, I have the same setup or did and made some change;
- I started with your setup, I found the WiFi Discs unreliable, nothing to do with Firewalla, so did the following:
Brought a Draytek Vigor 130 modem and 2 Zytel Access points, much much improved over BT KITSold BT wifi discs on eBay and kept the BT router for backup purposes.
-
Hi Firewall Guy, many thanks for your reply. I have just retired my Draytek 2862lac due to the fact that it won't support the 1GB or thereabouts throughput.
I am not seeing any issues with the WiFi discs yet, in fact they seem a bit better than my old Draytek ones!!!
Did your Firewalla work ok though?
Interestingly does your BT 4G mini hub work ok with the Draytek Modem?
-
The firewall in Firewalla worked perfect with your setup, you can also turn off the BT Firewall if you wanted, if you leave it on you get double filtering and protection.
My BT 4G mini hub only comes on when my internet is out, not had any issues, do not know how to configure at this point anyway.
Let me know how you get on.
-
Hi Dale, I have the 300mbps version of BT full fibre (can get 900 but didn't need it). I simply have the fibre modem connected straight to the Firewalla Gold which is set up to use PPPoE. This is then connected to a UniFi switch and two UniFI AP's.
I'm not entirely familiar with the 'unbreakable wifi' piece but you could technically plug the fibre modem directly into your Firewalla Gold & then connect the BT router with the 4G connection into the Gold as a secondary WAN and let the firewalla manage your WAN flips. If you had any issues that is :)
-
Hope it's OK to post on an old thread, but @Ian - I am looking to do the exact same thing as you have done here (UniFi kit too). Got a couple of questions:
- Do you plug directly into fibre modem (openreach fttp box is it?)
- Is there any complexity with the PPPoE config?
- I've seen you can do VLAN tagging, have you done this with multiple segments and trunked down to the UniFI APs?
- Bonus question, have you used this with a VLAN dedicated for VPN usage using the VPN clietnt and what sort of performance do you get with OpenVPN traffic? I note that the feature page suggests 120mbps which would be more than sufficient but curious how 'real world' that is
I've used Mikrotik in the past and was considering upgrading to a better RB with IPSEC hardware support but then a mate suggested to look at firewalla and it looks pretty awesome.
Thanks!
-
Hi Bob - no problem at all. I've used lots of routers over the years including PFsense and honestly Firewalla has the best all-round package imho. Simple yet highly configurable with access to advanced features.
- Do you plug directly into fibre modem (openreach fttp box is it?)
Yes you connect the Openreach FTTP box to the WAN port on Firewalla Gold. No need for the BT hub.
- Is there any complexity with the PPPoE config?
No, you enter the PPPOE credentials as you would on any other router and it will connect without issue. I have sometimes experienced speed fluctuations (I have 500mb but sometimes see this drop to 220ish) which Firewalla confirmed to be a potential bug in the kernel and how it handles PPPOE. However, it's hard to say how much of that is related to BT's throttling and how much is actually the kernel issue. Firewalla have said they're releasing a bug fix for this in a future version but really hasn't impacted me very much.
- I've seen you can do VLAN tagging, have you done this with multiple segments and trunked down to the UniFI APs?
Yes. VLAN tagging uses the universal 802.1q protocol and I've never experienced any issues with Firewalla & Unifi devices communicating/passing VLANS.
- Bonus question, have you used this with a VLAN dedicated for VPN usage using the VPN client and what sort of performance do you get with OpenVPN traffic?
Yes I have. I've set it up so the devices that are part of a certain group on Firewalla have to route through the VPN client - devices that are not part of this group route out to the internet normally, works exactly as you would expect it to! I'm not sure on the real world speed for OpenVPN - I prefer WireGuard and Firewalla Gold can push up to 500mb through that.
Ian
-
Hi Ian,
Thanks for such a detailed reply. I did stumble accross the reported performance issue with PPPoE in another thread as it happens.
That all seems great then! I've tended to use NordVPN which does have a Wireguard implementation (NordLynx) though couldn't find anything specific related to using this, but at worst case I could use UDP OpenVPN
This seems like a great solution then, just a shame theres not a UK distributor!
Bob
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
7 comments