Just wanted to provide some feedback for anyone wanting to move to 123Net - I recently moved my mother over to their fibre offering. Their service was pretty good so I cannot fault them there, quick and booked the install pretty quickly. I told them I have my own router but then at the last minute they told me they were throwing in their router for me for free which I accepted as who says not to a free newer router - my first mistake.
So they installed the fibre and when I went to my mothers house I firstly noticed that their technician had hot glued the router to the wall where it meets the floor - pretty strange in my book as we all know getting transmitters higher is always more beneficial. They refused to move it because as their manager stated my mother had "signed off on the install". My argument was that I would expect the tech not choose a good spot unless the customer insisted she wanted the router on the floor.
So getting onto my warning - I went over the to move the router for her and noticed that they had set it up for 5Ghz wireless only which was obviously not providing good coverage - easy solution right - just log into the router and change the settings, expect I could not figure out the username and password to log into the router. Quick call to 123Net and they tell me that they cannot give out the password as the router belong to them and only they can manage it, but the guy on the line can remotely change any configuration I would like him to change.
Now is it just me or is this a massive security risk on my side - in my mind the router is the gateway between the ISP's network and my private network, I should be able to set it up so that no one, and that includes my ISP can access it or my internal network. The 123Net technicians have unfettered access to every houshold's internal network where they install these routers.
So long story is that as soon as this 12 month contract is over I will be moving to an ISP who considers my security requirements - do yourself a favour and before moving to 123Net ask them if you will be able to configure your own internal network.
So they installed the fibre and when I went to my mothers house I firstly noticed that their technician had hot glued the router to the wall where it meets the floor - pretty strange in my book as we all know getting transmitters higher is always more beneficial. They refused to move it because as their manager stated my mother had "signed off on the install". My argument was that I would expect the tech not choose a good spot unless the customer insisted she wanted the router on the floor.
So getting onto my warning - I went over the to move the router for her and noticed that they had set it up for 5Ghz wireless only which was obviously not providing good coverage - easy solution right - just log into the router and change the settings, expect I could not figure out the username and password to log into the router. Quick call to 123Net and they tell me that they cannot give out the password as the router belong to them and only they can manage it, but the guy on the line can remotely change any configuration I would like him to change.
Now is it just me or is this a massive security risk on my side - in my mind the router is the gateway between the ISP's network and my private network, I should be able to set it up so that no one, and that includes my ISP can access it or my internal network. The 123Net technicians have unfettered access to every houshold's internal network where they install these routers.
So long story is that as soon as this 12 month contract is over I will be moving to an ISP who considers my security requirements - do yourself a favour and before moving to 123Net ask them if you will be able to configure your own internal network.
