Vodacom Firbe - Router

[Lament]

Hi Everyone,
Hope someone can help or point me in the right direction,
So we have Vodacom fibre at home, Via Frogfoot. I have someone staying with me who works for amazon. The 1 requirement is to have stable fibre. Unfortunately this is not the case. There is not a week that passes that we dont have an issue and he goes in a panic attack as MANY people has been fired because of their unstable fibre connections. When we call Vodacom, Vodacom normally blames Frogfoot. Frogfoot blames Vodacom. And here we are.
My main suspicion is that the issue is on the router. The fibre box rarely shows that the link is down and normally when the power goes out or something, you have to restart the router like 5 times before the fibre works again.... So I bought a new router from takealot. Yesterday when I wanted to install it I was told I am not allowed to use a 3rd party router. Now FFS, Vodacom does not want to do anything to actually help assist us to fix the original issue, and if I try to be proactive and fix or at least identify the issue with process of elimination, then I'm told nope, can only use Vodacom routers.

Has anyone ever setup a 3rd party router on Vodacom network?, if so what is needed?. Im really getting SICK and tired of Vodacom. This is the largest ISP in SA and they are everything besides helpful when we experience fibre issues, all you always get is "issue has been referred to secondline", and then you wait days....

So can a 3rd party router be used with Vodacom, if so what would be required, I would guess a username and a password?, what else?

 

[McGuywer]

@Noob-Noob

Just move to a different ISP.
I have RSAWEB and I can use my own router.
I do have funny routing issues but I am still investigating that, the line was only installed yesterday, so I am not sure yet where the issues are.

 

[Lament]

@Noob-Noob

Just move to a different ISP.
I have RSAWEB and I can use my own router.
I do have funny routing issues but I am still investigating that, the line was only installed yesterday, so I am not sure yet where the issues are.

Yes, This does sound like the best option.
Now the problem, If I cancel my Vodacom, Will frogfoot come and remove the Fibre box?, I cannot think they will. But as soon as I subscribe to another ISP, there is an mandatory "installation" which does give me the impression they will have to send someone out.
If this is the case, Its not just a simply switch between ISP's like in the old days with ADSL or even LTE for that matter. It seems like there will be definite down time, which we cannot afford. Its extremely ironic as we wnt with Vodacom, being the biggest and one would think best with least hassles.
On LTE, never, ever have I suffered down time (unless loadshedding, then it was down). Yes at times LTE was slow as fck due to 100million people connecting to our tower, but it was on. Fibre on the otherhand, of my fck. What an unstable POS connection.
The logical conclusion, have Fibre and sommer a 10MB LTE package as backup. Unfortunately Amazon does not allow LTE or anything else besides Fibre.

 

[r00igev@@r]

Hi Everyone,
Hope someone can help or point me in the right direction,
So we have Vodacom fibre at home, Via Frogfoot. I have someone staying with me who works for amazon. The 1 requirement is to have stable fibre. Unfortunately this is not the case. There is not a week that passes that we dont have an issue and he goes in a panic attack as MANY people has been fired because of their unstable fibre connections. When we call Vodacom, Vodacom normally blames Frogfoot. Frogfoot blames Vodacom. And here we are.
My main suspicion is that the issue is on the router. The fibre box rarely shows that the link is down and normally when the power goes out or something, you have to restart the router like 5 times before the fibre works again.... So I bought a new router from takealot. Yesterday when I wanted to install it I was told I am not allowed to use a 3rd party router. Now FFS, Vodacom does not want to do anything to actually help assist us to fix the original issue, and if I try to be proactive and fix or at least identify the issue with process of elimination, then I'm told nope, can only use Vodacom routers.

Has anyone ever setup a 3rd party router on Vodacom network?, if so what is needed?. Im really getting SICK and tired of Vodacom. This is the largest ISP in SA and they are everything besides helpful when we experience fibre issues, all you always get is "issue has been referred to secondline", and then you wait days....

So can a 3rd party router be used with Vodacom, if so what would be required, I would guess a username and a password?, what else?

My condolences. The Vodacom policies around routers are mindblowingly insane and incomprehensible. Just can them and go with someone else and write it off to school fees.
You will never have 100% uptime from a single ISP and a single FNO. If that is the expectation then he will get fired. If the guy from amazon has the bucks get him to put in a second fixed wireless link as failsafe - they are about an extra R1k. If he doesn't want to do that then the job obviously doesn't pay that well or he can afford to be fired.
I do failsafes for SMEs using SDWAN. I can do a call home from behind a Vodacom router but the Huawei that they use has the CPU power of a ZX Spectrum so its always going to be a less than quality experience.

 

[I.am.Sam]

you can move over to another ISP

but you will have to pay vodacom for installation

Im with mweb and installation was R3300 with a router

its pro rata and if kept for 12 months its free

The installer only gets like R700 but yeah you can move ISPs or like roiigevaar said get another line

 

[RedViking]

Sorry not an answer to your router question.

I have Vodacom Fibre via Cool Ideas.

To get it to work properly I changed the MTU size to 1436.

My sister had the exact same issue where it doesn't always work, load websites or download documents. also Vodacom Fibre. Changed the MTU size to 1436. Problem solved.

Change the MTU size and see if it solves the problem.

I also have MTN Fixed LTE as a backup as Vodacom Fibre is unreliable.

 

[Lament]

My condolences. The Vodacom policies around routers are mindblowingly insane and incomprehensible. Just can them and go with someone else and write it off to school fees.
You will never have 100% uptime from a single ISP and a single FNO. If that is the expectation then he will get fired. If the guy from amazon has the bucks get him to put in a second fixed wireless link as failsafe - they are about an extra R1k. If he doesn't want to do that then the job obviously doesn't pay that well or he can afford to be fired.
I do failsafes for SMEs using SDWAN. I can do a call home from behind a Vodacom router but the Huawei that they use has the CPU power of a ZX Spectrum so its always going to be a less than quality experience.

In our area we only have Frogfoot, So will an additional line be possible? (The logic answer to me is no, but I'm not that clued up with fibre)Not sure if its as simply as calling say Afrihost and tell them I want an additional line and they will also come and do an installation??
We have Sdwan at work running on a meraki, never really knew the difference between that and normal fibre. I should probably just google

 

[r00igev@@r]

In our area we only have Frogfoot, So will an additional line be possible? (The logic answer to me is no, but I'm not that clued up with fibre)Not sure if its as simply as calling say Afrihost and tell them I want an additional line and they will also come and do an installation??
We have Sdwan at work running on a meraki, never really knew the difference between that and normal fibre. I should probably just google

You can can two ONTs installed on any FNO to the same address with two different ISPs.
You can also get fixed wireless to most sites from MTN, Comsol, Bitco and even Vodacom. There are also a large number of WISPs
Meraki provides network infrastructure and has a cloud based provisioning and orchestration portal. It allows one guy the ability to manage more sites instead of hiring more people. Most installs are mesh and are designed for branch solutions.

 

[eddief1]

In our area we only have Frogfoot, So will an additional line be possible? (The logic answer to me is no, but I'm not that clued up with fibre)Not sure if its as simply as calling say Afrihost and tell them I want an additional line and they will also come and do an installation??
We have Sdwan at work running on a meraki, never really knew the difference between that and normal fibre. I should probably just google

The two lines would probably end up at the same pon splitter, same backhaul fibre and probably on the same OLT port so not providing much redundancy on the last-mile there. @r00igev@@r suggestion of fibre and carrier microwave is the best, those should take very diverse paths

 

[r00igev@@r]

The two lines would probably end up at the same pon splitter, same backhaul fibre and probably on the same OLT port so not providing much redundancy on the last-mile there. @r00igev@@r suggestion of fibre and carrier microwave is the best, those should take very diverse paths

You are right about physical redundancy but at home I have Openserve with two ISPs using two PPPoE accounts on the same last mile. The ISP is more down that Openserve but we talking minutes here (19 minutes over a month) and not hours.
I don't have anything on Frogfoot to monitor anymore but on Octotel its been kuk (3 hours and above per month).
PS: I haven't ever seen fixed wireless and fibre failures occur at the same time.

 

[AfriNatic]

In our area we only have Frogfoot, So will an additional line be possible? (The logic answer to me is no, but I'm not that clued up with fibre)Not sure if its as simply as calling say Afrihost and tell them I want an additional line and they will also come and do an installation??
We have Sdwan at work running on a meraki, never really knew the difference between that and normal fibre. I should probably just google

You can get additional lines installed. With Frogfoot it's a bit tricky but can definitely be done. The installation fee for an additional line will unfortunately also apply.

If the issue is with the OLT then an additional line will likely not resolve the issue as both lines will connect to the very same OLT.

With Frogfoot if you cancel with one ISP and signup with another the order at the new ISP can only be progressed if a termination is loaded by the previous ISP. There will unfortunately be downtime when switching ISPs. If you do want to get the process started you can get in touch with me but it will take some time to get the order progressed for a new install and now that we are heading to the network freeze period will add additional delays.