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FTTP Router for Aquiss

Photolunatic

Casual Member
Hi!
Long time reader, first time poster here.

I have been with Virgin Media for years (way too long) and finally when I moved out of London I researched an alternative ISP. Found that Aquiss offers a good (customer) service and is recommended by the community here.

Ordered a 300/50 package and now awaiting Openreach to hook this place up.

I plan to use a small factor PC (like Lenovo tiny) with OpenSense (https://opnsense.org)

or Single Board Computer (SBC) like Rasppbery Pi 4 with OpenWRT (https://github.com/wulfy23/rpi4) or dedicated NanoPi R4S (https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php/NanoPi_R4S) with a case (https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=284)

to run as a:
  • Firewall
  • Router
  • NAS

As I might not acquire the hardware before the FTTP installation, I need a cheap router for a temporary use.

1. I do not care about Wi-Fi as my home office will be hardwired.
2. Possibility to install OpenWRT on the temporary router will be an additional advantage.

I like the looks of Archer C64, but unfortunately it is not OpenWRT compatible.

Any hardware recommendation appreciated.
Thanks.
 
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Hi @Photolunatic weclome to the forums. I know Aquiss use PPPoE so your router will need to support that and of course as a bare min you need two NICs one for WAN to connect to your ONT and other your LAN.

This means if looking at a SBC like the Raspberry Pi you would need an additional USB NIC as it only has one wired NIc onboard.

Right now I personally use a Sophos XG firewall appliance (XG430Rev2) running PfSense which handles my 5Gbps WAN and 10GbE lan no problems.

As these appliances are essentially x86 1U servers you can also run a hypervisor on them if you wanted to virtualise your router with other VMs as you mention.

you can pick these and similar devices quite cheap 2nd hand.
 
Welcome, I'm on Aquiss as well, currently I'm using a (pair of in a ha config) old iGel H820c thin clients modified to allow a pcie dual port nic (cut the end of the pcie slot so a 4x card would it in the 1x slot, though I don't actually need the third port) running Pfsense, (£35 on eBay)

Not doing much else but it will saturate the line @1000/100 (less overhead) running a speed test.

While I was getting this up & running I used a tplink er605 as a temporary bit of kit. Which was ok.
They do have a list of suggested routers on their website
 
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@nsmhd @Al-T
Thanks for your replies and suggestions.
Sophos XG seem to be a nice device (but bulky as per my application) and I know nothing about them, so this is for later, surely.

Regarding iGel H820c. I will have a look, what NIC card have you used fo it.
I am sure I won't have time to find, buy and set up a small factor pc before the FTTP installation so I need something that will work 100% OOB

Found Linksys EA8300 with UBB 3.0 that will run OpenWRT.
What do you guys think?

I can have it for less than 30 quid used.
 
I would buy one of the topton N100 4x2.5G lan Nucs from Aliexpress. The price of these has dropped significantly since Christmas. Looking now its £123 before any vouchers put in. That is a bargain considering these used to be double that 6 months ago.


Just read you need this in a hurry. If its only a temporary router I would go to a local CEX and just buy any premium router made in the last 10 years. Then use that for a few weeks till the Topton arrives.
 
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I have a NanoPi R4S, it's excellent and extremely powerful. Only thing I'd prefer is the upgraded / more recent models that have more ports.
 
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Yes, the second-hand retailer. They sell used PC hardware quite cheaply.

So from a quick look. This is £45.

https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail...D=5524f679cb348d6f554da457974b193c&position=3

Flash a custom Merlin firmware onto it to get the latest security updates and features


This will serve you well till the Topton arrives. Then you can trade it back in for £30 and it means you have paid £15 to use it for a few weeks.
 
Yes, the second-hand retailer. They sell used PC hardware quite cheaply.

So from a quick look. This is £45.

https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail...D=5524f679cb348d6f554da457974b193c&position=3

Flash a custom Merlin firmware onto it to get the latest security updates and features


This will serve you well till the Topton arrives. Then you can trade it back in for £30 and it means you have paid £15 to use it for a few weeks.
THANKS!
Is this ASUS DSL-AC88U at £45 + shipping a better deal than Linksys EA8300 at £29 with OpenWRT already preinstalled?
 
Last edited:
Yes, the second-hand retailer. They sell used PC hardware quite cheaply.

So from a quick look. This is £45.

https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail...D=5524f679cb348d6f554da457974b193c&position=3

Flash a custom Merlin firmware onto it to get the latest security updates and features


This will serve you well till the Topton arrives. Then you can trade it back in for £30 and it means you have paid £15 to use it for a few weeks.
dsl-ac88u is not supported by merlin
 
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Just an update.
I ended up scoring a like-new, boxed MR8300 that I flashed with OpenWRT without even checking the Linksys software.

Runs well enough for the 330/50Mbps FTTP with the Bufferbloat score A+

I deem this as a good, budget (£26) solution before I will pull the trigger on Opensense hardware.

Thank you all for your replies.


OpenWrt 22.03.5 Kernel 5.10 2024-02-25 at 16-30-29 LibreSpeed - Speed Test.webp
 
I saw this too late, but I would have suggested a low-end Mikrotik router, like the hEX or hEX PoE.

The hEX PoE (which I now use as a PoE switch rather than a router) is single core. In some measurements I did a while ago, the hEX PoE was able to route iperf3 at 300Mbps - actually more like 900Mbps with Fasttrack enabled, although that's only for IPv4. The cheaper hEX is dual core (and has 256MB RAM rather than 128MB), so should perform better, if you don't need the PoE capability.

Don't go for the "Lite" models though - they have only 64MB of RAM, which is barely enough to run RouterOS these days.
 
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