ONT to Switch or Router?

Internet access discussion, including Fusion, IP Broadband, and Gigabit Fiber!
11 posts Page 1 of 2
by petersw » Mon May 23, 2022 11:04 am
I'm about to have Sonic fiber installed at my house, and a tech has informed me that the ONT box must be connected directly to my router. With my cable modem, I'm able to connect the modem to a switch, and the router also connects to the switch. Will this truly not work with fiber?

Also, I use a dedicated PC as my router, running Untangle on bare metal. Should I anticipate any problems with this setup using Sonic fiber?
by dane » Mon May 23, 2022 11:49 am
The Sonic ONT provides a single public IP, bridged with no NAT or firewall. You’ll need to connect that to a router to provide those functions.

Sonic supplies a mesh WiFi router, and you could put a switch behind that of course, as well as additional mesh units connected with Ethernet or wifi. Or DIY - up to you.

But no, do not connect a switch directly to the ONT, it will only serve a single device, your router.
Dane Jasper
Sonic
by ngufra » Mon May 23, 2022 1:06 pm
Connect the ONT to your router and the router to the switch.

|ONT| <---> WAN PORT |router| LAN PORT <---> |SWITCH| <---> |other computer|

It should work fine but depending on the hardware and software on your router, it may not be able to handle the Gbps speed fully.

If you were doing wifi on the cable modem, you can connect it to the switch too though I would use a regular access point instead.
by dane » Mon May 23, 2022 2:22 pm
One landmine I've seen folks trip on is using the switch side of a router or even a cable modem, connecting that to the ONT. It'll act like it's working, for a couple of connected devices because it's acting like a switch and the ONT will issue one or two public IPs, but other devices won't work. We had one customer who was really irate that he couldn't use the DOCSIS cable modem that he'd purchased, with his Sonic fiber. The WiFi of course wouldn't work, but one or two connected PCs would, so he was really baffled about why things didn't work, and was upset, thinking we just wanted to rent him our own router. But the WAN side of a cable modem is DOCSIS, and just because it might have a switch built into it, it won't route from those ports. Lots of confusion, and I think he gave us a bad review because we just couldn't convince him.
Dane Jasper
Sonic
by ds_sonic_asif » Tue May 24, 2022 4:02 pm
ngufra wrote:Connect the ONT to your router and the router to the switch.

|ONT| <---> WAN PORT |router| LAN PORT <---> |SWITCH| <---> |other computer|

It should work fine but depending on the hardware and software on your router, it may not be able to handle the Gbps speed fully.
This works fine. I've used both Linksys SE3008: 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch and Cisco SG110-16 Unmanaged Switch | 16 Gigabit Ethernet in this configuration.

Another important component is having cable that is rated for gigabit speed at the distance you want to run it at.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I am using the rental router provided by Sonic.
by ngufra » Tue May 24, 2022 5:09 pm
Doesn't the router provided by Sonic includes a small switch like 4 ports?
by dane » Tue May 24, 2022 5:15 pm
ngufra wrote:Doesn't the router provided by Sonic includes a small switch like 4 ports?
No, today the mesh WiFi solution has a single Ethernet input and output. That output can go to another WiFi unit, or to a switch which serves devices or more WiFi units. Of course, WiFi mesh units can also interconnect wirelessly.
Dane Jasper
Sonic
by ngufra » Tue May 24, 2022 7:21 pm
Technically, can we consider it as a switch with one external port?
by dane » Tue May 24, 2022 7:49 pm
ngufra wrote:Technically, can we consider it as a switch with one external port?
Nope, it’s a single WAN port and single LAN port. A switch is a LAN device with multiple ports.
Dane Jasper
Sonic
by ngufra » Tue May 24, 2022 10:54 pm
I mean internally I assume the router in the eero has a WAN port, and a L2 switch (possibly virtual) onwhich the external LAN port and the wifi are connected. Maybe I am totally wrong though.

When is a mesh can the two network ports be used as LAN ports or is it always one WAN/one LAN?
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