FTTN is almost not worth it!

[James P Dehnert SR]

Greetings everyone,

I am in the process of migrating from using a bonded pair of fusion lines to the FTTN product, and the transition has proven to be much more of a pain than I ever could have imagined.

Not having a fixed IP address means that much of what I have currently needs to be re-architected from scratch. I have my own mail server at home, and it was set up nicely with Red Condor (now Edgewise) mail filtering and my firewall would only allow smtp connections from Red Condor. I run a split zone DNS server to provide DHCP integrated DNS service inside, while serving up a bare minimum of info ( like MX and NS records ) to the outside. All of these items are heavily impacted by switching to a dynamic IP address.

The Pace 5268AC box is OK for most implementations, but it's firewall falls short of what I'd like it to do. The device can't be run in a bridged mode so it has to be my firewall. Its runs DHCP, but only points to external DNS servers as far as I can tell. I don't think I can add any options to the DHCP service if I wanted to, and I can't seem to change the internal domain name.

I am also having trouble getting some of my devices to even work with the Pace box's services. My TiVo's and my SmartThings hub can't get new IP addresses from the DHCP server, so those services have ground to a halt until I can invest some additional time on them.

The extra bandwidth is great, but I'm starting to question the wisdom of this upgrade for my more complex network. I was really hoping to cut the Comcast cord and switch to mostly streaming services for TV, (I have used satellite before and I'm not a fan, so lets just leave it at that) but if I can't even get my TiVo's to connect then its a lost cause.

So, To Dane and Sonic I ask the following:

How long before we can get fixed IP addresses?

Any chance there will be a different CPE device that just gives us an Ethernet and Phone Drop so we can use our own firewall/gateway?

Thanks,
James "Zeke" Dehnert

--
mailto:jdehnert@gmail.com James "Zeke" Dehnert
-= Eschew Obfuscation =-
"Life is racing. Everything else is just waiting"

[pockyken007]

Since FTTN is 100% ATT network my guess would be never ... they don't do it for their customers why would they do it for resold product ?

[James P Dehnert Sr]

Postby pockyken007 » Tue Mar 08, 2016 12:23 pm

Since FTTN is 100% ATT network my guess would be never ... they don't do it for their customers why would they do it for resold product ?

When I ordered my FTTN, I did ask about a fixed IP address. They said that they could not provide one yet, but that they were getting several requests for a fixed IP's so they were looking into it and hoping to be able to offer them eventually.

My fingers are crossed.

Thanks,
James "Zeke" Dehnert

--
mailto:jdehnert@gmail.com James "Zeke" Dehnert
-= Eschew Obfuscation =-
"Life is racing. Everything else is just waiting"

[pockyken007]

oh I was not aware of that , as somebody on FTTN it would be nice to have a static IP for some of my services / devices on my network ... sure as hell would make setting stuff up easier

[guest]

You can use DMZ+ to forward all packages to your own firewall to bypass your 5268ac.

[rtrinh]

FTTN while technically doesn't provide a static IP address, it's still pretty static.

I've power cycled my modem and had it off for a long period and still have the same IP address since I switched to FTTN almost a year ago.

Is my IP static?

[polpo]

Uverse/FTTN dynamic IPs are extremely sticky. A friend had service from 2008-2014 and the IP address never changed.

[James P Dehnert Sr]

Thanks everyone for letting me know just how 'dynamic' the DHCP address actually is.

The one thing that still bothers me is that I can't do any advanced filtering in the firewall. In this case for my incoming SMTP connection, I can't set it up so only a specific range of IP addresses can send mail in via SMTP. All my incoming mail is filtered through EdgeWave (was Red Condor), so anything else is not welcome. I'll have to see if my mail server sees the firewall as the delivering IP address, or if it sees Edgewave.

Thanks,
James "Zeke" Dehnert

--
mailto:jdehnert@gmail.com James "Zeke" Dehnert
-= Eschew Obfuscation =-
"Life is racing. Everything else is just waiting"

[dane]

Thanks everyone for letting me know just how 'dynamic' the DHCP address actually is.

The one thing that still bothers me is that I can't do any advanced filtering in the firewall. In this case for my incoming SMTP connection, I can't set it up so only a specific range of IP addresses can send mail in via SMTP. All my incoming mail is filtered through EdgeWave (was Red Condor), so anything else is not welcome. I'll have to see if my mail server sees the firewall as the delivering IP address, or if it sees Edgewave.

Your mail server would see the remote delivering server IP, so you'd just disallow any except EdgeWave there.

[dherr]

Note that "incoming SMTP" suggests port 25. By default that is blocked for U-verse/Sonic FTTN.