Airtel is now giving a new equipment for FTTH

[bbforumstalker]

Just got a new fiber connection
I expected Nokia/ZTE as per other users.
However, seems like they are now sending out ZyXEL PMG5617-R20B ONTs

It's a pretty decent Equipment in terms of performance, able to get 400mbps on 5ghz WiFi (Lan to Lan) and there are 4 Gigabit LAN ports.
It is actually faster than my Archer C7 running openwrt with bridge mode enabled. Not sure why.

Setting up bridge mode was fairly easy in the WAN settings.
For DDNS, it Supports dyndns, no-ip and zoneedit.com

Port Forwarding is pretty easy in NAT settings, very self-explanatory.

However, in terms of configuration, it is pretty locked down (You cannot backup/restore the router config!)

On PPPoE mode, It is set to IPv4 Only by default, but you can change it to IPv4/IPv6.
It seems the internet speed is restricted on an IP basis.
Well seeded Linux torrents reach my plans max speed if I just use IPv4, but with dualstack, I am able to get 2x the speeds thanks to IPv6 peers. Ran 2 simultaneous iperf3 tests on a dual-stack gigabit server, and I am able to max out both ipv4 & ipv6 speeds individually to my plan's max limit

Here are a few screenshots.

WAN settings overview:

IPv6 LAN settings

Regarding router's running-config, unlike other equipments there is no way to backup or restore.
The backup/restore setting page only has "reset" option, however you can inspect-element that button and change onclick="restoreDefault(1)" to onclick="backup_settings()" to get a romfile.cfg which is unfortunately encrypted

❯ binwalk ~/Documents/Zyxel_romfile.cfg

DECIMAL       HEXADECIMAL     DESCRIPTION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0             0x0             OpenSSL encryption, salted, salt: 0x7045F14CA42A38B9

Overall I am very happy with the connection. I only wish Airtel would provide /56 or lower IPv6 prefix and the equipment was a bit more open to tinker around.

 

[blueman24]

Setting up bridge mode was fairly easy in the WAN settings.

It worked out of the box and you didn't have to call them for bridge mode?

 

[airforce]

@blueman24 can you share modem detail and steps your followed for achieving bridge mode

 

[nishantt6969]

Can we see the picture of ONT?

 

[tyrannosaurhex]

Dude, not to rain on your parade but 400mbps on 5ghz is slow. That's 2.4ghz speed, are you sure you didn't want to mention 2.4ghz. Archer C7 is 6-8 year old hardware, so anything from 2020s should really not be a comparison. Have you been able to get CPU details(doubt since ISPs go to lengths to hide router specs) which should show the real picture.

Edit: Spec sheet shows it's almost identical to ZTE-F670L which Airtel gives out. WPA3 and higher power consumption are the only differences I could spot. Airtel could just be moving away from Chinese brands.

 

[bbforumstalker]

Dude, not to rain on your parade but 400mbps on 5ghz is slow.

TBH, coming from a measly 100mbps router from my previous ISP, this is a refreshing upgrade at no installation charges.
All my heavy data devices are on LAN anyway so I am not complaining.
I did change the channel to a less noisy one, after which I am getting close to 600 Mb/s.
Probably with 2 streams I could hit close to the AC1200 mark. Havent tested yet.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-30.00  sec  2.08 GBytes   597 Mbits/sec  135             sender
[  5]   0.00-30.01  sec  2.08 GBytes   596 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

Isn't 144Mbps the max real-world speed for 2.4ghz for a single link?

Also, the specs sheet is for the T20B, the one I received is R20B for which there isn't a spec sheet atm. No WPA3 either.

so anything from 2020s should really not be a comparison.

Is there even a good option under ₹4k with good OpenWRT support? The capable ones are mostly using Broadcom SoC which has little to no OpenWRT support.

I worked out of the box and you didn't have to call them for bridge mode?

Yep, the Mode "Router" has a drop-down where you get the option of "bridged". It was that easy.
My PPPoE password was my Account Number in the Payment receipt.

Can we see the picture of ONT?

 

[zerosleeping]

Currently at my mothers home in Mangalore for the time being..

Hopefully Airtel will wire up our apartments with FTTH. Still on age old VDSL ..
But your post gives me hope Lets see how things ago as surrounding streets
are being wired, but ours isn't as all street poles have been taken out for
smart city work.

 

[Gaurav15]

are you getting public IPv4 on airtel xstream or CGNAT?

 

[bbforumstalker]

Public IPv4

 

[tyrannosaurhex]

Is there even a good option under ₹4k with good OpenWRT support? The capable ones are mostly using Broadcom SoC which has little to no OpenWRT support.

IIRC, No. Most 5ghz routers with decent specs are very costly. I think a low priced 5ghz MI router supports OpenWRT, not sure if it was available in India.

Did you check OpenWRT's ToH to check for supported devices. There is an excel sheet you can download to apply several filters as per your needs. Do check Gargoyle and DD-WRT as well.