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Getting Fiber - Please Help Me Understand Routers (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi Folks,

I host a nextcloud instance, a NAS, and a few content portals for things like ebooks and music (internal only). I'll be migrating Smartthings to Home Assistant eventually. We're going to be upgrading to fiber soon and I have the opportunity to rebuild my wife's network with a long term outlook (we'll likely be here for years). Currently we have an older eero mesh system over cable internet. My desk is right where the cable currently comes in so all my Ethernet devices can live near the router.

My question is this:

What am I missing out on as a self-hoster by using whatever equipment metronet gives me?

What am I missing out on as a regular internet user by using the default equipment.

Am I likely to be annoyed about where the fiber comes into the house?

If it makes sense to buy my own router or access point(s), what is a reasonable balance between "daddy Bezos please read all my emails" and "you'll never be secure until you build a router from custom circuit boards you custom ordered and hand assembled in a secure area".

I'd like to avoid complex configuration, but if I can surface advanced options when needed, that would be great.

My Linux knowledge is intermediate. My networking knowledge is begintermediate.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Metronet will be supplying an Optical Network Terminal, probably like this one:

This is basically the equivalent of a modem for cable networks. It does not provide routing functions. You're probably stuck with the ONT they supply, but it shouldn't matter much, definitely not for anything internal.

It looks like Metronet normally supplies Eero WiFi mesh devices for home networking - are the ones you currently have supplied by Metronet? They might just replace the modem with the ONT and leave the existing Eero gear, or they might upgrade the Eero gear to support the higher speed available on the fiber network.

In any case, if you are using ISP-supplied network devices then you don't control the router, which means you can't set up things like port forwarding to access your home network from outside, or configure VLANs to segregate devices on your network, or control things like DHCP.

Technically there's no reason you have to use the Eero devices from Metronet, you should be able to plug any router into the ONT WAN port and have internet service. If you don't want to get too deep into network config, then any modern consumer WiFi router will work (but not a modem/router AIO device). If you want to have a bit more control, look for one that supports OpenWRT.