Hot Fiber information and finding possible SFP replacements

[orsanawwad]

Hi,

First of all, thank you for starting this project

I'm starting this thread in the hope to find more information about the possibility of using SFP modules with Hot GPON network to connect to a private router box like PFSense or OPNSense

Right now the only information I found is basically what's mentioned here https://github.com/yuvadm/ftth-il/pull/8

The router is Altice Labs GR140DG

FCC Reports https://fcc.report/FCC-ID/2ACJF-FGW-GR140DG

Web Control Panel can be accessed through 192.168.1.1, credentials can be found on a sticker beneath the router, must connect using ethernet connected to one of the ports (Logging in from WiFi does not work)

Bridge Mode is not possible, the option is in the control panel, but gives internal error when attempting to enable it, ISP says such option is "not available on their fiber infrastructure" (heh)

Hot customer service will also argue that WiFi is "not possible to disable on their fiber infrastructure" ( ¯_(ツ)_/¯ ), but it can be disabled, best done by powering off the router, unplug the fiber (with care), power on, access the portal, then turn off the WiFi settings, the reason for restarting the router is that after some time, the web portal will refuse your login credentials for unknown reason (if that didnt work resetting the router should do)

There's a hidden feature where pressing both Info and WPS buttons for 5-10 seconds will put it in some sort of maintenance mode for ISP to connect through it? Not sure how this works

And that's all what I found out so far, now I'm looking for more information on what SFP modules + PCI cards would possibly work to attempt plugging the Hot GPON network into a private router, whether it needs to be GPON, XPON, EPON, and if its necessary to have an SFP module where you can change the serial/mac address on them to trick the network into accepting the module

Tried to scour many of HT and ILFiber forums but couldn't find any more information about this, and I'm hoping this thread can be used to collect such info

[yuvadm]

Hey @orsanawwad - Interesting problem, I'm not surprised Hot doesn't want to support or even provide any details on advanced usage like you are looking for.

Sounds like there isn't any option other than trial and error - curious to hear what you come up with!

[moriel5]

As Hot does not have their own independent fiber infrastructure, but rather rely upon Unlimited's infrastructure (they partially own Unlimited), it's the same as any Unlimited ISP: There is a whitelist, it is not publicized, and ISPs are forbidden from connecting any equipment that is not provided by them.

019 is one of the less problematic Unlimited ISPs (I believe also X-Fiber), as they allow you to outright purchase their hardware and own it, unlike Hot. I forget whether they have an SFP module, however I do believe that they allow putting their router into bridge mode.

Cellcom, I believe, technically does not allow you to outright purchase their hardware, however there have been reports that people have successfully obtained legal ownership of the SFP module that they supply (I believe that it is of the same models as Bezeq, but at least the Nokia G-010S-A, perhaps also the G-010S-Q, should be possible to obtain from Cellcom).

[orsanawwad]

Ended up moving to Cellcom since I'm on unlimited infrastructure, their first question was if I wanted to use their router, or mine, the answer was obvious.

They provided a Nokia ONT included in the package that acts as a bridge, and ended up using Proxmox with OpenWRT, at first I had OPNSense and didn't get the full gigabit, I was worried it was due to some limitation with PPPoE and FreeBSD, moving to OpenWRT and VyOS didn't help, the issue ended up being with the card not having enough queues (ethtool -l should return something instead of Operation not supported)

After switching to a different card (and moving it to the first PCI slot to get the full bandwidth) it worked, and I got a full gigabit, on Cellcom ISP with their PPPoE connection including ipv6, no NAT, setting up Queue on OpenWRT was a breeze and so far its working great

I've tried numerous times throughout the year to get something out of hot ONT, and couldn't get anywhere without going the destructive route

Saw somewhere online that it was possible to get a root shell to hopefully gain more information about the ONT auth and interface, but that seems to be patched (to my surprise)

So yeah, I gave up on hot trying to use my own stuff with hot, switching to Cellcom was the easiest solution, just make sure you have a gigabit PPPoE router on hand to verify with the technician before signing off, my old tp-link vr600 failed me