I decided I wanted to do more advanced stuff with my home network - PXE booting, DHCP options, hostname allocation, blocklists, VPN etc. Most of which meant getting rid of the BT SmartHub2, which in turn means I can’t use their Digital Voice for my landline or BTTV for Freeview, at which point I figured I may as well ditch them for mobile too!

So I looked into other FTTP providers and found Zen Full Fibre Max which offered a few upgrades - a static IPv4, a /48 IPv6, reverse DNS and 1600 mbps instead of 900.

Router

I decided to use my own router, which meant running OPNsense on a TopTon clone N150 mini PC:

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I added 16GB RAM and a 500GB NVMe as well as the 120mm fan you can see in the photo - a spare Fractal Design I had lying around, which I connected via one of the wifi aerial holes to the 4-pin SYS_FAN header with a custom 1.25mm JST cable I made up. The Fractal only has 3-pins so there’s no PWM (only sense) so I blows full blast constantly, but it’s silent and cools the case really well. It’s held in place using rubber fan screws which really nicely fit between the fins on the case!

500GB of storage was overkill but that’s pretty much the smallest I could find that made sense i.e. it was a fiver more than a 128gb really old generation. 16GB RAM was supposedly the max that the N150 can take although a few people have reported 32-64GB working if you can find the right DDR4 SODIMM. I had considered using one of the DDR5600 modules from my Proxmox box and upgrading that to 64GB but I didn’t think it would work well so 16GB of known-working it was.

The serial console works nicely too at 115200 8n1 with a Cisco cable, as does USB and HDMI which I used to do the OPNsense install.

OPNsense

OPNsense works really nicely on it with 2.5gbe upstream links to my 10gbps switch and a new ONT - which took Openreach about 30secs to fit and 2 hours on the phone to India to configure!

Settings I had to make were mostly done using the wizard:

DNS1: 212.23.3.100
DNS2: 212.23.6.100
MTU: 1492 (as calculated)
PPP username: <see email>
PPP password: <see email>
IPv4 config type: PPPoE
IPv6 config type: DHCPv6
DHCPv6 prefix delegation size: 48
No vlan/vpi/vci/mss

It found my static IPv4/IPv6 itself and added the IPv6 DNS server 2a02:8010:1::212:23:3:100

I used these instructions roughly, to move to dnsmasq+unbound from ISC

I added the cputemp widget and configured the Letsencrypt ACME client.

Something went terribly wrong just before the 25.1.8 upgrade - the dashboard barely worked at all although routing was fine. 25.1.8.1 works nicely now though.

Voice over IP

As I still have a need for people to be able to call a landline from abroad (no real need to make calls) I had to subscribe to a VoIP provider and buy some SIP phones.

I decided to go with Andrews & Arnold as they seem to have rave reviews everywhere. Upon subscribing I can see they are Linux lovers as their website looks very 1990’s but has cool features like GPG keys in emails, 2FA, IRC chat for support, CSV/PDF export of most documents etc. To my surprise though, its going to be a week to get my number ported, but the one-touch process was very quick and straightforward.

The phone solution I decided on was a Yealink W70B basestation and a couple of W56H DECT handsets. I had considered wifi phones but apparently they are terrible for VoIP, so I stuck to DECT which worked well for me with BT Digital Voice. AAISP provided these instructions for configuring them which seems to have worked.

Once my number has been ported and the service goes live I’ll update the post.

Zen Internet

First I’ll say I’ve very happy with the service now, but getting here was troublesome.

The guy who took my order was perhaps new (being kind there) as I had to convince him repeatedly that I’d need a new ONT with 2.5gbe ports for a 1.6gbps connection as my previous one was an old 1gbe one made for 900mbps.

My number was never ported from BT despite it being agreed on that sales call, which actually worked out quite well as it made it easier to move to AAISP later.

My access to the portal had to be fixed twice before I could see my orders, bills or services (which you need to be able to configure rdns/ipv6).

WiFi

Obviously the router has no wifi, so I decided to buy a couple of AP’s with wired backhaul and use them in a mesh configuration. Basically the same as the BT SmartHub2 with Halo3 discs that I had been using.

So I bought a couple of TP-Link Deco X10’s. That was a mistake! Apart from the awful app you’re forced to install, the two devices rarely ever reported that they could see each other - which makes for a piss-poor mesh! Also phones kept disconnecting so they got returned to Amazon.

Next I bought a couple of Draytek Vigor AP805’s, they are AX3000 devices so I assumed would be better than the AX1500 Deco’s. Wrong! OK they had much more professional web interfaces and features, but phones would constantly disconnect and most were stuck on the root AP and wouldn’t roam to the node - even when the node was in the same room as the phone! So they went back too.

Then I thought about the eero Pro 6E that Zen had provided me that I didn’t even unpack, as I didn’t want to use another ISP router. But I found it can be put into bridge mode (real bridge, not double-NAT) which basically turned it into an AP. So I’m now using a single AP and it works better than the other two pairs in a mesh!

Mobile

I like the 5g EE network I got with BT, so decided to go with Mozillion, good price, good service. Not great signup. Data didn’t work and my number didn’t get ported until I emailed support (and it took several days - it’s usually one) and the website was totally broken when trying to place my order.

Television

Next up is cancelling BTTV. I’m hoping when that goes through I can easily switch my Netflix account to paying for it myself rather than via BT, but we’ll see. I’d also like to keep my BT TV Box Pro, which may mean paying for it if I don’t return it. I never liked the BTTV “extras” so am hoping it’ll actually work better without all that online crap and constantly upselling channels you don’t have.

Conclusion

So I can see why to the average consumer BT is the easy/best option. The SH2 and wifi discs work better than TPLink/Draytek with no configuration. Same for Digital Voice which just connects to regular DECT phones from the router without needing another basestation.

I’m now with 4 different service providers instead of one. I’ve bought a few hundred Pounds worth of equipment which BT give you for free. But I’m probably saving £500/year and getting a better service now - for the price of some hassle.

References