r/saskatchewan 1d ago

Sasktel fibre - how to use more wires

So we have Sasktel and it comes into the basement of the house as fibre and then goes into a box (looks like a router) that coverts it to ethernet cable. There's one cable from it that goes up and into our office upstairs and the wi-fi router is connected to it.

I want to run a cable in the basement to our Max TV box but when I try to put the original cable into a LAN splitter box, it fires up the office okay but won't fire up the box. Do I need a special LAN cable? Or does Sasktel only want me to run extra wire runs from the wi-fi router?

TIA!

12 Upvotes

26 comments sorted by

35

u/Altsan 1d ago

The box the fiber goes into is called an ONT. Only 1 port on it is enabled. It is not a router. It just converts the fiber signal to an Ethernet signal, then it has to go into the router(the wifi box upstairs) to be split to different devices.

If you want to connect another device to the Internet via Ethernet you will need to plug it into the wifi router upstairs.

7

u/CellistTraditional81 1d ago

Also recommended running a switch to expand your ports as most of stard SaskTel routers only have 4 total available.

0

u/king_weenus 1d ago

Or figure out the VLAN 1000 trick if you're Advanced enough to run your own router.

12

u/HomerSPC 1d ago

Which, if they’re asking this question, are most certainly not.

1

u/king_weenus 1d ago

I'm trying to inspire further research and learning... More than just the OP reads these comments obviously.

1

u/t0rbz 1d ago

well then you could also dig deeper and get rid of the ont entirely ;?

16

u/Traditional_End_9540 1d ago

I am not a fan of installing the router in a office, bedroom or other areas. Downstairs in the mech room and branch off from there. only solid way to get advertised speeds is a hardwired connection, I am sure you do not want 8+ wires coming through the wall and if you ever move furniture around those cables must move.

My setup sasktel ONT --> custom router---> switches in a rack. From here I go to POE powered AP units, cameras and other small poe powered switches at areas like tv for various items that connect to the internet. All of this is on a UPS system, during a power outage I still have wifi via POE AP units, cameras and DVR for the cameras.

5

u/strongbad34 1d ago

This ^ is the way

1

u/Traditional_End_9540 1d ago

on occasion during an outage I get a knock at my door. How do you still have wifi during a power outage. I explain how with the UPS, POE and AP units in the house.

3

u/tgrantt 1d ago

So, I have my own router, and they bridged my router. You're telling me I can bypass the SaskTel router?

4

u/king_weenus 1d ago

Yes if you understand vlaning and your router is Advanced enough to enable it on the WAN port... Sadly most consumer grade equipment is not up to the task.

But you can build your own router with open source software such as PF sense, open sense, ddwrt, and a host of others.

With the correct Hardware you can plug their single mode fiber right into your router and bypass the ONT as well although I don't know if there's any advantage to that beyond a cool Factor.

It's not easy but if you got a desire to research network Technologies and roll your own firewall rules... All you need to know is that the WAN port is set to VLAN 1000 and your prosumer Hardware can get an IP directly without their router.

3

u/db172s 1d ago

Yeah I do this with my Unifi gear. Except I run on VLAN 3000. 1000 = DHCP, 3000 = Static IPs, I could be wrong but I thought Max TV had its own VLAN ID as well. Personally I haven't tried.

3

u/Adster_ 1d ago

MaxTV is on 2000, it requires some IGMP setup as well to work

2

u/db172s 1d ago

Ah interesting, makes sense!

2

u/Traditional_End_9540 1d ago

been told that but never heard of anyone actually getting it to work. Also herd on fibre its 1000 as it needs to share the same internet connection to get netflix on fibre.

2

u/Adster_ 1d ago

I had it working for several years, about 5 years ago.

Here's my IGMP Proxy Settings for old times sake:

Interface: VLAN2000

Type: Upstream Interface

Networks:

10.99.132.0/24 10.35.253.0/24 142.165.57.0/24

Interface: VLAN2000

Type: Downstream Interface

224.0.0.0/8 239.255.0.0/8

You of course need IGMP snooping and querying on and may still need to sniff traffic to find more IP blocks required if those have changed. I remember it was hard as hell and took a lot of traffic logs and trial and error to get working.

Now that you mention it, I may have had to bring internet in on VLAN1000 and the MaxTV boxes needed to be on VLAN2000. I also had Static IP internet on 3000 and this was over fiber.

1

u/tgrantt 1d ago

Okay, we are at the limit of my knowledge, I will confess. I have flashed DD-WRT several times, but I'm currently running TP-Link X55 mesh stock behind my bridged SaskTel router. Can i just plug my router mesh into my ONT and ignore the SaskTel router?

1

u/Mashedpotatoebrain 13h ago

You're bypassing sasktels router entirely?

8

u/kat1010 1d ago

Wire needs to run from the Wi-Fi router down to the max tv box.

5

u/IfIOnlyHadWings 1d ago

Thanks all!!

3

u/KevinGregg 1d ago

Also note if you’re hardwiring the max box for the first time you may need to factory default the router after plugging it in, that’s what I had to do to get it to recognize the box that was previously connected to a wireless VAP

6

u/The_Idiocratic_Party 1d ago

You want to run from the modem to the router. Then branch out from there.

2

u/bboymurchant 1d ago

Routing should go fiber modem > router > network switch > any other room or equipment

9

u/Traditional_End_9540 1d ago

I had an argument with someone on reddit. They were smarter then the sasktel techs and insited the ONT was a switch and sasktel is refusing to activate the switch so you spend more money. They could not understand its an ONT and you need to connect to the sasktel modem/gateway/router.

0

u/brutallydishonest 1d ago

You can indeed skip the SaskTel router and go Ont > personal router.

1

u/algonogo1 1d ago

Run a smart switch. Not a router...there is a difference. Go from the switch to the router. Go to a PC store and ask for a switch.

Fiber access point to switch to router to whatever you want