Replace Vodafone router with pfsense

Posted on November 1, 2021 at 23:12 by GreenFrog

I recently changed my IPS to Vodafone. They offer 1Gbps Internet connection over fibre-optic link maintained by Siro. I configured my pfsense router so I can remove Vodafone's Gigabox dedicated router from my network, so pfsense can handle all the traffick alone.

I does not matter what router you want to use, if you can set your router WAN port to PPPoE you should be good to go with any router in hand.

How to configure pfsense router while having it directly connected to ONT (Optical Termination Network).

Connectivity diagram
PPPoE Settings (Ireland)
PPPoE Settings (UK)
pfsense configuration

Connectivity diagram

Siro ONT Unit

TP - Termination Point - usually outside the house
ONT - Optical Termination Network - usually inside the house

Siro ONT Unit

PPPoE Settings (Ireland)

VLAN ID10
username: [SN]@vfieftth.ie
password: broadband

[SN] is the serial number of your vodafone modem - it can be found on the sticker on that modem.

PPPoE Settings (UK Market)

Some time after writing this article, which I based on my own experience while setting up my own pfsense router, I received an interesting email from one of the readers in UK - Peterborough. (thank you Lukasz)

Lukasz wanted to replace his Vodafone router with Huawei AX3 at the time, trying to set it up with PPPoE using credentials as shown above - unfortunately that did not work. After trying few other things like changing MTU/MRU size, different VLAN, cloning MAC etc. router still was not able to successfully get the PPPoE connection going.

After talking to Vodafone support Lukasz was given completely different set of credentials to use while setting up PPPoE connection on custom router - login and password given to Lukasz were customer specific.

Vodafone support also advised Lukasz to use different VLAN tag of 101 - that did not working. After another unsuccessful attempt trying to get PPPoE working on custom router Vodafone told Lukasz that he won't be able to connect 3rd party router due to restrictions on his gigafast plan. That statement was also incorrect. Eventually customer got it working by trying VLAN 911 and using his dedicated PPPoE account details received from Vodafone support.

Conclusion:

That entire problem solving took a while. At first Vodafone support gave Lukasz wrong credentials - one letter was missing somewhere - that could not work obviously, then VLAN number given was incorrect.

Vodafone UK (not sure if in each and every case) PPPoE details:

VLAN ID 911
username: [email protected]
password: account specific

Just in case you get stuck and wonder why it worked for me and does not work for you check what your ISP has to say about that, but based on the experience just don't trust all what they say, especially if they say that something cannot be done.