GFiber finally started working for a few minutes (and it was glorious)
A long time ago we started a cutover to Google Fiber. Our turn up date was to be February 1, 2020 and instead it ended up being April 4th, 2024 after literally years of not being able to get it working someone decided to actually take charge and get it done.
On April 4th they turned up the connection and that in itself was quite unexpected… this was the third time I’d signed up for a Google Fiber / GFiber account (when they can’t install for months they make you reschedule and eventually delete you if you don’t reschedule an install,) and I had no expectations it would install this time. Third time’s the charm (or 37th depending on if you count all the contractors who showed up over the past 4 years.)
April 4th post install they showed me a speed test, I conducted one of my own, things seemed fine and I went ahead and ordered the equipment I needed to use this as a secondary connection.
I actually had ordered it before, back in 2020, but that router ended up replacing a fried one in 2022 and I never really expected Google to come through so I did not have a router waiting on deck.
For the next few days I waited on my router to show, got it configured (correctly I will mention, I initially thought the router was to blame for this next part,) and hooked up and huh… suddenly GFiber is doing 5mbit down and about 500 up. I remove the router and plug in my phone and it’s high 600s both ways (this is due to the limitations of the USB to ethernet and Android, the connection I’m sure is going around 900)
Plug in my laptop and it’s 5mb down, 500 up (yes, I have down and up in the correct order, this is strange.) Try speedtest.net, google speed test, etc. Odd.
Desktop connected directly to the line that goes to the modem returns similar results. 5 down, 500 up. Phone returning 600/600. Huh… strange isn’t it? (hint: desktop has ipv6 disabled)
I finally figured out that IPv4 was the culprit. If you were only on IPv4 the download speed was limited to 5mb. I suspect the upload speed was only limited to 500 or so due to the download speed being throttled.
When on ip4 speedtests kept popping me out in Cupertino, CA… that’s a long way from Nashville, TN. Switching to or enabling IPv6 on the desktop suddenly resulted in 800/800 range. Same with the laptop. It felt like I was on the world’s slowest fiber VPN.
I contacted everyone who had worked to get this working in the past two months, no avail… one out and two not responding. Called tech support and told the person what I had done and was asked to do it again. Rrrrr… they are dispatching a tech on Monday because that is the only time that worked.
Said tech will show up, and if the problem is still there will say it’s a provisioning problem.
Sometime last night the IPv4 download speed problem went away. I came into a mostly functioning GFiber unit that is no longer limited to 5mb downloads on IP4. However the unit is still not functioning correctly as I have multiple devices plugged into the thing and the app can’t find my router or any device connected.
The web version of the GFiber modem can see devices with no issues.
The MikroTik also shows as a router in other pages on the board… going to guess my account isn’t provisioned in correctly there as well.
There do not appear to be any user facing controls to link the GFiber app to this modem. There is no way to tell the modem that I am using a router (which appears to be a feature of the app, which doesn’t see devices.) I can’t forward all traffic, restrict traffic, block mac addresses, or do pretty much anything I need to do to get this usable.
Fun times. I suspect at this point that it has never functioned properly, but is limping along and probably unnoticeable if you’re not looking.
And as of 10:40am it’s back to being 4.7mbit download / 489.62 upload
