BTnet (UK) Cisco Meraki Managed CPE Question

[Moltuae]

Anyone here familiar with BTnet's Cisco Meraki Managed CPE (Customer Premises Equipment)?

I have a few larger business customers with BTnet fibre but those installations use the Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers and the older Cisco 2900 Series Integrated Services Routers. The ISR units provide no LAN routing, just a WAN port to which the customer's own router/gateway connects, providing one or more public IP addresses to the router directly.

BT now seem to be offering a more affordable BTnet fibre service to some of my smaller business customers, which implements the aforementioned Cisco Meraki Managed CPE.

From a BTnet proposal email:

When your BTnet service is installed it will terminate on a BT-provided Cisco Meraki Managed CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) and you will be allocated a range of external IPv4 addresses that you have requested at the time of your order.

The Cisco Meraki device will automatically assign a private internal IP address to any device that you connect to it via LAN cable or Wi-Fi, so there is no configuration for you to do. The managed CPE will translate the public address to multiple private addresses automatically.

It seems to me that this latest offering from BT is more akin to the domestic 'BT hub' solution and is intended to replace the customer's own router/gateway device.




tl;dr:
Could someone who is familiar with this type of BTnet installation confirm whether the Cisco Meraki device can also be used to provide a customer's own router/gateway with direct WAN access?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[TazUk]

Just had a customer have a new fiber line installed with one of those. Yep it's designed to replace the customers own firewall/router with BT managing any port forwarding or other changes remotely. I replaced the BT Cisco Meraki box with the customers existing firewall connected directly to the BT fiber box, in this case an Adva FSP 150-GE102Pro.

 

[Moltuae]

Thanks Taz. So presumably the Adva unit has a regular Ethernet WAN port?

 

[Moltuae]

BT are on site today apparently. Looks like my customer is getting the same ADVA model:



Errgh, woodchip wallpaper!


They haven't installed the Cisco unit yet but I suspect it will become obvious which of the ADVA ports has been assigned as the WAN port when they do.

 

[TazUk]

They haven't installed the Cisco unit yet but I suspect it will become obvious which of the ADVA ports has been assigned as the WAN port when they do.

Yep.

Here's a picture of my customers Adva box with the cable connecting it to the Cisco Meraki

It's port 3 under Access

The reason nothing else is connected to the Cisco Meraki firewall is BT kindly installed the equipment in the basement even though the servers, main switch and old broadband were on the 2nd floor Had to run a new cable up there to connect it.

 

[SAFCasper]

BTNet have the option of a "wires-only" installation during ordering which assumes you will provide your own router and managed it yourself.

Sounds like your client chose the managed option instead, where BTNet provides and manages a router for you (ie. the Meraki). You want a port forwarded? Open a ticket and they will do it for you. Want a DHCP reservation? Open a ticket... etc

This appeals to businesses with no IT staff/support, but as an IT guy it sure sounds awful. Screw waiting hours for a ticket to resolved for a task I could do myself in 2 minutes.

Almost certain you could just unplug the Meraki and connect your own router into the ADVA so long as you know the correct IP range and gateway etc to set on the WAN link. Probably paying extra for that unused management service though.

 

[Moltuae]

BTNet have the option of a "wires-only" installation during ordering which assumes you will provide your own router and managed it yourself.

Sounds like your client chose the managed option instead, where BTNet provides and manages a router for you (ie. the Meraki). You want a port forwarded? Open a ticket and they will do it for you. Want a DHCP reservation? Open a ticket... etc

I think you're right. I casually mentioned a few months ago that they need to switch to fibre. Then, out of the blue, I get an email from them on Wednesday to let me know fibre is being installed .... on Friday! I suspect someone called BT to enquire and just went with their recommendations without consulting me. I'll speak to them about going 'wires-only' once I've confirmed that the connection is working reliably with their (DrayTek) router.

 

[TazUk]

Almost certain you could just unplug the Meraki and connect your own router into the ADVA so long as you know the correct IP range and gateway etc to set on the WAN link.

That's what I did Although the IP information emailed by BT didn't match what the Cisco Meraki was using so I just copied those settings on the customers firewall and it's been working fine.