<\/p>\n
Ive been speed testing every hour for the last year. Recently, I switched to using iperf3 as the ookla speedtests produced mixed results. Overall, its pretty good. Here is a snapshot of the last 30 days. Lumos did have an outage for a little bit, not sure really how long it lasted, i just manually took the provider offline for 48 hours.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/angrysysadmins.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-from-2026-08-12-18-01-43-1024x309.png\")
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Latency<\/h3>\n
Latency is where this service is very strange. There is some weird internal routing shenanigans going on causing internet routes to go though internal 10.155 ip addresses. See the ping graphs showing the last month of data:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/angrysysadmins.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-from-2026-08-12-18-01-30-1024x691.png\")
<\/p>\n
For comparison, this is brightspeed in the same timeframe:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/angrysysadmins.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-from-2026-08-12-18-04-36-1024x696.png\")
<\/p>\n
As you can see with the worst offender, Cloudflare latency is 4x on T-Mobile Fiber compared to Brightspeed. All of the latency is higher on T-Mobile fiber. This is most likely because they are doing some weird internal network routing on the first hop of the network. See the results below (wan-p is T-Mobile Fiber, wans is brightspeed)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/angrysysadmins.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-from-2026-08-11-18-42-42-1024x765.png\")
<\/p>\n
You can see how there is 7-8 additional hops on this network. Whats causing it? im not sure, but see the Routes and Internet Peers section for more. But the short of it is, more hops is bad because they add latency!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
These latency results caused me to call T-Mobile Fiber support then get re-directed to Lumos Fiber’s tech support. I proceeded to tell them about the routing issues and they did not, on multiple occasions, do ANY troubleshooting. They said because I was using my own equipment, i was out of luck. The only thing they could check were light levels. They would not listen to me when providing technical direction. This was very infuriating. I was asked to open a ticket using the lumos website which i did twice and never heard back. Im sure this is not the service they give their business clients, this might be an artifact of lumos fiber “growing too fast”, this in combination with my inital setup which got a CG-NAT IP, and a lack of IPv6 support might back this up. But this is not good, and Lumos needs to do better. Brightspeed and Spectrum has better latency for most targets.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fiber deployments in North America overview<\/h3>\n
There are a few Fiber network standards in North America, G-PON and XGS-PON. G-PON is limited to 2.5gbit down 1.2gbit up, while XGS-PON is 10gbit symmetrical. You will have to see what your hardware standard is. Often they use a completely different backend so a simple plug it in elsewhere wont work and you might have to get new cable trenched to your house\/street. T-Mobile Fiber, at least the new ones, are built on XGS-PON, so speeds up to 10 gbit are possible, even though they only offer 2gbit as the max you can buy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Im located in Central North Carolina on a entirely new fiber build out. The service came initially with no public IPV4 address, I was stuck behind CG-NAT, which would not allow you to host any ports on the service. After a call and some explaining, I was finally connected with someone who knew what I was talking about and I did get my own IP thankfully. But being a new fiber buildout always has its issues… I would HIGHLY recommend you have a backup ISP for at least 1 year for a new fiber rollout. There will<\/span> be a prolonged outage caused by an oopsie, ive had this now with 3 different new fiber deployments. (Google fiber, Brightspeed, and Lumos)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Outside they attached a Dmarc where the fiber goes into my house was done great! The box they put it in had a PVC pipe to the ground protecting the buried fiber, and they mounted the box in such a way were the weaker internal run fiber was not exposed to any elements. They did a MUCH better job than brightpseed. The technician that was sent out also demonstrated real knowledge about fiber deployments, which likely led to the wonderful install experience.<\/p>\n Overall, I think they did a great job. I had them terminate into a internal coupler which I will not<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The ONT is the equipment that turns the fiber into (usually) regular rj-45 ethernet. Initially, I was given a Calix ONT + Router combo unit which was a no no in my book. I want just a pure ONT so I dont have do deal with any packet manipulation nonsense. Thankfully, after a long customer service call, they me a ONT only unit. I should note that I put this in my install instructions and they ignored it. The I was given is a Calix GigaPoint GP1101X.\u00a0 It has a single 10Gbit RJ-45 Ethernet and runs off of a 12v 1.5a power brick OR a DC bus. It uses a SC\/APC single strand fiber connection for the inbound from the DMARC box<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My primary router is a custom PFsense machine with a R9 5900xt 16 core CPU, 32GB of 3200MT ECC RAM, 100GB Intel E810-CQDA1 for LAN and 2×25 Chelsio T6225-CR for the WAN in. Is this insane overkill? Yes! Why is the rig this insane? I do Inline IPS\/IDS with surricata, as well as alot of deep packet inspection analytics and 24\/7 packet capture recorded to a dedicated 2tb local nvne SSD. The core switch is a mikrotik CRS520-4XS-16XQ 100gbit switch. Downstream important clients are connected either at 25bgit or 100gbit. Wifi is handled by a Unifi U7-PRO of which i can reliably get 1.5-2.5gbit over wifi. I also have T-Mobile home internet as a failover in the event the fiber providers go out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n IPv6 is not supported AT ALL on the lumos network despite them having the ipv6 blocks for it. I called and talk with level 2 tech support at Lumos themselves and they confirmed its not setup. They said its growing pains from growing too fast as a internet provider. Combine this with the weird internal 10.155 internal IP’s on wan, and I can see what they mean.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T-Mobile fiber uses AS22709 (record still reads NSTELCO \/ North State Telephone), with an IP address out of 64.181.80.0\/20. RIPEstat lists five BGP neighbours: Cogent (174), Segra\/Spirit (2711), NTT (2914), Lumen (3356), Hurricane Electric (6939). NTT never appeared in a single trace. On top of transit, Google, Fastly and Akamai reach over direct\/on-net interconnects. Akamai is at 97.75.158.0 and sits inside the ASN’s space.\u00a0PeeringDB records AS22709 with Internet Exchange count of zero. Zero exchange peerings<\/strong>, 300\u2013500 Gbps of traffic, four facilities. Sibling AS2711 is at two exchanges.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The internet initially connects out of Atlanta which is likely the reason that the ping is so bad, as the internet lives in Asburn and NYC. Lumos needs to fix this and use a peer our of Virginia or North Carolina, where they also sell to clients. Ironically, they do that already with AS22709, their other ASN. This might have happened because of the switch from the CG-NAT network… im not entirely sure.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Usually when T-Mobile Fiber\/Lumos has an outage, you will get a text with the details. However when I was having high latency and packet loss on 2026-08-03 and I never received a outage notification. No idea what the issue actually was, but clearly there was a problem and I never got an alert. I had 25%+ packet loss for about an hour which was causing my failover system to flap the ISP on and off. I disabled it for 48 hours to fix it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In summary, I’m slightly disappointed with the service that T-Mobile Fiber\/lumos provided. While their customer support is light years ahead of brightspeed, all being USA based, and their DMARC install is much nicer than what brightspeed did, ultimately my issues with latency were never fixed. When I first got the service, They gave me an ONT + Router unit combo despite me explicitly saying I would not use the service with one, as well as a CG-NAT IP<\/a> which was not acceptable. The speed was decent on it though, but I wonder how much of that is me using a ONT and my router vs the ONT + Router combo unit.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I locked in for $70 for 10 years for 2gbit which is market rate id say. Its a decent deal, but if you dont need the upload, spectrum is actually a good service too provided you use a DOCSIS 3.1 or 4 modem and your own router. Spectrum will be switching to a symmetrical service here soon, so that could be really interesting to see how they respond with prices.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I will be canceling my service after this review and sticking with brightspeed as i got 8gbit for 100 bucks a month. See my review coming out soon! I dont think T-Mobile Fiber is necessarily a bad service, but It was not smooth sailing like I thought it would be. When they fix their network to support better routes and IPv6, It will undoubtedly be a much better service. But I waited a year and it did not happen, and Brightspeed offered 8gbit so its pretty easy for me to switch exclusively to them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n PS: If your from Lumos or T-Mobile Fiber, Get in touch. I would like to help you fix these issues, as well as test IPv6. Currently neither fiber provider of mine has IPv6 (at least proper IPv6) and I want it. Though I would want a 8 or 10gbit service vs just 2gbit I was offered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DMARC<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/angrysysadmins.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/FiberDmarc4-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/p>\nONT<\/h3>\n
My network Setup<\/h3>\n
IPV6<\/h3>\n
Routes and Internet Peers<\/h3>\n
Outages<\/h3>\n
Closing Thoughts<\/h3>\n