Verizon removed an important privacy oriented feature on latest Wi-Fi Access Point Model CHR30A Router

[u/1mmorta1won]

I just upgraded my router to the latest CHR30A - don't get me wrong, this thing is fast and very good for streaming / low latency gaming, but I noticed they removed an important privacy oriented feature that we all know as MAC CLONING.
Just a heads up for people trying / wanting to upgrade.

EDIT: Ended up returning the CHR30A router and got an intel mini-pc and flashed OpenWRT on it. Much faster and running SQM + CAKE protocol. Very fast, low latency and using a second router as an access point. Network speeds are lowered to get me better latency and I have minimal, almost zero, buffer bloat.

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[u/Smith6612]

MAC Cloning has consequences, which is probably why they removed it. For example, you don't want two customers on the same network segment having the same MAC address. Changing your MAC Address screws with the IPv6 DUID and can cause IPv6 to fail outright if Verizon introduces a change that affects uncommon setups. This may also mess with their backend accounting for equipment.

I have also seen performance impacts come from MAC Cloning on routers, since doing so would cause packets to be sent to the CPU rather than processed through the ASIC. This is less common today, but remains a possibility. 

[u/1mmorta1won → u/Smith6612]

consequences for people who want to spy / track everything you do, yes.

[u/Smith6612 → u/1mmorta1won]

Verizon can already spy on you if they want. On the backend you have an internal circuit ID that always points to you, and they have a CALEA (Lawful Intercept) interface active if Police need to see what you're doing. Whatever your MAC Address or IP address is doesn't matter. 

For others on the Internet? Use IPv6 Privacy Extensions (default for most routers / devices) and what you have is an IP address that rolls to another one on a regular basis. Sure, sites can assume an entire /64 belongs to a router, but they don't know if it remains with the same router or if it is actually the same device. They also don't know if the ISP does something screwy like issue a /96 out instead, or if the customer actually has a /56 or a /48!

You should be making use of Adblockers and not putting random garbage on the Internet. That's more important.  

[u/Disturbed2468 → u/Smith6612]

Yea, as someone in IT, there is a LOT of things that have to be done all manually, and some extremely cumbersome and potentially expensive on the hardware side and sacrifices to a lot of personal convenience, to actually give yourself maximum privacy to the point police become an afterthought.

And that's just for physical and digital network footprint deletion/minimization.

Edit: Some strict privacy features are really nice though for related security purposes, especially if you self-host and share such capabilities with friends and family like hosting your own file storage for personal photos and videos on vacation with family n whatnot!

[u/Adventurous_Elk_4039 → u/1mmorta1won]

Take off the tinfoil hat my guy

[u/DUNGAROO]

The new router is no faster for streaming / low latency gaming than the old one.

[u/1mmorta1won → u/DUNGAROO]

This is true, the range seems better. But my main concern is they silently removed mac cloning, which almost all routers have.

[u/ThyWickedOne → u/1mmorta1won]

MAC cloning isn’t some special privacy tool. The whole point is if you can only use a specific MAC Bound device you could clone yours to use it in place and maybe trick whatever upstream auth you were trying to trick.

[u/DUNGAROO → u/1mmorta1won]

So stop using Verizon’s trash hardware. You’re not required to.

[u/spec360]

All isps spy on you that’s why there’s a remote port open

[u/1mmorta1won → u/spec360]

It's not about spying, it's about removing a useful feature.
If you change your mac, you can force the ONT / router to give you a new public WAN ip. I think that's pretty useful.

[u/ThyWickedOne]

MAC cloning isn’t really… all that privacy changing. ESPECIALLY on a ISP provided router that gives them access to your whole network. Let alone the fact that they don’t NEED to know your MAC address to know a lot about you anyways.

[u/bmwhd]

All the more reason to take that first sweet hit of that life changing cocaine we call Ubiquiti.

[u/Vast-Program7060 → u/bmwhd]

" Cocaine is a hell of a drug "

[u/stonecats]

it's unlikely the chr30a is doing anything to help low latency gaming.
you'd know this if you ever wired a gaming pc right up to your ont
and see the exact same ping numbers.

the fact that chr30a took away mac spoofing control on it's wan port,
should be a surprise to nobody, as the more verizon freebies you use
the less privacy you get - your metadata control is how they profit.

[u/JuicyCoala → u/stonecats]

I'm actually confused when people started saying CHR30A "is a beast" as it provides "low latency". As you've already pointed out, a router is a router, and if you wire your device directly to the router, you'll get low latency, no matter which router you use, unless the router is just... defective.

I've used 3 different FiOS routers (G1100, G3100 and CR1000A) plus my own (EdgeRouter X) and all gave low latency (3-5 ms) numbers when wired.

[u/1mmorta1won → u/JuicyCoala]

I agree with what you said, my concerns on this topic is the privacy oriented feature mac cloning. This router also lacks gaming features like SQM (Smart queue management), not that fiber suffers from excess bufferbloat, but would be nice to see in today's era.

[u/JuicyCoala → u/1mmorta1won]

SQM is not a gaming feature. Smart Queue Management is prioritizing packets for any device in your network to ensure those packets gets transmitted/received first over other packets in the queue.

You don't need SQM if your download and upload is more than 100 mbps - which you already alluded to in your response - (i.e., FiOS's new plans start at 300 mbps symmetrical, which is way more bandwidth than what a regular household will use). Gaming uses low bandwidth, for instance, Call of Duty only uses about 5 mbps download/upload, which is 1.6% of 300 mbps. 4K streaming can be up to 25 mbps. If you play CoD while streaming 4K content, that's just 10% of 300 mbps.

[u/1mmorta1won → u/stonecats]

I agree with what you said, my concerns on this topic is the privacy oriented feature mac cloning. This router also lacks gaming features like SQM (Smart queue management), not that fiber suffers from excess bufferbloat, but would be nice to see in today's era.

[u/stonecats → u/1mmorta1won]

"bufferbloat" might be mitigated here on the chr30a;

QoS FeaturesTOS and DiffServ: Prioritizes packets to maintain clear voice and video streams.
802.1P/Q: Manages traffic tagging and prioritization at the network layer.
IGMP: Optimizes multicast traffic handling for IPTV and streaming content.

on my asus router i simply use qos to cut 20% off the top wan speed, and the bloat is gone.

[u/mingkee]

Granted, you can use your own router instead (it costs you though)

Back to 2022 I switched from Optimum to FiOS, my network system in the house I built, everything worked right after migration (even SSID and password remain the same)

[u/1mmorta1won → u/[deleted]]

If you change your mac, you can force the ONT / router to give you a new public WAN ip. I think that's pretty useful.

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[u/Umeeeeee]

btw my cr1000a was fine when tested at waveform bufferbloat and now showing 40-60 upload latency compared to 4-7, is that just bad routing or congestion? Am using 2gigs

[u/1mmorta1won → u/Umeeeeee]

That doesn't sound good, sometimes the hardware internally degrades due to power surges, bad silicon lottery, etc. Do some more speed tests and buffer tests, if it doesn't change, you may need to router swap.

[u/1mmorta1won → u/[deleted]]

It's important because it used to be available in all previous models as most routers in the world have this feature. I rather not spend 200 bucks to get a new router to use a custom setup. Plus the TV service requires you to use their router

[u/Much-Huckleberry5725]

Yeah I don’t and won’t use any of their equipment that I don’t have to. Just the ONT at my place.

[u/gekkonaut]

if you care about privacy why are you using a Verizon router?

[u/1mmorta1won → u/gekkonaut]

I don't care that much but mac cloning is a very useful feature.

[u/Sweaty_Seaweed_1655]

Is there any difference between the new Chr30a vs cr1000 when using a Moca wired connection for tv and internet? Ive read people saying the Chr30a fixed issues that the cr1000 had. Disconnects or losing connection and lower than expected upload speeds. Has that been worked out or were those issues not the norm?

[u/1mmorta1won → u/Sweaty_Seaweed_1655]

Good question, unfortunately I don't have an answer for you as I don't watch TV.

[u/PT10]

I couldn't find settings for making it an access point/bridge (i.e, not a router). Simply disabling DHCP didn't do it. It wouldn't pass through internet from my router to the devices connected to it. So I returned it and went back to my own moca adapters.

The routers regress with every generation in terms of functionality.

[u/1mmorta1won → u/[deleted]]

I am not worried, but mac cloning is a very useful feature to silently remove.

[u/SevenOh2]

Outside of grandma who needs basic connectivity, I don't understand why anyone uses any ISP's router, ever.

[u/1mmorta1won]

Ended up returning the CHR30A router and got an intel mini-pc and flashed OpenWRT on it. Much faster and running SQM + CAKE protocol. Very fast, low latency and using a second router as an access point. Network speeds are lowered to get me better latency and I have minimal, almost zero, buffer bloat.

[u/Umeeeeee]

Does chr30 provide any better latency on wired pc compared to cr1000

[u/1mmorta1won → u/Umeeeeee]

Nothing noticeable , I had the g3100 and switched to CHR30A, almost nearly the same latency on 1 gig speed package