Initially, I planed to write a practical guide on how to configure multiple SSIDs mapped to different VLANs using OpenWrt and LuCI. But then I started diving deeper, and... well, it is what it is (as always). There are just so many concepts that need explaining first. I promise next parts will contain that technical guide.
This part will probably be of interest for readers in the EU, even more so for those in Italy. I'll be referring to the European regulation to briefly discuss how ISPs provision Internet service (center of attention - equipment - router). I'm currently based in Italy, so I'm familiar with some of the Internet service peculiarities here.
There is a lot to worry today about the privacy of our phones, computers, apps, and operating systems. Once one starts becoming curious about privacy, networking, and what actually happens to their Internet traffic, sooner or later attention turns to the device sitting quietly in the corner of the room...
This guide is for people who want to understand and take control of their home network using a router that can run OpenWrt. OpenWrt itself is not really a tool for complete networking beginners. However, it is not as complicated as it may seem. It comes with a user-friendly web interface (LuCI).
If you found this article, chances are you already have an OpenWrt compatible router or are thinking about getting one. Maybe you've picked up bits of networking knowledge over time and are ready to go one step further, but you're still a little unsure where to begin. Or perhaps you're hesitant to change anything because you're worried about breaking something or doing something your Internet Service Provider doesn't allow.
I wrote this guide because I found myself collecting information from dozens of different places and I wanted to put it together in one place.
I also believe Internet Service Providers should provide clear and transparent information about the services and equipment they offer and should never limit customers' freedom to choose their own equipment or switch providers. If they don't, fortunately there is a community that shares knowledge, and I want to contribute to this community.
For my Italian readers, I hope this guide helps you know what to ask and where to look before choosing or changing an Internet provider.
What I will cover in this part:
Part 0:
├ what your ISP can and cannot require
├ OpenWrt
├ home internet (WAN & Fiber)
└ ONT vs modem vs router
1. Internet Service Providers and EU regulations.
ISP = Internet Service Provider
When someone wants internet access at home instead of relying on mobile data (with its limited data allowance, weaker signal, and often lower or less consistent speeds) they first need to identify Internet Service providers available in their geographical area.
Usually, the choice isn't huge, but having 3 - 5 providers to choose from is fairly common. In general, the larger the city you live in, the more options you're likely to have.
In the European Union, competition is protected by strong antitrust and consumer protection regulations. The goal is to ensure that, when you need a service - in this case, internet access - you have more than one provider to choose from and that companies compete on price, speed, and the features they offer. Not every plan is the same "€27.99/month home internet" package.
1.1 Internet Service as a market's good
From an economic perspective, internet service is a particular "good". Its physical barebone has many characteristics of a natural monopoly, similar to railways, electricity grids, or road infrastructure. Building the underlying physical network is extremely expensive, so duplicating it over and over again is impossible.
NB: Here, by internet service, I mean the infrastructure and service that provide access to the global Internet, the carrier that enables connectivity, not the World Wide Web itself, which consists of websites, applications, and other content ecc.
The internet itself doesn't consist of a single worldwide cable, but the same principle applies to many parts of the infrastructure. Long-distance backbone networks, local fiber deployments, and even wireless infrastructure require enormous investments. Because of that, different Internet Service Providers often share infrastructure or lease access from one another instead of building an entirely separate network. So while competition exists at the service level, the underlying physical infrastructure is often shared, making the market more nuanced and puts customers in a vulnerable and disadvanatgeous position.
1.2 Italian regulations on switching ISP.
In Italy there are 4 bigger "players" on Internet Service Provisioning market: Vodafone, TIM, Fastweb, Wind3.
European competition laws are designed to ensure that you not only have a choice when signing up for internet service, but also that you're free to change providers later without facing unreasonable financial penalties, even if you're using equipment supplied by your ISP.
In Italy, these consumer protections are implemented and enforced by AGCOM - Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni. One of the key principles is that IF/when you want to change electronic communications operator (ISP as example of this operator), termination and migration charges cannot exceed either the customer's average monthly fee or the actual costs incurred by the operator, whichever is lower. Operators also cannot simply demand repayment of every promotional discount they have ever applied; any repayment must be fair and proportionate. This wasn't always the case. Years ago, some ISPs effectively locked customers in by imposing very high exit fees, making switching providers much more difficult than it should have been.
BUT! Not everything is that bright.
users will be able to carry on paying the remaining instalments due for goods and services even if they withdraw from the contract before expiry of the instalment plan, which may not in any case exceed 24 months (Charges for terminating contract)
And here's the interesting part.
What exactly is this "good" that you may keep an EX CUSTOMER paying for up to the next 24 months AFTER TERMINATION OF CONTRACT? Surely not the internet service - the customer just terminated that contract and switched to another ISP. So what remains?
1.3 Home Internet equipment provided by you ISP.
The equipment supplied by the Operator (ISP)! For a typical home customer, this usually means a modem, a router (or a single device that combines both), and a couple of cables.
But wait...
If we're not talking about an enterprise customer or a business with racks full of networking equipment, what kind of expensive equipment are we supposedly paying off for up to 24 months?
And that brings us to the star of this article: the router provided by ISP!
1.4 TIM and their modem for 240 euros bundled with Internet Service offer.
Here are TIM's current home internet offers (as of 10/07/2026):
Clicking on Dettagli costi:
MODEM TIM HUB+ (per tecnologia FTTC), MODEM TIM HUB Pro (per tecnologia FTTH)
€240, payable in 48 monthly installments of €5 each. During the first 24 months after activating the offer, you'll receive a €5/month discount on the modem purchase, reducing the total cost of the device from €240 to €120. (Source accessed 10/07/2026, free translation)
If you terminate the contract before the end of the 48-month period, you will be required to pay the remaining installments for the TIM modem, but only the paid installments, not those covered by the promotional discount. (Source accessed 10/07/2026, free translation).
240 euros for "modem TIM HIB+/PRO". €240 isn't necessarily an unreasonable price for a home gateway (ONT + router actually, yeah to call it modem is wrong and misleading). BUT! The real question is whether the device you're paying for is actually worth €240 - and whether it's the device you want to own.
Hmm... okay... 3 LAN ports, one WAN port, dual-band Wi-Fi...And?
What about the CPU? How much RAM does it have? How much storage? Which Wi-Fi chipset is it using? Does it support OpenWrt? How am I supposed to evaluate whether it's worth €240 with a specification sheet like this?
Would anyone browsing an online store willingly spend €240 on a home gateway described only by the information above?
Probably not. And no one shouldn't.
Not because it's 100% a bad device, it may well be a perfectly capable gateway, but because a customer doesn't have enough information to make an informed decision.
1.5 EU law on freedom to choose your own equipment to use to access the Internet.
European law protects your freedom to choose your own equipment to use to access the Internet. Under Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 on open internet access, ISPs cannot force you to use their equipment as long as your own device complies with the applicable technical requirements.
Key takeaways:
"Operators may not refuse to connect terminal equipment chosen by the user, provided that it complies with applicable national and European regulations."
"They may not impose additional charges, unjustified delays, or discriminate against the quality of the services provided."
"Providers are required to supply adequate information on how to connect to their network and configure the customer's chosen replacement or additional terminal equipment."
"If the operator supplies terminal equipment together with the internet service, it must ensure that the customer is free to choose their own equipment by providing all the necessary technical specifications."
"If the service is provided over FTTH and the ONT is integrated with the router, the user must always be able to request the installation of an external ONT." (source, original in Italian, free translation)
I am not a customer of TIM, and I can't comment on how they handle requests from customers who want to use their own equipment and what happens with that 240 euros gateway bundled with Internet service offer.
My ISP is Fastweb. If I decide to leave Fastweb, my contract states that the migration/termination cost is around €30. Fastweb supplied me by default with a router and a separate ONT. I don't use their router, instead, I use my own router, but I do use the ONT they provided, since that's the device that terminates the fiber connection.
That's a common setup for fiber connections, and in many cases it's exactly what you want.
Now that I have covered the legal side, it is clear that using your own networking equipment is your right. If you are not satisfied with the equipment provided by your Internet Service Provider, you do not have to settle for it.
You are free to use your own router. Routers capable of running OpenWrt are gaining more and more popularity because of the level of customization and control they offer.
2. Router with OpenWrt
OpenWrt is a Linux operating system targeting embedded devices. Instead of trying to create a single, static firmware, OpenWrt provides a fully writable filesystem with package management. This frees you from the application selection and configuration provided by the vendor and allows you to customize the device through the use of packages to suit any application (OpenWrt GitHub Repo)
So, OpenWrt is just like Debian, Windows, macOS ecc. Modern routers have a CPU, storage, and RAM. They're basically tiny computers, similar to a Raspberry Pi. OpenWrt is an operating system. Just like I prefer Debian to get the full experience out of my PC, OpenWrt lets me get the full experience out of my router and do advanced network configuration of my house LAN (local area network).
2.1 Any router can run OpenWrt?
If OpenWrt is an operating system, then, just like any other operating system, it needs hardware to run on. That hardware needs a CPU to execute instructions, RAM to run the operating system and applications, and storage to hold the firmware, configuration, and any additional packages you decide to install.
And, just like with PCs, the CPU architecture matters. An operating system must support the processor it runs on. For example, you can't install the Debian on an Apple Silicon Mac because it's built for a completely different CPU architecture.
The same principle applies to routers. Not every router is capable of running OpenWrt. That's why I criticized the specifications of the TIM gateway shown earlier. Listing only the number of ports, Wi-Fi bands tells almost nothing about the hardware inside. Without knowing the CPU, RAM, storage, or chipset, it's impossible to evaluate the device properly, or even determine whether theorically it can run OpenWrt.
Before moving on to the configuration of a smart cool router, it is important to understand what exactly you are able to configure. Network? Wi-Fi? Internet? LAN? WAN? Router plugs where? What connects to router? The next section is about all of it.
3. How ISP connects you to the Internet.
WAN stands for Wide Area Network. For simplicity, think of it as the outside world or "the Internet".
At home, the whole point of connecting to Wi-Fi is usually to reach the WAN without using your mobile data plan and to get better coverage around the house.
An Internet Service Provider (ISP) is the one who gives you access to the WAN. How is that access provided? Either in a wired or wireless way.
Wireless doesn't mean your router connects to your ISP's office via Wi-Fi. Instead, it uses radio signals transmitted by ISP towers. This is called Fixed Wireless Access (FWA). But isn't that just mobile internet? Well, kind of. Both use radio signals, but mobile internet is designed for devices that move around, while FWA is designed for a fixed location. Your house will have an outdoor antenna pointed at a specific ISP tower, which often results in a more stable connection than a phone on a cellular network, but it's not the best. Is FWA common? Mostly in rural or isolated areas where physical cables have not been brought yet.
Speaking of cables, there are two wired ways to deliver Internet:
- FTTH - Fiber To The Home OR Fiber To The Node — Fiber To The Node: optical fiber.
- DSL - over telephone lines.
And here's the interesting part: you may end up with DSL or FWA even if your neighbors across the street have fiber. Availability is very location-dependent.
If fiber reaches your house/appartment (FTTH), that's generally the best-case scenario. The fiber-optic cable runs all the way into your home (or apartment), where it terminates in an ONT (Optical Network Terminal).
ISP
│
Fiber
│
─────────────── Street
│
Fiber
│
🏠 Your home
│
ONT
│ Ethernet
Router
It is not always like this, it can be that the fiber connection does not reach your home. Instead, it ends at a neighborhood node (a cabinet or distribution point), and the last stretch to your home uses existing copper telephone lines.
If you live in an apartment building, getting fiber Internet depends on whether your building is connected to a fiber network or not. Luckily, mine was.
4. Modem vs. ONT vs. Router
After signing the contract with Fastweb, their technician extended the fiber connection from somewhere in the building to my apartment. Then he had connected it to a box (Box 1). And that box (Box 1) to another box (Box 2). That is my case, but it can be just one box.
I will provide upfront this scheme that shows what these Boxes so and how they are connected. I took a pic from the article on ONT (written in Polish) and slightly modified it and added some comments.
4.1 ONT vs. Modem
That white Box 1 where the fiber cable enters is not the router and cannot router and cannot cretae any home network. It is an ONT (Optical Network Terminal), it is not technically correct to call it modem OR router!
A modem converts digital data into a signal suitable for transmission over a specific physical medium, and vice versa. Modem comes from: MOdulator + DEModulator.
An ONT is not called a modem, but it performs a role analogous to one. Its job is to convert the optical signals traveling through the fiber cable into an electrical Ethernet frames that the router can understand and manage. In other words, it acts as a bridge between the fiber-based network provided by your ISP and your home router.
4.2 Router
Box 2 is exactly the router. To understand its main job, imagine plugging the Ethernet cable coming from the ONT directly into the laptop. Assuming the ISP doesn't require additional authentication, this laptop would receive a public IP address from the ISP, and it would have Internet access. But to connect phone, TV or another laptop, one would have to keep unplugging and reconnecting the cable every time. That's exactly the problem the router solves.
A router connects to the Internet through its WAN interface and creates Local Area Network (LAN). Besides that, it:
- assigns private IP addresses to your devices (DHCP),
- forwards traffic between your LAN and the Internet,
- performs Network Address Translation (NAT),
- protects its local network with a firewall,
- and, in most consumer routers, provides Wi-Fi through an integrated wireless access point.
In other words, a router is the traffic manager of home network.
If, in your case, your ISP supplied only a single "box" for your fiber connection (forementioned TIM offer), it means that the ONT, the device that converts the optical signal into Ethernet frames is integrated into the router.
In that case, you can't simply replace the device with your own router. You would either need a fully featured gateway that also includes an integrated ONT (or supports the same fiber technology), or,much more commonly,you can ask your ISP to provide a separate external ONT and connect your own router to it.
Again, the "Open Internet (Internet Aperta) and Modem Libero" regulations protect your right to do exactly that.
If the operator supplies an ONT integrated into the router, the user must always have the option to request the supply and installation of an external ONT.
In such cases, the user's intention to use an external ONT (to enable the free choice of terminal equipment) must be explicitly confirmed when the contract is concluded.
Furthermore, if the user later decides to use their own equipment during the course of the contract, the operator must install the external ONT without undue delay, specifically within five working days. AGCOM: In caso di servizio fornito con tecnologia FTTH
As mentioned in the diagram above on how the ONT, router and ISP are connected. I also mentioned that the ISP assigns (leases) an IP address to the router.
The next piece of the puzzle is understanding how IP addressing works de - facto (it isn't as straightforward as it might seem). That will be the topic of the next part of this series, where I will explain IP addressing, NAT, and Carrier Grade NAT (CGNAT), and how they affect your home network.
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