Sorry if this post is in English, I have recently moved into France and prefer English over horrible French + Google translate.

So me and my significant other recently got a subscription at Free for 5Gb/s UP and 700 Mb/s DOWN, now this is great and all, but they provided us with a Freebox V9 which has only 1x 2.5GBe and 2x 1GBe ports which seems very odd to me. The max theoretical speed we can get is 2.5Gb/s over copper which is half of what we pay for.

Now, I had the bright idea to replace it with a dedicated server acting as a router with 10Gb SFP+ NICs, but after trail and error and doing lots of research I found out that the authentication and such happens on the Freebox using ONU or EPON (I'm really new to fiber as my previous ISPs all converted it back to copper before providing it to us) which I can't easily decipher.

Now I was wondering, the SFP+ module they provide is an WTD RTXM166-401-C13 which, from online datasheets seems to handle EPON/ONU natively. This makes me wonder, why can't I use the provided SFP+ module to authenticate in a standard SFP+ NIC?

I've already tried manually setting my IPv4 and IPv6 address with no success obviously, but my SFP+ NIC also doesn't recognize the module when it's plugged in. Now I also have a Mikrotik CRS (mainly switch but also horrible slow router) which can detect it when negotiating at 1Gb/s (which is also very odd to me since in the Freebox it negotiates at 10Gb/s just fine) but this doesn't provide me with any meaningfull connection.

I'd love to contact Free about this but their support seems to be call/Whatsapp only and my French isn't good enough and doing everything through my significant other won't be a fool proof idea either.

Any advice or tips will be highly appreciated!

No, in fact it does not. All the 10G-EPON protocol stack is implemented by the chipset in the box.

I figured as much, do you think it might be possible to read the data off of the router and program it into a script to use with a programmable GPON ONU transceiver?

Currently there's no way to replace recent boxes (Delta, Pop and the brand new Ultra). However I'm a bit surprised because V9 is supposed to be ultra, which has 2 SFP+ ports supporting 10 Gbps. You should be able to connect it to a 10 Gbps capable switch using a SFP+ DAC cable.

Below I attached a picture (I hope) of the Freebox that we received with our subscription, in FreeboxOS it says that this is model V9 and this was a result that Google showed when searching for a model V9. We might actually plan to update to the 8Gb/s plan and if that comes with a router with 2 SFP+ cages that'd also work for us. Do you think I could request a new router with the multiple SFP+ cages?

and you need to subscribe to one of the two "Freebox Ultra" plans to get it.

It's not V9. It's a Freebox POP.

My bad I read it wrong! On the admin panel it does say Freebox V8 (r1) :<

Even so it stills amazes me that they provide a router that doesn't integrate a switch capable of providing the speeds they advertise on their website, as we are paying for a 5Gb/s uplink and can only get up to 2.5Gb/s with the hardware they provide.

Either way thank you for the enlightment and kind response to a non native French speaker. My significant other and me have decided to upgrade and get the new Freebox Ultra that does provide the SFP+ cage so we can get 10Gbit LAN.

In regards to the question I asked in my other reply I do still prefer to replace it with my own model as I like to have full control over what comes in and out of my network without being locked behind arbitrary ISP set limitations, so if there is any update I'd appreciate that. Below I attached a link to the SFP+ transceiver I have found researching online, do you think this could mimic the chip that is inside of the Freebox Pop/Ultra in this case?
https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005003792666212.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2fra

https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005003792666212.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2fra

This is not a 10G-EPON transceiver.

Anyway, All Freebox versions support a bridge mode, which make them totally transparent so that you can use your own router behind it. I know it's not a perfect solution (especially regarding power consumption), but that's really the only solution right now if you want to use your own router.

Even so it stills amazes me that they provide a router that doesn't integrate a switch capable of providing the speeds they advertise on their website, as we are paying for a 5Gb/s uplink and can only get up to 2.5Gb/s with the hardware they provide.

Out of curiosity, what is your use case calling for such throughput in a residential environment?