Ping your CityFibre ONTs and Prove the Layer-2 Path end-to-end.

Why First-Line Diagnostics can be a Struggle

When a customer reports a fault on a CityFibre FTTP circuit, the first question every ISP asks is:

“Is it CityFibre, or is it us?”

The problem is structural:

• CityFibre is wholesale-only

• ISPs terminate the VLAN at their own LNS/BNG

• There’s no direct, real-time visibility into the Layer-2 access path

• ONTs give no telemetry to the ISP

• ISPs rely on their customer router as the end point they manage

So you start with a lack of visibility:

You cannot see whether the CityFibre ONT is reachable over the L2 path — or whether the problem is in Wi-Fi, CPE, ONT, fibre, aggregation, E-NNI, or your own core.

This creates:

• repetitive diagnostics

• unnecessary escalations to CityFibre

• long customer calls

• wasted CPE swaps or engineer dispatches

• finger-pointing

The missing piece is simple:

You need to be able to prove the L2 path between your gateway interface and the ONT.

The Gamechanger: EtherCheck - Ethernet’s Version of Ping

CityFibre’s FTTP access network is fully Ethernet-based.

That means Ethernet OAM should be the natural way to test service health — but partners can’t normally trigger it end-to-end.

Our managed service solves this by running continuous Y.1731 CCM tests from the ISP’s network towards the CityFibre ONTs.

This gives you a real-time signal of:

• Is the Layer-2 path intact?

• Is the ONT reachable at the Ethernet level?

• Is there a customer device connected to the ONT

• Is your E-NNI healthy?

• And, with NetMinded’s shared awareness - is there a general issue in a given geographic area

If CCM is good → the entire L2 path (including the E-NNI) is proven.
If CCM drops → you know immediately it’s a physical/CityFibre-side fault.

This one signal removes 80% of the ambiguity in break/fix triage.

Why This Matters: You Are Proving the Entire Path

In CityFibre’s L2 model:

A continuous CCM heartbeat proves:

• The CityFibre service is correctly provisioned

• the access fibre is intact

• the ONT is up

• the handover VLAN is bridging correctly

• the E-NNI between CF and the ISP is healthy

• the ISP’s own L2 edge is receiving frames normally

This is a full end-to-end L2 service test without needing any hardware on site.

A Simple Example Diagnostic Workflow

Step 1 – A customer reports “the internet is down.”

You check the CCM status for their ONT.

Scenario A — CCM is up (green)

This means:

• ONT is powered

• Fibre intact

• E-NNI healthy

• CF access VLAN stable

Therefore:
Not a CityFibre fault.
Look at CPE, Wi-Fi, PPPoE session, or configuration.

Scenario B — CCM is down (red)

This means:

• ONT or CF access is down

• OR fibre break

• OR upstream aggregation fault

• OR VLAN path collapsed

Therefore:
Escalate to CityFibre with confidence — and include CCM timestamps as evidence.

Shared Awareness: Context You Never Had Before

One of the most powerful aspects isn’t the CCM test itself — it’s the contextualisation of the result.

By looking across all ONTs in the same:

• PON

• exchange

• geography

…you instantly know whether:

it’s an isolated customer fault, or

other circuits in the same area are also dropping

This gives your frontline the one thing ISPs almost never have:

Environmental awareness.

This eliminates:

• “let’s see if CityFibre has a known issue” guesswork

• unnecessary escalations

• repeated diagnostics

• frustration

Why This Is a Gamechanger for L2 ISPs

With continuous CCM + shared-awareness signals, your ops team can:

Prove the access path instantly

No more blind guessing.

Cut first-line call length

No more “try rebooting the ONT.”

Reduce escalations to CityFibre

You know exactly when CF is at fault — and when it isn’t.

Reduce mis-diagnosed CPE/Wi-Fi issues

You know the ONT and path are fine.

Catch area faults early

Shared-awareness reveals patterns before tickets build up.

Improve customer comms

You can explain the fault with confidence and accuracy.

Increase trust

Nothing reassures a customer more than fast, precise diagnosis.

How ISPs Use This Today

NetMinded’s ISP customers have been using this model quietly for years.
It’s now being shared with other infrastructure partners because it consistently reduces diagnostic noise and improves service confidence.

Typical outcomes:

• 20–40% reduction in break/fix escalations

• huge drop in ambiguous “no fault found” loops

• smoother ops workflow

• faster triage

• provable service boundaries

• Faster break/fix times leading to improved Customer Experience scores

Try It on 2–3 Circuits (No Code, No Hardware)

If you’re a CityFibre L2 partner, we can light up continuous CCM tests on a couple of circuits so you can see the diagnostic flow in practice.

No equipment.
No integration.
No cost.
Just a clearer picture of the access path.

If you'd like a live example, just get in touch.