Internet recommendations

[Geoff Shang]

Hello,

This could get a bit lengthy, so please bare with me.  Also, there is a 
direct connection to Linux if you read far enough.

We are moving house in two weeks and have the opportunity to change ISP 
and infrastructure providers.  I'm hoping you all can help us decide who 
to go with.

Our preference is for a high-quality Internet service, and we have been 
prepared to pay for it.  Up until two years ago, we were happily using 
Bezeqint's Gamers' package, over Bezeq NGN.  But then we started running 
into a problem.

My wife and I are both blind.  When we got our service reconnected in 
November 2015, after being out of the country for six months, we 
discovered that the Bezeq routers now have a CAPTCHA in addition to the 
username and password.  Moreover, this CAPTCHA has no audio challenge, 
only visual ones.

This of course makes it difficult to get into the router to administer it, 
and while there are solutions that can help a blind person solve these 
challenges, you of course need to be connected to the Internet to use 
them, which limits their usefulness in this case.

When we moved in earli 2016, we tried getting our infrastructure from 
Bezeqint instead of Bezeq, the point being that the people you pay for 
the infrastructure provide the router.  Unfortunately, they also had a 
CAPTCHA challenge on their login page, so this did not help particularly.

Late last year, we tried switching to 012.  To be honest, I can't remember 
if they have a CAPTCHA or not.  I have found the Internet in this 
apartment less than satisfactory, but I'm not 100% sure if this is due to 
the ISP, the phone line or the poor wi-fi performance in this apartment.

One thing that I'm sure does contribute to poor performance, both now and 
previously, is bad router firmware.  I've seen problems caused by on-board 
DHCP and DNS resolvers, and I've lost count of the number of times I've 
cleared up some issue we've been having by rebooting the router.

So I bought myself an EdgeRouter PoE from Ubiquiti Networks 
(https://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/edgerouter-poe/).  This device runs a 
modified Debian Linux distribution.  I've not yet set it up, but I'm 
looking to do so once we move.

To use this of course, I will either need to use some kind of modem device 
only (no routing necessary) or put an ISP-supplied router in bridged mode.

As the infrastructure provider also provides the router/modem, I'm also 
looking at other connectivity options.

I see that the Electricity company is now offering a fibre-to-the-home 
service called Unlimited (unlimited.net.il).  At least according to the 
English language pages, which may well not be up to date, they only seem 
to have a handful of ISPs, none of which I've had anything to do with. 
Furthermore, I don't know anything about their reputation (it's difficult 
to find much in English), and I obviously don't know anything about their 
end equipment, whether it can play nice with an EdgeRouter PoE and whether 
or not it has a CAPTCHA.

I've also heard rumours of Bezeq providing a fibre-to-the-home solution as 
well, but I don't know how true this is and I also don't know if equipment 
for this would also suffer from a CAPTCHA that I've never figured out how 
to disable.

I'm not particularly interested in going back to Hot cable unless someone 
can make a very good case for them

If you've read this far, I thank you.

As you can see, I have a number of concerns, some of which might be 
difficult to explain to an ISP or carrier sales rep.

My requirements are, therefore, in no particular order:

* Fast
* Reliable
* Usable with third-party routers
* Able to be managed without a visual CAPTCHA.

Obviously, some of this is relevant to ISPs as well as carriers, so any 
thoughts on the best ISPs would also be welcome.  I'm more interested in 
quality and capacity than the usual bells and whistles the big ISPs have 
that no-one ueses anyway.

If you have any thoughts on any of this, I'd be most grateful to hear 
them.  As we move in two weeks, we will need to place orders soon.

Thanks in advance,
Geoff.