A collection of Frequently Asked Questions.
🌍 How do I see my current public IP? #
Visit: https://whatismyip.com
Or in a terminal:
curl -4 ifconfig.io
curl -6 ifconfig.io
🕹️ Why does my PlayStation say I have the wrong NAT type and show a slow speed test result? #
We suggest you don’t trust the PlayStation tests – rather do a cabled test.
🎟️ Do you offer PPPoE test accounts on Openserve? #
Yes, please contact our sales team. You’ll need to place an order to start the process, but you can cancel the order if you are not happy with the test results. Atomic cannot diagnose your fibre line until the fibre line has been migrated to Atomic.
🎟️ Where can I find my PPPoE login details? #
If you are an existing Atomic customer and you are looking for your PPPoE login details, please check the emails you received from Atomic or open a support ticket. We email the PPPoE username and password a few days before an Openserve service goes live.
🛜 How can I update my WiFi password if the router is connected to your controller? #
Please open a support ticket. Include the WiFi network name and the new password you would like. Some router models have constraints on the characters they accept, so a fairly basic password is best, something like: Abc@123#Xyz! (don’t go too crazy with the special characters, but @ # ! should be ok).
🛜 Can you send me the admin password of my router? #
Yes, please open a support ticket if you need the admin password of a router we supplied. Please note: We offer limited support after we send the admin password. If you change settings and run into a problem, we may have to reset your router to factory defaults.
🛜 Can you give me admin access to my UniFi Cloud Gateway? #
Yes, please open a support ticket. We have a policy of one responsible party. If you become the site admin, we’ll downgrade our permissions to read-only.
👷♂️ What is an Unnecessary Call-Out fee? #
Sometimes the fibre network will charge an extra fee after sending a technician to your property. This can happen if they discover that the problem was caused by the customer, for example, a very old Ethernet cable is causing slow speeds, or the batteries in a DC-UPS are old, causing the ONT to reboot. This fee is usually around R1500.
👷♂️ What happens after a ticket is opened with the fibre network? #
The fibre network will review your ticket and will usually assign the ticket to a maintenance team if a fibre repair is needed. It usually takes a business day or two for the fibre network to contact you and arrange a time for the repair. Repairs usually take 2 – 4 business days to be completed.
Please answer calls from unknown numbers until the support ticket with the fibre network has been resolved. The fibre networks will usually phone you to schedule a time for a repair. Please send us extra contact numbers if needed.
👷♂️ Is it possible to install more than one fibre line at a property? #
Yes, installing one fibre line per fibre network (FNO) is usually easy to arrange. Installing two lines from the same FNO can be more of a challenge to arrange, but it’s usually possible.
👷♂️ My fibre box in the road is damaged (vandalism), how do I get it fixed? #
Please open a support ticket and send us a photo of the problem. We’ll arrange for the fibre network to repair your fibre installation. Usually the fibre network will do this kind of repair for free.
👷♂️ What is an Openserve B number and where do I find my B-number? #
A B-Number identifies your line on the Openserve network. Your B-Number is normally on a sticker on the Openserve fibre box. If you don’t have a B-Number sticker, we can look it up for you via the serial number of the fibre box. If you are already an Atomic customer, we can provide the B-number if you open a support ticket.
🚀 Do you have a reseller program? #
Yes, contact our sales team to find out more.
⚙️ What is CGNAT? #
Carrier-Grade Network Address Translation allows ISPs to have multiple customers using the same IPv4 address. This saves address space costs, but it results in a ‘double NAT’ scenario and can break things like port-forwarding.
Atomic does not do CGNAT – each fibre line gets a unique public IP address.
⚙️ How can I monitor my fibre line latency? #
Use ping.atomic.ac for latency monitoring.
Many customers like to graph their line latency with tools like Smokeping or Uptime Kuma, and their first instinct is to ping our routers or DNS servers. Our servers and routers have ICMP rate limits configured, so your results will show false packet loss and jitter — not a fault on your line.
ping.atomic.ac is set up for this kind of monitoring: it accepts a much higher ICMP rate and sits just 0.2ms from our core routers, so it gives you an accurate picture of your latency to our network. Please point your monitoring there rather than at our routers or DNS servers.
⚙️ Why can’t I connect to a server on another Atomic fibre line? #
If you’re trying to connect to a server at a second location, and both sides are on Atomic fibre lines, over the same fibre network, the connection can fail for two reasons:
Network-level filtering. Fibre networks usually block traffic from passing directly between customers at the OLT or node level. This is a security measure — all traffic must route through an ISP rather than flowing customer-to-customer within the access network (layer 2 network).
Same subnet conflict. If both sites have public IPs in the same /24 range, your routers may see each other as being on the same local network and try to reach each other directly instead of routing through Atomic’s router. Since the direct path is blocked, the connection fails.
Workarounds:
- Use a VPN between the two sites (e.g. WireGuard or Tailscale or Cloudflare)
- Request static IPs in different /24 ranges for the two sites, so traffic routes via Atomic
- You can temporarily add /32 static routes on the routers on both sides pointing at the gateway IP – keep in mind that dynamic IPs change