Uptime Allies Selects Bison Router to Underpin Its Wholesale Broadband Services
Chosen for reliability and the flexibility to run on hardware the company already owned, the software-based BNG has since gained full LAC and LNS support for L2TP through joint development — a capability now available to every Bison Router user
North Shields, UK — 18 August 2026 — Uptime Allies has selected Bison Router as the broadband network gateway behind the services it delivers through its wholesale supplier relationships, citing reliability and the flexibility of a software-based platform.
Part of The Centre Group, Uptime Allies takes a Northern, no-nonsense approach to broadband, pairing its own network infrastructure with responsive customer support for business and residential customers.
Uptime Allies went looking for a BNG it could run in production without reservation: stable enough to sit in the path of live subscriber traffic, flexible enough to be shaped around the way the company wanted to build its services rather than the other way round, and treating IPv6 as a first-class citizen rather than something bolted on to an IPv4 product. A significant attraction was that Bison Router runs on standard x86 server hardware. That shaped the evaluation as much as the deployment: Uptime Allies was able to stand the platform up on its own server estate and put it through a full evaluation, without requesting demonstration equipment from a vendor or running a trial to someone else's timetable. The same infrastructure went on to carry live service, with no proprietary networking appliances to buy.
First deployed to cover a specific address-management requirement, the platform's role in the network has widened steadily since.
"We've worked closely with the Bison Router team to make it fit our requirements and we've been really pleased with the results," said James Creese, Technical Director at Uptime Allies. "It has exceeded our already high expectations for reliability, which cannot be said for most other platforms we evaluated. We now have some of our wholesale suppliers going through it and we're already looking at where else we can use it across the network."
The relationship went further still when Uptime Allies raised a requirement for L2TP broadband services — functionality Bison Router did not offer at the time. Rather than parting ways, the companies worked together to develop, test and refine the capability against the demands of a live UK broadband network.
That work went well beyond the original brief. Bison Router now supports both LAC and LNS operation for L2TP, giving providers considerably more flexibility in how broadband subscriber traffic is carried and terminated across their networks — functionality now available to other ISPs, not just to Uptime Allies.
Uptime Allies has since completed its migration from its previous platforms over to Bison Router, and is now actively deploying IPoE to existing customers.
"Uptime Allies came to us with a live production network and a clear roadmap for where it wanted to take its services," said Alex Kiselev, founder of Bison Router. "What made the collaboration particularly valuable is that the development that followed was driven by the requirements of a real broadband provider. Uptime Allies has put the software through extensive testing and given us very practical feedback throughout. A request for a particular L2TP capability has since developed into a much broader set of features that can now benefit other ISPs as well."
The collaboration continues beyond the initial deployment. Uptime Allies has offered to help test future Bison Router features and advise on functionality that would be particularly useful to UK broadband providers, and the two companies are exploring how Uptime Allies could help make Bison Router more accessible to other UK operators.
About Bison Router
Bison Router is a software-based broadband network gateway designed to run on standard x86 server hardware. It provides broadband subscriber management, carrier-grade NAT and routing for ISPs and network operators, including PPPoE, L2TP and IPv6, without requiring proprietary routing appliances.
About Uptime Allies
Part of The Centre Group, Uptime Allies provides broadband, telecoms and leased-line services to business and residential customers. The company combines a self-service platform with UK-based customer support and operates its own network infrastructure, with a focus on reliability, flexibility and straightforward service.