Talk Talk FTTP Questions

Hi all,

Only this August I went with talk talk (FTTC). BT FTTP was in my area, but I read too many horror stories about their speeds that I decided to go with regular faster broadband (about 63mb). Anyway today I was checking, and talk talk were offering FTTP for 500mb/75mb for £40. I didn't think they were offering this before, but then again depending on what page your put your postcode in on their site, it will give you different results. Anyway I rang them up hoping I could upgrade mid contract (rather than wait 18 months), and I was able to upgrade to this, and my old contract of 4 months will just terminate one my new service goes live. I have to wait until the 28th Jan for installation.

I've also recently bought an ASUS router (RT-AX82U). I had to buy a separate openreach modem off ebay to get it working with my router, and it all worked fine automatically (no setup). However I did ask talktalk if I could use my own router and they said yes.

So my questions are:

1. Can I just plug in the ethernet cable from the new box they install into my routers WAN port and it will just work?

2. Will I require usernames and passwords to setup the WAN connection?

From what I understood with talktalk, is they automatically sent these details to the modem on FTTC, hence why I didn't require needing to setup the openreach modem from ebay. Is it the same with FTTP?

Access point questions:

Talk talk asked if I want to be required when the surveyor comes in the next couple of days. I said yes, because I want them to install the access point on the side of my house (where my drive is), rather than the front of my house where my telephone point is. This is because I'm currently using gigabit powerlines for the WAN, whereas the side of my house, which leads directly under the stairs, is where my pc & router are located.

3. How fussy are the engineers usually if I ask them to do it on the side of my house (which will require digging up the drive I assume) vs the front of my house (digging up the front garden)? Will they try to fob me off possibly because the difference in work involved?

4. Inside the house, I don't want to move the desk. This is because all my wiring slack go around the back two table legs. I can easily remove the amplifier in the middle and my desk chair, and theres plenty of room if the engineer sits down on his bum to do the installation. Do you think this would be a problem, or do you think they'll expect the area to be totally clear?

5. There is no date for the surveyor except they'd be around to look in the next couple of days. Because I requested I be present, if I happen to miss the surveyor, will they leave a card at all, or contact us to rearrange? Note this is the BT surveyor and not the installation booked on the 28th Jan.

Speed questions:

Talk talk said my average speed will be 416-516mb with a guaranteed speed of 250mb. I had to ask about upload speed (as it isn't advertised anywhere), which they said is 75mb.

6. Does anyone have any experience on whether they get close to the average download, or more the guaranteed download speeds?

7. Specifically the upload speed. Has anyone gotten less than what was advertised? Because the upload speed is quite less than the download, I'm wondering if there isn't any fluctuation in this speed particularly, or whether it's nearly constant to it's advertised speed?

I'm more interested in the upload speed as I am into streaming games across the internet from my PC.

8. Has anyone noticed a drop in speed using their own 3rd party router? Mines fairly new I think (ASUS RT-AX82U). However I've seen some comments online about asus routers and speed fluctuations.

9. Is there any settings in an ASUS router that I should enable/disable for the best speeds? I've heard of enabling NAT acceleration, and disabling QOS and Ai protection. Do these setting have any effect, and is there anymore I should be aware off when it comes to FTTP?


Sorry for the long and thorough post and questions. I'm a bit of a newbie to all these things, and hope anyone can help me with some of them.

Also I hope if no one else knew it was possible, you are able to upgrade midway in an 18 month FTTC contract to FTTP with talktalk without any fuss. What's funny is they had to activate my line for me (free of charge) as previously I was using 3/unlimited 4g router before, and also sent me a talktalk router, so it was definitely a surprise I could upgrade only 4 months later.

I don't know the answer to your questions, but that s a nice price for an excellent speed. Is this over Openreach FTTP or Cityfibre's network? Or anyone else for that matter.

1. yes

2. I don't know. With Talktalk FTTC they use DHCP/IPOE target than PPP. There is no username or password. I'm not sure if FTTP is the same I haven't seen anyone post on this. I'm curious. That is Talktalk residential, Talktalk business has a username and password on both.

3. You will need to describe your street layout to get an answer to this. If the line is overhead fed then the fibre will likely come overhead.
If the current line is ducted to the property they will use this ducting.
Only in areas where the current line is directly buried in the ground should they need to dig your driveway.

4. Try make the job as easy as you can for the engineer. What they are willing to do will vary if your request is unreasonable. Remember there's a pandemic going on.
There are a few engineers on the forum who can answer this better.

5. No idea.

6. Depends how good the ISP is. There hasn't been much posted about Talktalk FTTP in the forum.
For my BT connection OpenReach FTTP gives full throughput every minute of the day for my package.

7. You should get full speed on the upstream provided Talktalk do their bit with your traffic.

8. If the router is powerful enough you will get identical speeds.

9. The question isn't just FTTP specific, but you do need to think about it a bit more with the faster speeds as any router bottleneck will be more obvious.
The router will have a better time if Talktalk don't use PPP like they do on FTTC.
Any features that inspect the traffic will cause extra load on the Asus, including those you mentioned.
Personally I think that Asus model might be ok with the whole lot enabled.

Regarding the last comment, most ISP's let you upgrade at any point mid contract. It's downgrading that isn't so easy.

In reply to a post by Mitchy_mitch:

I don't know the answer to your questions, but that s a nice price for an excellent speed. Is this over Openreach FTTP or Cityfibre's network? Or anyone else for that matter.

OpenReach.

Talktalk are only available in specific areas or I would have jumped on that package.
That's the standard price I believe.

Inside the house, I don't want to move the desk. This is because all my wiring slack go around the back two table legs. I can easily remove the amplifier in the middle and my desk chair, and theres plenty of room if the engineer sits down on his bum to do the installation. Do you think this would be a problem, or do you think they'll expect the area to be totally clear?

Yes, they will expect the area to be clear.

Hi guys thanks for the replies.

I’ll try to keep you updated on what happens, but the engineer won’t be coming until the 28th of Jan so it will be a while.

I did find a post on the talktalk forum of someone using their ASUS router with this fibre, they even posted a PDF of the settings, which seem to be the default automatic WAN settings.

https://community.talktalk.co.uk/eigde79682/attachme...

Seems like I forgot to bookmark the original thread page, but I’m 99% sure it was for the future fibre.

I’m going to ask the engineer when he comes if he can do under the stairs. There is a gap between my desk and the stairs which is currently occupied by my pc and this cube storage thing which I can easily move. However if they refuse, I’ll just get it put where the phone line is. This is because even though my modem is connecting to my router via gigabit power lines, I’ve still been able to stream games no problem on my 17mb upload on other people’s WiFi, it’s quite miraculous how good quality and performance game streaming from your own pc has become now, I was playing halo online just fine. And my power line utility says they are connecting at 734mbps, so I assume I will be able to get the full speed no problem even though it’s going through them. But I think there’s enough room for him to work next to the table for it not to be a problem.

DON’T do the powerline thing .... it’s a recipe for disaster.

If you have the TT hub you can set the Asus up as a wifi repeater and use that for all your devices. I was getting 500-700mbps link speed between the two routers on 5ghz from downstairs to upstairs.

Have you had initial survey? I 'signed' with TTB on 22nd, on 24th OR engineer came for initial survey, I was quite surprised how quick it was organised.

I am with BT FTTP, after switching from virgin media and so far they have bene really good.. I know a lot do have problems with their uploads speed capping etc and this can be put off for some who just want perfect 900/110 service.

I am using netgear router and for 6 months now it has been very solid 970down-120upload bandwidth