Fibre 900 (Openreach) + Eero Mesh

Hi all.

Getting closer to the FTTP service being orderable in my area and was considering the Future Fibre, Fibre 900 Data Only package, mainly as it comes with the Eero Pro 6 Mesh system (something I was considering buying anyway for whole home wifi).

Questions are...
1). Those that are on Talk Talk (Openreach) full fibre, are you happy with the service? Any issues with the speeds?
2). Once the 18 month contract is up, I will likely downgrade to a lesser package or jump ship to another provider (depending on pricing at the time) - Will the Eero mesh router work with other providers (can it be unlocked) or could I just get another unit and make these 2 routers 'extenders'?

Cheers
James

Hi

The FTTP service I have over OpenReach has been excellent (mine is "only" 500Mbps though).

From what I've read, the Eero units are only registered to TalkTalk (via Amazon's own serial number tracking). I'm not sure whether they are technically yours after the contract ends or not, or whether they belong to TalkTalk (never did find an answer in the T&Cs I got, so I'm not convinced you can use them with another provider.

There's some posts on Reddit about it, so worth a read.
https://www.reddit.com/r/eero/comments/sbih99/are_is...

Thanks for the feedback. Handy to know!

Looks ok as long as you continue to use Talk Talk...

Looks ok as long as you continue to use Talk Talk...

Yeah, exactly.

I'm personally not a big fan of the Eero range (for what they offer) - so whilst it's tempting to buy in to it (with the 'free' one offered as part of the deal), I think it's worth checking out other potential options in my opinion.

TalkTalk's FTTP service uses DHCP / IPoE so pretty much any 'router' will work.

I have a dedicated router (running OpenWRT), then 3 wireless access points in the house (with a wired backhaul), which seems to give me good speeds & performance throughout.

TalkTalk are fine. I have a business FTTP service with them and it’s been fine from the day of migration. A few early morning PPPoE resets in the first month or two but utterly stable since then. If you take their residential service then it won’t be PPPoE based in any event.

Service (of the human variety) has been OK. That’s the usual beef folks have with TT. I had an on again, off again, on again saga with bogus paper billing charges that appears to have been sorted. It was a bit long winded but they have always done what they have said….even if it took a while.

I can’t speak to their supplied kit. Mine still in a box somewhere. I prefer to buy, install and run all my own and be the master of my own domain.

I'm also on TT's Future Fibre product, although like Miles, mine is "only" 500Mb.

1) I'm happy with the service, not had any faults and from what I've seen speeds have been 520Mb+ / 70Mb+ 24/7

2) In my personal experience, I wouldn't worry about whether or not the eero is locked to TalkTalk. I actually find the performance of the eero to be quite bad considering how much Amazon sell them for! I used to use a Fritz Box 7530 as the main router, it's WiFi was strong enough to reach across the street no problem at all. My eero though isn't even strong enough to reach to the end of my driveway! I guess the range is hampered to encourage you to buy more of them to set up a mesh network.

Thanks all.

I've given it some more thought and have instead chosen to go with EE Fibre Max 100 (150Mbps) as I don't really have any need for 900Mbps of bandwidth at this time - after discounts via quidco the EE option works out at around £25pm over 24 months.

Separately I have ordered the Netgear Orbi (RBK752) for whole home wifi, I'll connect the satellite via ethernet. At least this is not tied to any ISP!

Our FTTP network went live this morning a year since agreeing a CFP with Openreach, so I'm excited to get connected, installation is on the 22nd February.

That's a good price for the speed with EE.

I don't really "need" 500Mbps download either and suspect I will downgrade mine when this contract comes to an end (assuming the price point is good). I currently pay £35 a month for this service and think it's really good value for money.

The Orbi looks a nice bit of kit, so I hope it serves you well.

The upgrade to FTTP is an exciting time, especially for those who have been used to a "slow" FTTC or latency busting VirginMedia connection 🙂
I'd like to say the novelty wears off after a while, but I'm still amazed by how fast things download / upload.

Good luck with the setup.

1) Now it's working, yes. On the 500Mbps package and getting 550 down/550 up at the router.

2) No idea, probably not considering that it looks like it is set to just do DHCP on its Ethernet port. TBH, from what I've seen I wouldn't have one given (oh, right - yes, I was given one - didn't use it).

In reply to a post by MilesR:

That's a good price for the speed with EE.

I don't really "need" 500Mbps download either and suspect I will downgrade mine when this contract comes to an end (assuming the price point is good). I currently pay £35 a month for this service and think it's really good value for money.

The Orbi looks a nice bit of kit, so I hope it serves you well.

The upgrade to FTTP is an exciting time, especially for those who have been used to a "slow" FTTC or latency busting VirginMedia connection 🙂
I'd like to say the novelty wears off after a while, but I'm still amazed by how fast things download / upload.

Good luck with the setup.

Thanks, yes it's quite exciting to go from a flaky 18/1Mbps connection (long line length!) to something a bit more reliable as well as being able to pick a speed based on need and budget!

Hopefully in a couple of years time at the end of the contract there will be some better deals available for the higher tiers, who knows, perhaps free 'upgrades' to higher tiers will become a thing as FTTP becomes more common!