TalkTalk Fast 5364 Router - passthrough mode

[mynameispeter]

I gather from looking through the forum that this router cannot have passthrough/modem only mode enabled.

My question is, what modem would be suitable and would talktalk be able to supply one? I'm looking at buying a router with SQM so that I can hopefully manage the terrible issues I suffer when using more than 30% of my bandwidth.

Below are my results from the waveform bufferbloat test. It goes some way to showing why I have to have two DSL connections in my house because I having just the one it was always causing stuttering and lag and a lot of the time it would just freeze up and smart TVs when trying to watch a movie in high quality.

Alternatively, if this looks like I have a problematic line could I get it changed/repaired/tested?

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Morning peter,

Would you like us to send a replacement router for testing purposes to rule this out?

Thanks

Michelle

[mynameispeter]

Morning Michelle

I've not tested this line with an alternate router but I have another line to the house, BT  are the provider for this, this yields similar results.

Also, the results and problems I've listed here are the exact reason I had another line installed to the house. I was getting fed up with streaming services displaying at 480p and cutting out. Having two lines somewhat mitigates this problem but the problem is still present and I'm picking up the cost so that I can have a relatively trouble free experience.

Everything was fine until December of 2021 and that's when the issues started. I've run this test at friends houses who have similar connections and whilst the latency increased none of those went above 100ms. I'm not sure whether this is a metric that openreach have parameters for but my gut feeling is that if they are selling you a product that technically meets a specification ie upload and download speeds, then the quality of that connection should be sufficient to be able to utilise that bandwidth.

If I purchase a new router, which I'm happy to do, that allows me to better control the flow of data. I should be able to get a much higher quality connection but this will come at the cost of, potentially, 50% of that available upload bandwidth. So instead of 7.5Mbps I will have around 3 Mbps.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Hi peter,

Can I just confirm, have you ever tested with an alternative router? If not then we can send a replacement router for testing purposes to rule this out and to see how your connection compares.

Thanks

Michelle

[mynameispeter]

Hi Michelle, 

I unplugged the router last night and have just turned it back on and did another check, no programs or updates running in the background and only one device connected to the router via ethernet cable and the results are the same. It's the huge increase in upload latency that really impacts the connection negatively.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Hi peter,

How are you getting on?

Thanks

Michelle

[mynameispeter]

@KeithFrench I appreciate the help 👍

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Thanks Keith 🙂

Hi mynameispeter, can you first off all switch the router off and leave it off for at least 30 minutes, then switch back on and retest. Please let us know how you get on

Chris

[KeithFrench]

In that case I will leave you in the capable hands of @Chris-TalkTalk.

[mynameispeter]

@KeithFrench I've run traceroutes to google servers and they come back fine, speedtest and bufferbloat tests come back ok on an unloaded connection, as soon as you start to use the bandwidth the latency goes crazy. I see a lot of people comment that it should and that the bufferbloat tests saturate your connection causing it to give high latency readings and I would fully expect that, however, even when I make a low quality video call and use half the upload bandwidth it has a dramatic effect on the quality of the connection.

@Chris-TalkTalk  I only have one telephone socket for this connection, the socket only serves the talktalk router. I have just completed a bufferbloat on the normal connection and on the test socket and there is no discernible difference between the two.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi mynameispeter,

Your current sync speed is 41.8Mbps downstream and 7.9Mbps upstream. How many telephone sockets do you have? Have you tried connecting your router to your test socket?

Chris

[KeithFrench]

I think in that case it will be all down to the speed of your fibre than anything else. You could easily spend money on a new router & find out it is no better. What happens if you do a PathPing or tracert to the relevant server? That is the way to prove latency. If that shows a problem with just the TalkTalk router or network, @Michelle-TalkTalk can get this investigated for you.

[mynameispeter]

Thanks for the reply @KeithFrench 

Just a heads up that I'm a little out of my depth here so I may not totally understand at first. 

I only use the TalkTalk connection for one device so was looking at keeping everything as simple as possible, to my mind that would be to connect from the Openreach socket > modem > router > PC

The reason for wanting to do it this way is so that the router handles the flow of data in both directions and is not subject to further queueing upstream, latency is my biggest problem. I'm not looking for a free solution and am happy to spend some money to optimise this connection. I might be wrong but I would have thought keeping the original TalkTalk modem/router it would still manage data as is designed so even if I managed to set the new router to get the best out of my connection this work would be undone by the TalkTalk router.

[mynameispeter]

Morning Michelle

I only have one device connected to my TalkTalk router and that is my PC, I have wireless turned off. The issue mainly comes when I am using the upload stream, for example if I'm trying to video call someone or screenshare from my computer the quality is terrible.

It's not a major issue as I've lived with it for a couple of years but thought I would see if there is anything that could be done to help overcome these issues. Getting more bandwidth is not an option to me due to infrastructure constraints so I'm looking at having better control over my connection or using better quality equipment than what TalkTalk supplies to help mitigate these issues.

I don't suppose there is a way to increase the upload limit is there?

[KeithFrench]

Hi @mynameispeter 

Whilst no current TalkTalk router supports modem mode, there is an easy workaround. Just put the TalkTalk router on a different subnet to your other router & connect one of its Ethernet ports to the Ethernet WAN port of the new router. So long as you don't use port forwarding that is it, but if you do, it is slightly more complex as you now have a Double NAT environment. However, depending on the capabilities of this other router I can easily talk you through that.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Hi peter,

I'm sorry to hear this and I'll take a look now. I've run a test on the line which hasn't detected a fault. Can I just confirm, do you experience this latency when connected wired or wireless?

Thanks

Michelle

[mynameispeter]

Nope, Openreach and other companies have been promising it for several years now but have failed to deliver.

The annoying thing is a few year ago I lived 1/4 mile closer to the local exchange, FTTC, and I had double the speeds I have now and none of these problems.

Openreach are adamant that there's not a problem with their aging copper network though...

[ferguson]

No Full Fibre available in your area then I take it? It will be interesting to see what the support team can diagnose from their end.

@KeithFrench any thoughts?