TalkTalk Superfast Fibre Routers

I changed to Talk Talk fibre in March and have been happy; the speed is close to the promised 36 Mbs and even the wireless speed to the ipad is around 22. I use the TT router with a couple switches to move the signal around the house.

The only problem I have is that Spotify connect no longer gets through to my NDS. It did originally, but I lost it about a month ago. I suspect it has something to do with not having updated the NDS firmware (because, based on others' comments, I fear it will make it even brighter than it is now, which in fact is already too bright for me) whereas the ipad/Spotify has been used eith my Superuniti which I did upgrade to 4.3.

In short though, the Talk Talk router should be OK.

Broadband envy here in a big way.

I currently get around 3.5 to 4.5 Mb through Sky. Spoke to BT about a possible switch, and they would only guarantee 1.5 Mb. No prospect of an imminent upgrade either, so sticking with Sky.

So much for the touted rollout of superfast broadband by BT!

Indeed, I hadn't realised Superfast had arrived in our area and will believe it when I see it (next Thursdsy, apparently).

I was alerted by the Sky and Vodafone emailing ang mailing me to switch. At the moment, I get 4.5mb at best with significant dropouts.

My concern was that the TT router would be rubbish and/or would give the issues some have reported with the BT Home Hub.

Not sure I followed your Spotify comment Wanderer. I don't think failure to upgrade firmware would cause you to loose Spotify, and I'm not clear on the reference to "brightness".

Keith

Start off with the supplied router, if you have problems look further.

Do you have a separate switch for your audio systems or all plugged back to your ISP router?

spotify Connect uses Bonjour.. You might want to make your new ISP broadband router is allowing Bonjour discovery to pass through and not blocking it. If it's filtering Bonjour I don't believe you will be able to get your NDS to play Spotify.

There are various utilities you can run on your iPad etc that can sniff out UPnP and Bonjour. Net Analyzer is one such example.

One work around if this was being blocked would be to use a seperate wifi access point that understands Bonjour such as Airport Express and use a seperate switch.

Simon

Hi Eloise,

I have a separate switch for the hi-if. The man I spoke to assured me I could use a different router if I wanted, as long as it is a suoerfast one.

Hi Simon,

That's interesting, although it would be odd if TalkTalk were blocking Spotify in an advanced westrrn democracy :-/

Keith

Simon, many thanks for your suggestions. However, Spotify did work fine until about five weeks ago, which was shortly after I had upgraded the firmware on the Superuniti (separate location, on Bt broadband, which at this moment is working fine - separate location. Happily I get 18Mbs on standard broadband which I think is remarkable.) the only other thing which may have affected thungs is that the Router had been switched off for three weeks while I was away.

I have subsequently restarted both the Router and NDS several times but Connect remains elisive.

I do have net analyser (free version) but also have Fing. Fing is interesting, as it shows a different IP address for my iPad from that which is given by Net analyser. The address on Fing is weirdly quite different from the standard range, and it calls it 'whats-my-name'! I suspect this is the problem. I cant give details at pres as I dont have access to the main system for a while.

I will update the NDS firmware when I get back to see if this does remedy the problem and cross my fingers that the sound is OK.

thanks for you help, it is appreciated.

Hi Wanderer,

It look's like Simon may be right (again!). Bonjour could well be a problem for your router. Which router are you using? I had a quick look on TT's forum and there are issues. I'm out of time, but will investigate later. It looks like TT have had to replace routers where this is a problem, but it's a worry that you may have suffered from this two years after users started complaining.

Keith

No problems with mine (currently)

Apologies if I am interrupting this thread. I have reverted to BT HH3 from a draytek router and have no bonjour at the router but my system seems to work fine including spotify connect from SU.

should I get a new router to reinstate Bonjour?

There are two Netgear switches and everything is wired except for iPad/ iPhone control points.

thanks in advance for any advice or comments.

the draytek died btw.

 No need - BT does it all for you.  

I would try to dump the HH3,  not the greatest especially the type-A

I've been 100% OK since BT gave me a HH4

Thanks Mike-B I might as well go for the HH5 then I guess.

I switched to Talktalk Fibre about a month ago and was provided with the now standard HG633 router. On ADSL I was using a Netgear DGN3700 v2 which doesn't have a fibre modem this is connected to a Netgear GS108 8 way switch which serves all the devices on my network.

I wanted to keep my Netgear DGN3700 v2 in use so as not to have to reconfigure all my wireless devices and wifi network. So I simply connected the TT router to the phone line, switched off its wifi capablilty, connected the TT router to the Netgear 3700 via the Cable/Fibre WAN  input.. went into Netgear configuration and set WAN preferences to Ethernet and hey presto all is well.

A couple of points the TT HG 633 does not have Gigabit LAN ports only 100mb/s.. not really a problem for internet use,,,, and everything else I have connected to the Netgear Gigabit switch. I am synced at 39997 kbs/s down and 2000 kb/s up and achieve download speeds fairly consistently of 33 mb/s so all in all I am very happy.

Hope that helps.

I'll have a look tonight, but we've probably had it for six months now.

(And how do you know what I've been smoking? )

I'm surprised that you don't have IP address conflicts with DHCP running on two routers at the same time.  You might eventually, but if it's working now it's hard to argue with it.  

One of the reasons I did not buy into Talktalk BB was the bad reviews they used to get on the internet from disgruntled customers and also their constant appearance on Watchdog. It seems times have changed. I persisted with BT because I was getting closer to 75megs speed and never had any major problems with the network. Until now...

Bart I use reserved IP addresses for fourteen devices that commonly use my network... never had any conflicts with DHCP touch wood!

He doesn't have two DHCP servers running on the same network though - he has one network running *INSIDE* the other so that's fine and will work correctly as long as they are on different subnets (which it sounds like they are).

Phil

Don't BT do forced firmware updates on their routers?

Phil

 Yes,  I seen it a few times after midnight,  the conection drops off & the hub lights flash & change colour just as if it was a user press on the restart button.

Well, the good news is that a quick Google search for the TalkTalk HG633 and Bonjour only finds one reslt and that is this thread. However, there do seem to have been issues with the HG 533.

Keith

HG635

Spot on Phil... my NDX works flawlessly wired through the switch to my QNAP NAS...and the internet.

Gavin TT dropped the HG635 in favour of the 633 which IMHO was retrograde step as your router does have Gigabit LAN ports.. however I have stated I have no issues with the 633 using it the way I have described.