[David Doran]

Yes I think this is a good choice. Are you currently on DSL-AX82U? What does the waveform test score if you enable cake? https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat

 

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[David Doran]

Thanks for that. In OW and OW2 I was always around 37ms ping. I live in eastern Scotland and every UK streamer I saw (even ones in south England were about 29ms) so it made sense that there was no UK server.

I however don’t want to mess up the competitive server. People saying if you use something like this you have a rsk of getting disconnected from the match when it starts. The game tries to match you against people of equal skill which means people from Germany, Italy and Russia etc. They won’t be connecting to London server.

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[David Doran]

I did. It seems pretty useless for my use case in gaming (Overwatch 2). Plus I don’t even know if they support Overwatch 2 but that game only has one dedicated server in EU anyway so I wouldn’t be blocking anything or gaining ping advantage. It also doesn’t seem to have cake support which is either better or atleast equal to whatever implementation they have. I read some 2019 posts that stated they have fq_codel but then some twitter posts in 2020 saying their own algorithms.

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[David Doran]

UK Sentinel wrote:

From a Gaming perspective, we use the Netgear XR500 which has a Geo-Filter, that way we reduce the physical distance between players and server<noscript></noscript>

XR500 not in stock but the XR1000 is and for £209. Worth a shot you think? Don’t know if it has cake or anything like that I’ll look it up.

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[David Doran]

All gaming is basically PC now. Have a PS4 (which is next to the main router anyway) but since I moved to 1440p and high framerate monitor I’m not going back. I play Overwatch 2 mostly and as you can imagine if ping spikes happens then it can be annoying in such fast paced action.

We have 1 iPhone Pro (not sure of model it’s afew years old), 2 Android phones and some tablets (2 iPad and 2 Amazon Fire tablets).

Fortunately the BT master socket is almost directly in the middle so placing the main router in the exact middle is easy. I can’t see the GT-AC5300 in stock at Amazon and tbh I think I should atleast get a Wi fi 6 capable router if it’s only going to be one unit (plus if wifi 6 devices enter later). Do you think the GT-AX6000 is a good choice? I don’t think I can persuade us to fork out £450+ on that one AXE16000 unit but the AX6000 is somewhat reasonable. It’s still alot to fork out if range is still bad but the Eero/TP-Link is always going to be sub £300 for 3 units.

As for FTTP speeds, unless BT ever has an insane deal on I’ll never be going for more than 500 and even that is pretty overkill for our needs. I’ll likely just be on the 150 package as I can get that for £27.99 a month.

Also while I have you here, when I was initially googling to see if the DSL version supported merlin this thread came up: https://uktechhub.com/forums/topic/gnuton-and-asus-dsl-ax82u/page/3/#post-14749

Is fifa really going to tell you how good the connection is? From what I know fifa is all p2p so if your opponent is on wifi and/or likely suffering from bufferbloat then the connection will also seem really bad your end. You would need a dedicated server game to really know if I am not mistaken.

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[David Doran]

I’d just like to say thank you very much to both of you. It’s been refreshing signing up to a forum and getting great and detailed responses (especially even taking the time to attach actual camera photo).

Sentinel, I would like your take on my situation. I don’t feel right creating a new thread and since it’s technically still pertinent to the DSL-AX82U, I hope you don’t mind if I ask here.

So my family have somehow been able to get along ok in a 3 story house with something as simple as a Billion 8800NL (in the center of the whole property). Sure it had complete dead spots at the far corners and outside reception was just not a thing but it worked. However, the wireless on it just simply died recently. It would not broadcast an SSID anymore. I managed to get a replacement 8800NL from Ebay for £15 and that was fine. The issue is my brother got some Blink outdoor wireless cameras for the property and as you can guess, it’s having trouble to connect. Now the cameras directly screwed above the doors work good enough (1-2 bar connection) but the one we were thinking of placing approx 10 foot on an adjacent wall to look over the complete driveway is not working well if at all.

It seemed time to look at a new router or better yet, a mesh system to completely cover the house. With only having a 40/10 BT line, it doesn’t really matter the speeds of the satellite nodes. They just have to be able to extend the signal enough to allow the cameras to connect reliably. I have a gaming PC but this will always be wired into the main router. Everything else on the wireless doesn’t need super fast pings or speed.

For years I always thought that ping spikes while downloading or others using internet was just because the CPU on the router sucked. I now know after alot of research recently it’s likely bufferbloat so I thought I may aswell try and solve that problem at the same time (for the wired in gaming PC anyway). I know I needed a router with SQM features (preferably cake or fq_codel).

The options I came up with was Eero, TP-Link Deco and ofcourse ASUS. I also thought to myself that since I’m on FTTC now but FTTP is apparently coming soon, I should get one that will be directly compatible with both. How I saw the products:

Eero: This is such a mixed bag. From all my reading the 2nd gen product seems to be the best because it has cake compared to what I read is a very flawed implementation of fq_codel on the newer 6 models (something about offload engines and very technical stuff). However, as I stated above about PPPoE the 2nd gen eero with cake does not support PPPoE directly. It always has to have a modem infront. The 6 models do support PPPoE directly but then I have an SQM method that barely works and with how expensive it is, not ideal. The thing is I can’t just bridge the 2nd gen as then you lose access to SQM feature…. ahhhhh!!!!!!

TP-Link Deco: This should on paper be a pretty good solution but… something tells me it won’t be. They sell DSL versions of the products (X20-DSL and X73-DSL). The plan there is FTTC directly into the unit and then when FTTP comes, just use one of the 4 ethernet ports on the router (all 4 support PPPoE WAN). The only downside (besides being tied to a smartphone app like Eero) is they have some form of a QoS feature but it’s never going to be anywhere close to cake which is super “plug n play” on Eero. I can’t even find anyone with a Deco product willing to run bufferbloat tests for me to see if their QoS even does anything.

The other thing putting me off TP-Link is privacy issues: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/tbthjj/psa_newer_tplink_routers_send_all_your_web/

They said they “fixed” this in firmware updates but none of those DSL units I am looking at had firmware updates.

Asus: The DSL-AX82U seems perfect as a standalone router. It will do the FTTC modem route and serve me well on the move to FTTP. The problem I see myself having is that’s only for one router. I know that all routers have to adhere to transmission power regulations or whatever so I can’t magically think that it will be better than the Billion I have for range (cameras only work on 2.4 Ghz). Since I will need merlin firmware to enable cake, my instincts tell me that I will likely have some issues if I try to add other Asus access points via AiMesh. It’s likely not been tested that much. Plus if I go the multiple Asus router route, it can get somewhat expensive. Even if I go for the non DSL modem equivalent (the TUF-AX5400) that’s still £132. 3 of them and you’re looking at basically £400. With the TP-Link and Eero I can get 3 packs all for under £300 that are unlikely to have as many firmware bugs since it’s official release stuff.

Now I know after reading all this you are likely just gonna say stuff like “just wire access points” but nobody in the house has experience with drilling or laying cables and my family already thinks it’s weird that we now will require 2 devices for internet (gonna use the 8800NL in modem bridge mode for the router/mesh system). Laying cables would just be a no no.

Thanks for any suggestions on that wall of text.

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[David Doran]

Can anyone fully confirm that the router does have PPPoE support on WAN? I know you said it does but that was using a modem infront. The reason I bring this up is I nearly got stung with just thinking every router supported PPPoE directly.

Case in point: The eero 2nd gen routers. These only work when you have a modem infront to handle the PPPoE. If you connect the eero 2nd gen directly to the ONT for FTTP, you won’t actually get internet as it doesn’t directly support PPPoE.

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[David Doran]

Thank you for the reply. Not that I should be intruding on your setup but can I ask why you have the Draytek in the pipeline? Is the modem on the 82U not as high sync speed or something?

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[David Doran]

Hello everyone

I currently have a BT FTTC connection and it seems like this router would serve me well. I have some questions:

1: It seems like there is always some bugs in the CAKE implementation for whatever Asus router I am considering. Is this one ok now? Seemed to be some issues last year or so.

2: My plan right now is FTTC to the DSL-AX82U directly and then once BT FTTP comes available, just unplug the DSL modem cable and go from the ONT directly into the WAN port on the DSL-AX82U. The problem is as you all likely know BT uses PPPoE. I can only see something about PPPoE Relay on the specs page which I think from my limite dunderstanding is vastly different to just normal PPPoE support.

Now I know that the router has to have PPPoE support via DSL as how else would I login e.g. bthomehub@btbroadband.com stuff but not sure about the WAN port.

Thank you

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