TalkTalk Fibre to Toob Fibre - CGNAT Query

dreamypuma

Hi,  hoping for some some technical direction if possible.

We are currently on TalkTalk Full Fibre 150 over Openreach and our contract ends 4th March.

We are considering Toob Fibre 900 on City Fibre, as they have some great deals.

Our main reservation is the Toob use CGNAT, although I believe they provide fixed IP for an additional £5 per month (kind of negates the potential savings)

We don't believe we are currently behind CGNAT on TalkTalk - (Our router IP address seems to be the same as what we see on whatsmyip.com)

Our concerns are around what impact being behind CGNAT would have on how we use our services.

Primarily we stream remote content using Emby (don't host) and have a number of Eufy Cameras and other IOT devices. No real gaming.

Based on previous experience, would switching to an ISP with CGNAT impact the above? Additionally is there anything else we should be mindful of?

Would be interested in hearing about experiences from others. Thanks in advance.

paradigital

The biggest downside to carrier grade NAT is that you won’t be able to port forward into your network is that’s something you need/use.  Most of the time your typical outbound web traffic will behave as it would with a regular public IP address on your WAN interface.

dreamypuma

paradigital said:

The biggest downside to carrier grade NAT is that you won’t be able to port forward into your network is that’s something you need/use.  Most of the time your typical outbound web traffic will behave as it would with a regular public IP address on your WAN interface.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure on the technical aspects of what I do.

I do use occasionally use Surfshark for a specific "activity" but understand that they explicitly don't support port forwarding, as they view it as a security issue. I can live with that, as its quite rare.

I think our main concern would be impact on use of use Emby, and Eufy devices such as doorbells, and indoor cameras. We also have Drayton Wiser Heating.

Peter999_2

If you are using someone else's Emby server and not hosting your own then you will be fine and still able to access it.

What mobile carrier are you with?   I have smarty as my mobile carrier and they use CGNAT.  Whichever carrier you are on, you could check to see if they use CGNAT and if they do, see if you can access the remote Emby server when not using your wifi.  You can then be confident that it will work on your new ISP.

Basically, it only really affects things that you port forward and it doesn't sound like you have anything like that.   Eufy works fine with CGNAT (I can access mine fine on my smarty mobile SIM when out and about).

I have a jellyfin (very similar to Emby) server that I don't expose directly on the internet using port forwarding.  I use something called tailscale instead - this means that only I can access the server and I can't share it with anyone else unless I add them to my tailscale network (which I'm not going to do).

My Tado heating works fine on Smarty without tailscale.   However, my home cameras (about 13 years old) require port forwarding so they won't work unless I use tailscale.

Basically, if your devices don't require you to forward a port to work then they'll be fine.

I do hasten to add that I do not use gaming or anything that requires a low latency ping so I can't comment on that.

Hope this helps.

dreamypuma

Peter999_2 said:

If you are using someone else's Emby server and not hosting your own then you will be fine and still able to access it.

What mobile carrier are you with?   I have smarty as my mobile carrier and they use CGNAT.  Whichever carrier you are on, you could check to see if they use CGNAT and if they do, see if you can access the remote Emby server when not using your wifi.  You can then be confident that it will work on your new ISP.

Basically, it only really affects things that you port forward and it doesn't sound like you have anything like that.   Eufy works fine with CGNAT (I can access mine fine on my smarty mobile SIM when out and about).

I have a jellyfin (very similar to Emby) server that I don't expose directly on the internet using port forwarding.  I use something called tailscale instead - this means that only I can access the server and I can't share it with anyone else unless I add them to my tailscale network (which I'm not going to do).

My Tado heating works fine on Smarty without tailscale.   However, my home cameras (about 13 years old) require port forwarding so they won't work unless I use tailscale.

Basically, if your devices don't require you to forward a port to work then they'll be fine.

I do hasten to add that I do not use gaming or anything that requires a low latency ping so I can't comment on that.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Peter,

This gives me more confidence and helps massively. We're on Lebara, so will give that a go for added peace of mind.

My other option is to go with Vodafone for Broadband, but I really dont like the 24month term and the annual price increases and past customer support from them. 

I need to read up more on Tailscale as it keeps cropping up in my research. I'm assuming this would work on the likes of Google TV devices lime Chromecast. 

I don't game so latency isn't going to be an issue for that.

Peter999_2

Glad I could help.   To be honest, in your shoes, I would go for the cheapest option.   I had City Fibre 1Gbps up and down from 2015 when I lived in York and it was great.    I used a few different providers over the years with City Fibre and even the cheap ones were fine.

Tailscale is very useful, it's a really fancy VPN using wireguard.     My network is 192.168.1.* and my parents are on 192.168.5.*.   I can talk to anything on my parents network (I can fix their Windows Media Centre, re-boot their router etc. without any port forwarding).   It's very easy to setup as it does most of it for you.

I have a router that has a built in tailscale server but you can just use a raspberry pi instead that is permanently on.

Good luck with your decision.

dreamypuma

Peter999_2 said:

Glad I could help.   To be honest, in your shoes, I would go for the cheapest option.   I had City Fibre 1Gbps up and down from 2015 when I lived in York and it was great.    I used a few different providers over the years with City Fibre and even the cheap ones were fine.

Tailscale is very useful, it's a really fancy VPN using wireguard.     My network is 192.168.1.* and my parents are on 192.168.5.*.   I can talk to anything on my parents network (I can fix their Windows Media Centre, re-boot their router etc. without any port forwarding).   It's very easy to setup as it does most of it for you.

I have a router that has a built in tailscale server but you can just use a raspberry pi instead that is permanently on.

Good luck with your decision.

Thanks Peter. I remember being envious of York, when TalkTalk had their early fibre network, so glad City Fibre has finally reached Leeds, and the contract timing allows us to finally jump ship.

One final question. Lets assume I am downloading "Linux distros" using torrents and Surfshark VPN. Would something like that be impacted by CGNAT? 

Peter999_2

Yes, torrents will be affected by CGNAT as you won't be able to accept inbound connections.     It won't affect you on linux distros but if you are on any private trackers you would probably have fewer people connecting to you so if you use a site with a share ratio it will suffer.  

If you are just using Surfshark VPN for privacy or hiding your real location (such as connecting to the US to use services that aren't normally available in the uk) then you would be fine.     I use NordVPN myself and that works fine for privacy/location changing on CGNAT.

dreamypuma

Peter999_2 said:

Yes, torrents will be affected by CGNAT as you won't be able to accept inbound connections.     It won't affect you on linux distros but if you are on any private trackers you would probably have fewer people connecting to you so if you use a site with a share ratio it will suffer.  

If you are just using Surfshark VPN for privacy or hiding your real location (such as connecting to the US to use services that aren't normally available in the uk) then you would be fine.     I use NordVPN myself and that works fine for privacy/location changing on CGNAT.

Thanks you're a star!