New router time

Hello helpful souls.

My current router is a Billion 7402R2 (Argon 432) that has served me well with UK Online and now seems to be working well with Xilo (Pro 24 - Tiscalli - Globespan chipset). The problem is I now require Wi-Fi and don't really want to just tack an access point onto it.

Would ideally like to keep under £100 but I could probably stretch to £130 or so. Decent QoS, at least 2 GbE ports (although only 2 would be pushing it), 802.11n (5Ghz? dual band?), IPv6 (can't be that far away can it? ) and ideally the ability to tweak the line (set margin etc.). Dual WAN would be neat should I ever get FTTP but I'm probably living in dream land with that one. x)

Am I forgetting anything feature-wise? Hopefully something can meet those requirements (or come close) and not be any slower than my current router.

My stats are:

Text
1 23 45	-                 Downstream Upstream Speed             19862993   877744SNR Margin         6.5 dB     7.0 dB Line Attenuation  28.5 dB    16.5 dBCRC Errors         0          0

Who's good on build quality these days? I hear about overheating Netgears lately. The Billion 7800N looks good on paper but people seem to be having a few issues on the whirlpool.net.au forums. Seems to be well liked elsewhere but I'm not going to assume it's good just because my current one is, and that's not perfect.

Edited by e102gamma (Thu 25-Nov-10 11:54:19)

I've been running with a Billion 7800N for the last 4 or 5 months and it's absolutely fine. It's holding a faster ADSL2+ connection than my old Speedtouch 585 v6 (1164/16855kbps) despite the downstream SNR margin being only around 2.5 . The connection is rock solid and wireless is good. YMMV, of course, but I'm very happy with it.

p

Thanks for that. I may well take a punt on it.

If you do and it comes with firmware version 1.05, ask Billion UK Support for 1.06a. My experience is that they will happily send it to you even though they haven't yet got around to putting it up on their website for download.

p

I'm used to Billion UK's strange reluctance to supply firmwares but thanks for the reminder. I normally just get them from the Aussie site, which seem to be compatible but I don't know if that would apply to the 7800N. I guess asking support would be safer.

edit: Seems you can get it directly:
http://www.billion.uk.com/firmware/78xx/7800N/UKBill...
It looks like they just don't link to it on their site, which is odd.

Edited by e102gamma (Thu 25-Nov-10 23:25:09)

Thanks. Didn't know that. Wonder how long that's been there? Presumably wasn't there when UK Support sent me a copy, otherwise they'd have just given me the link.

As a matter of interest, how did you find it? As far as I can see, you get a 403 error message if you try to access www.billion.uk.com/firmware/ .

p

It was posted in the reviews on broadbandbuyer.co.uk on 21st October. We can try fiddling with the URL the next time a firmware is released.

The router arrived today. It's not syncing as high as the 7402R2, about 4Mb lower even after tweaking the noise margin. I guess I can live with it for the sake of Wi-Fi access. Besides, less than a week ago I was quite happy on 8Mb with UK Online. x)

Edited by e102gamma (Sat 27-Nov-10 15:18:03)

A new firmware has been released - 1.06b. I've yet to try it but you can grab the zip and corresponding release notes here.

The changes:

1. Correct ADSL sync rate information with SNMP; the value is same as WEB page. Also, show 0 instead of the
2. Support more TR069 objects (TR069 version)
3. Fix issue whereby dhcp server will stop if the “Fixed Host” name contains space character
4. Fix issue whereby too many P2P sessions might slow down normal traffic
5. Fix some IPsec issue (7800GZ)
6. Fix issue whereby the 3G usage page might not be correct while HTTP port is non-80 (7800GZ)
7. Add Static DNS
8. Add IPsec NAT Traversal (7800GZ)
9. Allow 0.0.0.0 as the remote part field on the IPsec page (7800GZ)
10. Fix issue whereby IPsec Domain Name on the IPsec can’t reconnect
11. Fix inconsistent hostname value with SNMP and WEB page
12. Fix issuev whereby 3G usage doesn't work correctly if user manually disconnects/connects the data call while
13. Fix issue whereby WEB logout doesn't work under some circumstances.

Edited by e102gamma (Sat 01-Jan-11 18:03:42)