Replacing HG612 with..?

I'm considering replacing my aging HG612+Billion 6300 setup with a new combined box. No particular reason other than these boxes don't last forever so better to replace now before one of them fails in service (the HG612 is coming up to four years old). I can relegate my two current boxes to backup status.

At the moment I'm leaning toward a Billion 8800 R2 simply because my current router has done a pretty good job but does anyone have any other suggestions? I don't want to spend stupid money and my cab is a Huawei.

An up to date list of modems and modem routers approved by Openreach can be found at https://uno.help/knowledge-base/article/openreach-ap...

If you choose a setup not on this list, hang onto HG612 so you can use it in the event of a fault.

If you don't mind splashing out £200, then the TP Link VR2600 is currently the best broadcom based all-in-one router. Its a 4 stream Mu-Mimo router and uses Qualcomm Atheros radios (QCA). Otherwise the TP Link VR900 is an excellent cheaper alternative at £99 its a 3 stream router and also uses a BCM chipset.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/aan/TP-LINK-Archer-VR2600...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-Archer-VR900-Connec...

One problem is that the VR2600 and I believe also the VR900 doesn't work with BT Consumer's implementation of IPv6 and TP-LINK have indicated that they know their firmware is broken but have no intention of upgrading it. Hopefully this may change as more UK users move to IPv6 but for now I'm not holding my breath.

I might have the ZyXel VMG1312 working OK on AAISP now, and that has user-set prefix lengths. IIRC the prefix length is the BT problem with other routers? Slight difficulty with the tbb BQM on IPv6 but just about solved that I hope.

The problem with my VR2600 on BT Consumer VDSL is that IPv6 isn't seemingly available with no WAN IPv6 address allocated rather than the the prefix problem mentioned in some posts on the BT forums regarding another TP-Link model and is possibly more a LAN side problem. If I plug in the BT SmartHub I immediately get allocated IPv6 addresses.

My problem is compounded by my not knowing enough about IPv6 to properly troubleshoot what is/is not happening.

I'll go back to your thread and reread. Otherwise we both hijack this one. I don't seem to have an IPv6 problem as such, just frequently changing address so messing up BQM. Now been running about eight hours, never managed more than two or three before.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 03-Dec-16 09:27:58)

In reply to a post by MCM:

One problem is that the VR2600 and I believe also the VR900 doesn't work with BT Consumer's implementation of IPv6 and TP-LINK have indicated that they know their firmware is broken but have no intention of upgrading it. Hopefully this may change as more UK users move to IPv6 but for now I'm not holding my breath.

I had a reply from a TP-Link technical support engineer yesterday which acknowledged that their devices don't currently support /56 IPv6 delegation but said they "will include this in the next firmware update ASAP". Which sounds promising, although it doesn't tell us which models and how quickly. In my case, it's a VR600 which needs sorting out.

p

Thanks for the replies. The expensive routers are just too much money. My maximum spend is £100 and there has to be something special to justify even that. TP-Link is probably out because that was another I bought back when I was trying to find an IPv6 router. It was sold as 'IPv6 ready' but it wasn't dual stack. When I contacted support they told me it wasn't ever likely to be dual stack :-/

So it's looking like it'll be the Billion at the moment, but suggestions are still welcome

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I'll go back to your thread and reread. Otherwise we both hijack this one. I don't seem to have an IPv6 problem as such, just frequently changing address so messing up BQM. Now been running about eight hours, never managed more than two or three before.

You see this is the kind of annoying thing I went through back in '12. I went through four routers before I found one that was dual stack IPv6 and stable. That's another vote from me for Billion. My 6300 worked out of the box and never seemed to be bothered by IPv6. Maybe IDNet's implementation was just that good but I'm kind of despairing if four years later router manufacturers are still struggling.

But as I'm still with Plusnet IPv6 support isn't essential <sad smile>.

Edited by Andrue (Sat 03-Dec-16 19:16:42)

I've got the first version of the Billion 8800NL and it's superb for the price. I've seen it hold a PPP session for over 70 days.

I believe the R2 is more or less the same but with external antennae, although I think the first version looks a little better.

Edited by troublegum (Sat 03-Dec-16 21:03:06)

prinknash: Thanks for that update.

See my IPv6 BQM. IPv4 one is the dualstacked one on the same connection. Got it sorted about 24 hours ago. The breaks since then have been me experimenting to see if I had applied overkill. I hadn't!

This is a ZyXel VMG1312-B10A. However there is a chance of it just falling over after two or three days. I'll deal with that if it happens.

Most of the problems were because I had no clue about IPv6 and although I was on the Plusnet trial I now know it was a very noddy trial and shouldn't have been available to "public" customers.

They'll have learnt very little from it as from my experience they were handing out a single static IPv6 address, so a very simple implementation.

Ah. IDNet seemed a very competent implementation. We all got a /56 and it worked. I'd like to go back to them one day but despite their recent price changes it's still just too much money. PN have their issues but £22pcm is hard to ignore.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

My maximum spend is £100 and there has to be something special to justify even that.

Have a look at the Asus DSL-AC68U. It's dropped to about that price on some places. I just got mine from Amazon two weeks ago.

In reply to a post by ohit:

In reply to a post by Andrue:

My maximum spend is £100 and there has to be something special to justify even that.

Have a look at the Asus DSL-AC68U. It's dropped to about that price on some places. I just got mine from Amazon two weeks ago.

Well good luck with the DSL-68U...you're going to need it. It's a horrible router, very unstable especially on a FTTC connection. Something to do with the notorious mediatek dsl chipset.

It has run brilliant for me.

35 pages of user complaints here
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,14399.510.html

Understood. Maybe I've just been lucky: so far, latest firmware, it has been fine for me (albeit just a few days)