But most want everything as cheap as possible and then complain it is not good enough. Modems that can just about handle 100Mbps, hubs and routers that have only got 100Mbps Ethernet, Customer service in India, 7 day response/repair times &c &c &c. Costs have to be cut somewhere to give the short-sighted what they demand. Every penny that can be shaved off the easier it is to meet the target price.

Are you aware that there is an Openreach specification for the capabilites an non-Openreach modem must have, once they allow them at all.

also to keep users upgrading, by making sure the hardware isnt too future proof.

as now days routers dont typically really offer much in terms of new features, just paying really for more power and maybe better wireless.

my asus is defenitly backwards on my billion for features but is 2-3 years newer in release date.
the fritz which is considered very good by many I find very lacking in features for a router.
the only new router on the market for vdsl2 which has what I consider proper features for a power user is the draytek 2850gn and even that router is over £200 new and doesnt even have sim dual band wireless so lacks future proofing on hardware side.

for a router/modem with the chipset asbokid reccomends it seems the cheap tg789n mentioned on here the other day uses broadcom.

If you want chipset to match dslam I would get tg789n for hg dslam and fritz 3370 (maybe) for eci dslam. As both those devices match chipset with dslams. the fritz 7390 has a different chipset that doesnt match.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sat 27-Apr-13 21:24:44)

It really bugs me how so much hardware still only has 100Mbps ports, surely 1Gbps hardware doesn't cost that much more, and if all manufacturers switched to using that as the minimum spec prices would come down anyway - presuming demand didn't exceed supply.

It really does come down to a penny here, a penny there ... or even a tenth of a penny!

A friend was a Cost and Management Accountant at Ford (UK) and he had responsibility for continually looking at costs of vehicles, approving changes through to setting the wholesale prices. If he could find a way to save a pound on a vehicle he would.

I have the Fritz! 7390 on a BT Infinity2 connection and I get superb results, but then I am only about 340m away from the cab, I am awaiting a reply from their tech people with regards to vectoring, as some here think it may not be compatible. There have also been reports of it not being very good if the supplied modem is the ECI rather than the Huawei

There is also a thread here about the same thing:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/showthread.php/31226...

+1 for the 7390 on a BT Wholesale FTTC connection. FWIW, I had a modem issue with my 2=year old F!B 7390 and AVM replaced it with a new item without any argument whatsoever.

I think by the time vectoring is rolled out, my trusty F!B may well be due for retirement.

Well I've only had mine about a year now, and I've only had to reboot it once, I've seen in the log it occasionally loses the sync but regains it very quickly, without me noticing it.

Hopefully they will come back to me with an answer to the vectoring, because I think BT may be pushing ahead with this sooner rather than later. AVM are a bit slow sometimes in answering tech questions, probably down to language difficulties. There is also a possibility of a new firmware update so don't know if that will offer any solutions

in response to my previous post which I cant edit now, of course a hg622 modem would do also with broadcom chipset. or even a hg612 in router mode.

bear in mind the 7390 is defenitly overkill on price if you dont need the phone functions, as a router its only slightly better than the 3370 which is half the cost. Plus the 3370 uses a newer dsl chipset (the 3370 is a newer gen fritzbox than 7390) that matches the chipset used in eci dslams.