Interesting install - no Openreach modem

I had an install done in North London this morning. The Openreach engineer asked if the router was fibre compatible (FTTC) and when I told him it was he said that was good as he'd already plugged the RJ11 cable from it into the wall socket. He didn't even bother getting the Openreach modem out of the box or suggest using it.

I logged onto the router to see if we had a connection and it was all up and running.

The BT Wholesale ADSL checker estimate was for a download speed of 68.4Mbps and upload of up to 20Mbps.

The Draytek 2850n shows a line sync of 79984kbps down and 19999kbps up.

Attainable rate down is 127115kbps and up is 43215kbps. If only Profile 30a was available. This was the fastest the engineer had seen to date.

I suspect this is one of the first connections into the cabinet so it's going to be interesting to see how speeds drop over time as more connections are made. and crosstalk increases.

The Openreach engineer left the modem just in case there were faults which needed sorting ut. He did comment that he liked Draytek routers

It's going to be interesting to see how long it will be before BT offers a wires only product and no longer requires the use of an Openreach modem. I think today's experience was a good sign.

Edited by caffn8me (Thu 08-Aug-13 23:15:46)

That Draytek is pretty expensive. for that price I would want it to be gold plated

The Draytek's pretty cheap compared to the Cisco 887VA I use on another FTTC connection (also without Openreach modem).

This is for business use and credit card processing from handheld terminals is done over this connection so we need a robust solution. We also have 3G backup via a USB dongle which works very nicely. That's something even the Cisco can't do.

Edited by caffn8me (Thu 08-Aug-13 23:09:12)

If you need it for business and credit card processing then yes you need something that is robust. I still think it is a lot of money.

I suppose all in one VDSL unit are few and far between as well, so they can inflate the prices at the moment.

The impending introduction of the HomeHub 5 and no doubt other VDSL router/modems from other ISP's would suggest that wires only FTTC is just around the corner

With wires only we shall see a return of the micro-filter and all the attendant problems with customer wiring that plague many ADSL installations.

Still it all makes work for the working man /woman to do.

Edited by deleted (Fri 09-Aug-13 08:10:00)

In reply to a post by caffn8me:

I had an install done in North London this morning. The Openreach engineer asked if the router was fibre compatible (FTTC) and when I told him it was he said that was good as he'd already plugged the RJ11 cable from it into the wall socket. He didn't even bother getting the Openreach modem out of the box or suggest using it.

The only question I would have is if this actually a correct install. Wires only is a good move, but if its not yet officially launched, then hopefully they left the modem with you in case?

e.g. you might find the DLM and the Draytek "fight" over something really obscure, and the line performance degrades, as we've read about Draytek VDSL in this BBS before.

In reply to a post by caffn8me:

... the Cisco 887VA I use on another FTTC connection (also without Openreach modem).

This is for business use and credit card processing from handheld terminals is done over this connection so we need a robust solution.

My bold.

BT have requirements for 3rd party modems that will be used on an FTTC connection (I think they relate mainly to vectoring, but don't know the details).

Does the 887VA meet those requirements?

It doesn't seem to be any problem at the moment- to the best of my knowledge BT's DSLAMs haven't declined to connect to anyone using a non-compliant modem, but in the future... who knows?

It might be worth further investigation now, in case you find you have to do it in one hell of a hurry one day!

In reply to a post by jchamier:

The only question I would have is if this actually a correct install. Wires only is a good move, but if its not yet officially launched, then hopefully they left the modem with you in case?

It's been launched on a limited basis, to allow trials and stuff.

In reply to a post by caffn8me:

This is for business use and credit card processing from handheld terminals is done over this connection so we need a robust solution. We also have 3G backup via a USB dongle which works very nicely. That's something even the Cisco can't do.

Still overpriced IMO. A £10 router with a free OS on it can do all that, and is just as robust, if not more so. All this enterprise branded stuff is just hogwash. I get more disconnects and reboots on Cisco 2602's than on a £5 router running an alpha version of Openwrt.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

... then hopefully they left the modem with you in case?

Wakey, wakey .

In reply to a post by caffn8me:

The Openreach engineer left the modem just in case there were faults which needed sorting ut.