I currently use an Asus AC68u, and they do have a dsl variant of it. Unfortunately I was about to upgrade it to an AC86U due to the hugely more powerful processor on it which is great for vpn, and I dont think that one does come in a dsl version otherwise it would be problem solved!

I would recommend declining any ISP offered modem (if possible) or selling it. Especially if you plan on using your own router.
Buy your own VDSL2 modem with a Broadcom chipset. They seem to perform best on most lines and give very detailed statistics.

If this sounds appealing to you I'm sure you could get some very good recommendations. Myself i like the Zyxel range of modems. The highest syncing on my line (I've tried about a dozen) is the Zyxel VMG1312-B10A.

In reply to a post by Ewok:

I currently use an Asus AC68u, and they do have a dsl variant of it. Unfortunately I was about to upgrade it to an AC86U due to the hugely more powerful processor on it which is great for vpn, and I dont think that one does come in a dsl version otherwise it would be problem solved!

I advise with all my might you avoid the Asus DSL-AC68U.
It has a Mediatek chipset that performs very poorly. OpenReach recently disabled retransmission on these devices so would cost you quite a bit of sync.

The Asus DSL-AC88U has a Broadcom chipset and I would highly recommend that.

I can recommend UNO for ping/download and stability in peak periods.

Yeah I just did a very quick search for got these 3 listed https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/store/modems/vdsl-fib...

will need to do a lot more research if this is what I have to do.

I wouldnt get the dsl version, it would be paying a load of money for the same thing I already have just with a modem bolted on it. the 88 I might have to consider but I am thinking a modem on its own and my own router behind it might be better.

I have AAISP £35 200GB FTTC, with Pulse8 line at £14pm including basic 1571 and Caller ID.

I'm quite a low user. But you may not have seen that if in any month you don't use all your quota, half of what you didn't use is added to next month's. This is cumulative. Being a low user, as I said, I started January with 360GB, and February with 366GB .

You cannot do these things no, you will need to buy a new device of some kind. The easiest fix is to buy a legacy Openreach modem e.g. a HG612, it will work, but it's lacking some of the newer standards. This will act as your modem, so plug the router into here.

(Assuming BT). Setup the router to connect with the following details. Not sure if your Merlin device supports this, but I am sure it will.
Username: [email protected]
Password: BT
VLAN: 101
VPI: 1
VCI: 32

Yes your experience of VM is very lucky indeed, we are not this fortunate in London (tried it in 3 properties now). Pings are like 35+, plenty of areas "high utilization which is service affecting" with the fix dates being pushed back over 2 years. 360P streaming on an evening, YouTube struggling with 144P on Sunday evenings. Granted, they let me leave, twice.

Once you are up and running I confident you will be happy, albeit at slighty lower speeds, but in all honesty I do 4K streaming, netflix, Sky Q 4K downloads, we have iPads, laptops, chromecasts, fire TV Sticks, 2 Sky Q HD boxes on the WiFi, smart tvs, ps4s, xbox, Wii, basically all the tech and it works wonderfully. I have 38Mbps and I do not feel the need for anything faster right now, we can do more than 1 4K stream at once.

I just checked out adsl modems here and it looks like i can ggrab a relatively chepa oe if need be https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/store/modems/vdsl-fib...

Get an official one of ebay e.g. HG612, the third party ones leave plenty to be desired. I have seen some lines get banded quite heavily with the netgear one for instance, banding is basically irreversible nowadays, I saw the line go from 70Mbps on a HG612 to banding of 25Mbps, they went back to the HG612 and the banding was removed 1 year later. BT argued rightly it was just within the fault threshold as the line was estimated 40 to 50Mbps with a min of 20.

The third party ones also do not have the reliability of the BT ones which literally never crash.

A bunch here:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0...

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 18-Feb-18 22:25:47)

The HG612 however is very long in the tooth in two ways. Simple age, and cheap modems degrade, and secondly it definitely sync's several Mbps lower than more modern ones.

AAISP supply (if required) the ZyXel VMG1312-B10D, which doesn't have the B10A IPv6 problem. It can be used in modem-only mode to customer routers.