Reccomended Router/Modem Combination for p2p

We've been with Plusnet for a year now, most using the bundled Technicolor TG582n, the routers features and software seem pretty good, but I wish the same could be said about its reliability.

To give you an idea, we have an ADSL1 service syncing at 1.3mbps, we are very far away from the exchange and have always had internet connectivity problems.

At home despite this, as a family were pretty heavy users, often with several computers at the same time, gaming, streaming, browsing, syncing etc

On top of this, we all use P2P often and whenever many people are using the internet, or if there are downloads/syncing going on, the internet becomes unusable for others.

I have been trying to put an end to our problems, once or twice ive tried using a TP-Link router we previously owned, but sadly that suffers from often freezing up and although it seems to be more reliable with the connection to ADSL. It will often restart or chug when downloading via p2p.

So can anyone recommend a combo of a modem/router? I don't mind if its separate or an all in one device. I have heard in most cases separates are more reliable.

It needs to be reliable and cope with many connections AND keep our unreliable connection up as much as possible. I have read for the latter we need to opt for a Broadcom based model. I am willing to pay for reliability, so budget isn't too much of a concern. AS LONG as its reasonable value for money.

Help us enjoy our internet pain free, for once

Your problem is not with router; you have too many users using too narrow bandwidth. only by cutting down on no. of simultaneous users can you get a decent performance.

I agree with XRaySpeX - the original poster is expecting far too good a multi-tasking experience for the limited 1.3/0.45 Mbit/s connection he has. The obvious answer is to limit any P2P activity to the night time, when the connection is not otherwise in use.

A router with more sophisticated QoS features may give a slightly better interactive experience if the issue is upstream saturation, but on such a slow connection downstream saturation is likely to be the predominant issue. In other words, I think any money spent on a 'better' router is a waste of money.

If the family really are making as heavy a demand on their connection as described and there's no hope of fibre or another fast service in the future, it may be worth considering a second connection for some of the traffic.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/hardware/reviews/78-as...

No idea of the performance on long lines, but the QoS side might be useful to share out what little capacity they have.

Can you post the line stats from the router in use > http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

As others have said it looks like the connection can't cope with heavy use all at the same time, the router from PN might not be great for multiple wireless use either i.e. connection will be lost at times, when put under heavy demand.

Unfortunately I am away from home at the moment, so I can't gather my line stats. What I can tell you however is given our stats, the bt engineers who have visited have mentioned that were lucky to get internet at all, along with various isps telling us that our connection stats are some of the worst they have ever seen, so we are well and truly at end of the line or bottom of the barrel, whichever way you wish to look at it.

I realise of course that there are limits dependant on my total bandwidth and perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my OP, but I am not trying to download, stream a movie or game at the same time.

I'm talking about simple scenarios. For example, I can be gaming online whilst my sister turns on her PC. Once her PC turns on, her Dropbox syncs. This in turn results of disconnection from my gaming server. Web browsing works, just anything else won't. The same may happen if someone is watching a youtube video, suddenly I cannot gaming anymore because the latency shoots so high.

Another example: After a while of p2p downloading or heavy use, the router remains connected to its clients, both wirelessly or wired, but it seems to no longer relay dns servers correctly. When this happens the opposite occurs, tasks that don't require dns such as skype calls, gaming etc work. However web browsing doesn't. Not until you specify manually alternate dns address' on each client or wait an hour or so for it to somehow fix itself, OR reboot the modem/router.

Another example would be my father connecting via his vpn. Sometimes he just can't connect using the Plusnet router. This is something that plusnet have admitted to not being able to solve, despite being in touch with there customer support about it previously.

Even on Xilo before we changed to plusnet, these problems weren't apparent. Although we did suffer from our old router from freezing/breaking due to many p2p connections.

What i'm really looking for is something that will make the best out of both worlds. I have used QoS shaping before on my tp-link, but it was very complicated to set up, it did seem to offer some benefit though.

Now with Plusnet themselves also using QoS (or traffic shaping) shouldn't I expect it to prioritise gaming traffic over downloads? Shouldn't i expect a better internet experience?

This experience sounds wrong. PM me your username and we'll have a look.

Well Kelly I sent you a pm I hope you can do something because our customer service experience with plusnet hasn't really fulfilled the company slogans so far. "We'll do you proud", "best customer service". That hasn't been our experience at all.

I've just looked at your account and I can immediately see what could be the problem. :/

Have you tried the simplest test of all, the Phone Line Quiet Test?

If not, plug the simplest, CORDED phone you have, into the Master socket (removing all other connections temporarily), with an ADSL Splitter dongle included.

Dial 17070, selecting Option 2 "Quiet Test"; and listen.

At best, you should hear "nothing".

The noises can be various - "snap, crackle, pop", humming, tones etc, intermittent or continuous etc.

If you do hear any noise, report it to your PHONE Provider, who may be your BB provider; or some other party.

Do NOT mention Broadband.

--------------------------------------------

Also try to track your Phone Line physically in principle, particularly as you have indicated that it is lengthy, so likely to have several joints etc in it.

Get some idea of the likely Phone Line Length.

You may be able to get this by using the BE BRAS Test; but unfortunately it does not work for all lines-

http://windows.mouselike.org/be/?DoAction=BrasChecker

If it does work and also provides a Cabinet Number - make a note of this.

Also get some idea of the following two distances-

1) Point-to-point from the Exchange to your house

2) The (main) road distance from the Exchange to your house

If you can locate the numbered Cabinet, does it lie beyond your house relative to the Exchange, or closer.

Obviously there is little that can be done to the routing of your phone line (other than repair/remaking) of joints; but you will have a better idea of where it runs and be better able to assess where problems may arise.

In my own case, the cabinet is about 25 metres away directly across the road - BUT "my line" from the cabinet to my house is about 125 metres long, as it goes via a small, inconspicuous, jointing box about 50 metres away at right-angles to the "obvious" straight line route.

Strangely, the cabinet is directly outside a neighbours garden, so apparently shorter; but the records show that the neighbour's phone line is about 1340 Metres long!

So where does it wander to locally?

We've adjusted your profile to see if that helps things(it should), let us know how it goes.

I've run a few checks on your line and there has been a slight increase in errors of late, nothing to much but with the length of your line you may see a greater adverse effect than you would on a shorter line.

If there's no improvement then I think we need to look at getting an engineer out and I'll provide them with the details from your last fault.

It should be the test socket inside the master, and without the dongle. Also all other sockets should stop working with the master faceplate removed.

Apart from your current issues, have you made sure your phone wiring is optimised? That can make a huge difference to connection speeds and error rates.

A major factor is the Ring/Bell wire. It has been known for removal of that at the master end, (normally the extension ends don't matter), to add up to 2Mbps sync.

Also have a read through my Miscellaneous nasties page and see if any apply to your setup.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 03-Oct-13 11:24:47)

Agreed fully that it should be the Test Socket, exposed after removing the Faceplate.

However, the Test Socket being directly on the incoming Phone Line should have the full range of signals, from Audio upwards over the full spectrum of Broadband, hence my suggesting the use of a typical Splitter dongle, so that the Corded (Test) Phone is not fed with the BB signals, which may or may not create some form of inter- or cross-modulation noise.

That's an interesting one.

I've never seen it suggested before, but wouldn't like to contradict. Maybe try both ways.

Always best, simplest to remove as many variables as poss out of the equation = Occam's Razor?

In this case, the faceplate and the filter/splitter.

Thanks guys, I consider myself an expert now when it comes to broadband problems and a long time ago learnt I'mthat we had to always have our modern/router connected directly to the test socket.

To cut a long story short some years ago a bt engineer discovered that our test socket at home wasn't actually the test socket. The line was incorrectly installed by the builder of the house and the location of the test socket wasn't at the front of the house but in a different room. As a result of our incorrect wiring the engineer has disconnected all the other sockets of the house and installed a bt splitter front plate for us.

I can't hear any noise on the line when the phones plugged in, I've even rung the bt test number to check.

In reply to Kelly, our profile has been changed so many times before, but I'm not home at the moment to test. The problems I mention; loss of dns/loss of internet connectivity. Disconnects during heavy use I don't think are related to the quality of the line but instead the router. I don't really think you can offer any help with the router itself can you? Given the issues I have had I deem that the supplied router is not fit for purpose and was chosen by plusnet for ease of integration rather than reliability. On top of this the plusnet firmware removes a lot of advance settings only accessible from the command line.

I actually have plusnet in a different location too, but instead with a 17mbps adsl2 connection. The story with the loss of dns/connectivity is the same there during heavy load. The capacity of connections the modern/router can take seems to be abysmal. Which is why I'm looking for a better alternative.

Have you got the latest firmware for your router? You can find them here.

Does your router perform any better if you close your P2P programs down and then reboot, or are you able to try this?