In reply to a post by pluralist:

As Zarjaz says, just removing equipment from the extension sockets isn't the important bit. They have to be disconnected at the NTE.

Pulling out the front bottom half of the NTE3 should have disconnected the phone line but left the broadband spur of Cat5e connected. For some reason, it disconnected the lot, so I think that when FTTC was installed, the OR guy changed the box and redid the connections differently from how I had them set up. Since it all worked, I never bothered checking it. The original faceplate was from ADSL Nation.

To refresh my memory, the detachable lower part of the faceplate is the filtered section, so anything plugged into that should be filtered. Also if I plugged an old phone into the BT style socket revealed behind, I should get a dial tone and be able to call in and out. The upper RJ11 socket is unfiltered and used for broadband.

The Drayteks use a Lantiq (now Intel), chipset. The cabinet is Broadcom which may explain the drop in sync. My guess is that AVM also use Lantiq but don't know for sure.

In reply to a post by Tacitus:

Thanks for trying Seb. There does seem very little information around as to chip type in today's Modems. I think the Fritz range also use Mediatek. I was rather put off by their idea of a visible, though locked port being 'stealth mode'.

Someone just suggested this to me:
https://openwrt.org/_media/toh_dump_tab_separated.gz

I'm not quite sure if the VDSL chipset may be different but it may be worth looking at.

seb

Nice find Seb. Unfortunately, my model Zyxel isn't there, otherwise, I'd have tried flashing it with OpenWRT. It works perfectly but hasn't been updated for a long while, which makes me think it's time for a change.

I will check the table to see if there are any other models with Broadcom since it is Broadcom at the cabinet end, which does appear to make a significant difference.

Hello Tacitus,

The Draytek V2860/2862 (small business class) routers and the Vigor 130 stand-alone modem use the Lantiq (Infineon) VRX chipset.
Specifically the VRX268 for the VoIP enabled models (which includes a 2-channel VoIP ATA) and the VRX266 for all of the other variants.

These used to be my “go to” routers for my SMB customers.

However, after a while, I stopped using the built-in VDSL2 modem, connecting them to the Internet via a Huawei HG612 modem (which has a Broadcom 6368 chipset), via the WAN-2 Ethernet port.
The reason being that that the Lantiq VRX modem would, on average, sync at 2 to 3 Mbps below a Broadcom equivalent.

All the best,

In reply to a post by bit_bucket:

The Draytek V2860/2862 (small business class) routers and the Vigor 130 stand-alone modem use the Lantiq (Infineon) VRX chipset.
Specifically the VRX268 for the VoIP enabled models (which includes a 2-channel VoIP ATA) and the VRX266 for all of the other variants.

These used to be my “go to” routers for my SMB customers.

However, after a while, I stopped using the built-in VDSL2 modem, connecting them to the Internet via a Huawei HG612 modem (which has a Broadcom 6368 chipset), via the WAN-2 Ethernet port.
The reason being that that the Lantiq VRX modem would, on average, sync at 2 to 3 Mbps below a Broadcom equivalent.

This is a 2763ac, and I'm sure iuses a Lantiq. Whilst the sync speed is almost 4 Mbps down, it does appear to be stable so far. It's the max attainable that's really dropped. It was around 42 with the Zyxel/Broadcom and is now around 33/34, which is a significant drop on this line.

I've also tried an ex-Zen Fritz 7530. AVM won't say, but I think it also uses Lantiq and does give similar results. Apart from that, it's a decent piece of kit for domestic use, but why they say it is in stealth mode when they leave Port113 visible but closed remains a mystery.

I have got an early HG612 somewhere, so it might be worth playing with that.