My mom and dads Techicolor (supplied by Utility Warehouse) has only lasted a year or so, whereas my Drayek at home has been going strong for around 5 years now. Although all the LEDs on the front are going nutty at the moment.

Edited by kebabselector (Wed 14-Dec-16 11:32:33)

My previous modem was Netgear DG834G, which I finally stopped using this year after switching to VDSL. That thing was running 24/7 and lasted a decade. I'm hoping my new TP Link one will last at least half that long.

In my opinion most failures are down to thermal issues, either on components, as has been suggested, or on solder joints.

The use of BGA devices without proper consideration for matching thermal expansion of the PCB must surely contribute to failures and intermittent operation.

The domestic environment is not as well controlled as you may think.
Equipment placed in enclosed spaces, cabinets near radiators, etc.
Dust must be a contributing factor too.

My Q-Hub provided by Sky is peppered with cooling holes - it ought to be supplied with a can of aerosol dusting spay.

For me it has been the variation in temperature that has seen a router off. After going away over Christmas one year with just trace heating in the house, on return my Linksys router had lost its Ethernet ports.

The mother in law still uses a Netgear DG834GT which was provided by Sky in their early days, maybe around 2007?.

She's never changed package or moved provider since then, and actually still pays line rental to BT, something Sky haven't allowed for a while.

Edited by troublegum (Wed 14-Dec-16 16:33:46)

Vigor 2600 that's been in continual use 24/7 since it was brand spanking new in November 2002 ... and (much to my continual amazement) it's no more or less cranky today than it was at day one despite the fact that it's always run stupidly hot ! The only maintenance has been an occasional hoovering to unblock the vents on one of those rare occasions that I remember to check whether it's still looking reasonably happy.

Had a couple of Solwise SAR-715 routers that worked fine through the 500K, 2 Meg, and ADSL max eras, and right up until ADSL2+ forced them into retirement. I can't remember exactly when the routers' individual exchanges went 21CN, but it's roughly 20 years combined use.

We'll never know how long they could have lasted.