Best router for low use, stable (fault finding!) connection

Hello,
I need to get a router for a client who is connected with PlusNet at a property miles away where I don't get to. The connection is very unreliable. We are, of course, being batted around by PlusNet and BT (someone else's fault), and I want to try another bit of equipment before we take it further.

Can anyone recommend a good router that I could programme, give to my client to plug in, and just know that it's doing what it should?

Thanks!

The Netgear DG834G is always a good choice. It's very good at keeping Sync'd on unstable/noisy lines as I well know!!

You can also setup Remote Administration on it and connect to it directly to check stats etc - assuming he's got a ststic IP that is

One point though, try to get the DG834G v3 though as the chipset they use is slightly better than previous/future releases on noisy lines.

I am now using a 2 wire 2700hg-b on a very long line seams to be good

but my old non wi-fi netgear 834 v3 was great and with routerstats it can be very eay to see the drops etc.

You might consider using the RouterTech Firmware on a compatible router. This even comes with alternative line drivers, etc. And you have the option of turning on control from the WAN-side, letting you examine it for them.

You might get similar benefits from other 3rd party firmwares.

For my rural connection (fixed speed) with many miles to the exchange I'm happy with a Broadcom chipped Netgear DG834N plus DGTeam firmware, the Broadcom chipped Netgear DG834GT plus DGTeam firmware I've used was good with the long line type of issues.
I got both the routers via ebay.

You don't need a static IP if you sign up to a free account from http://www.dyndns.com/ You set up the acount in the router and each time it connects it signs in to DynDNS which means that you can then connect to the router by name.

Thanks for all your replies. I've got a DG834g V3 on order. And it was inexpensive too!
I fear that it won't improve matters and it's a line fault or something, but at least we'll have ruled something out.
Help much appreciated, thanks.

(bit late, but)

If you want something that gives you decent local and remote access to status and diagnostic info including (SNMP-based) access to the DSL line stats (SNR, error rates, etc) a second hand BT Voyager 2110 should be readily available at £20ish or less and is one of the few affordable routers with a half decent SNMP implementation including the essential DSL Line stuff as well as the more usual traffic counting stuff. Sorry to recommend BT but in this instance it does the job.

Combine that with an SNMP tool such as PRTG (v6 free is my favourite) or MRTG or some other SNMP-based recording+analysis and you're good to go.

You might be able to achieve something similar with other routers and other tools but this is the one that currently appeals to me.

I bought a Billion 7300G a while back on the basis that it had a lot of unusual SoHo features including the DSL line SNMP stuff but I never got the interesting bits working and have recently reverted to the 2110; at £20ish it's a no-brainer, it's cost me lots more than that trying (and failing) to make the 7300 do what I want.

I've gone off Netgear DSL kit, it seems too difficult to work out what's inside any given model on any given day with any given set of firmware. Keeps lots of people happy though.