So we have gone from one question to another issue of the hg612 and fighting - why?..
Yes it was a good modem, and yes all equipment "wear out" in the sense the caps get less efficient and in some cases fail. Both the eci and hg612 power supplies were known to fail.
I think the updates to the 612 happened around 2015-16(the dates don't actually matter) that means anything that was tweaked on vdsl2 beyond the last firmware update wasn't going to appear, or work on the 612.
The issue beyond the 612 was that there wasn't any other godlike modem around - they all just worked well.
ONTs fail too .........
Fighting? I am not fighting.
Sadly everything fails at some point, some will go on for years, like my old TP-link router is over 12 years and old and would still work, the only reason I don't use it is that it can't cope with the amount of Wi-fi stuff I have. Not bothered about it being 2.4Ghz only.
My modem done the job I needed it to do, I suppose could have used the plusnet hub as a modem instead of the Openreach one, but I think the hub takes more energy than the modem.
ONT certainly do fail and sometimes before they are used, i chat to one person where 3 were tried when they had fibre installed, the last one worked ok.
Adrian
Desktop machines Mac mini pro with macOS Ventura, also pc Ryzen powered with windows something or other.
Zooming with Zzoomm FTTP,