Conundrum help

Hullo all,

Been with Vodafone just over a year on FTTC deal - 30Mb/1.5Mb. When it's good, it's good - but it does not consistently stay good. Despite reporting problems pretty much from day one (obviously after the 30 day settling period...!) I've had a fight trying to get out of the contract. Finally last week they've agreed to release me after I sent yet further Event Logs highlighting the drops of connection (at least two a day whilst in use in the evening) I was receiving but they "weren't seeing". In short, I got told every excuse under the sun but the router is not up to par for a family household with your average number of devices. I'd recommend avoiding at all costs!

The conundrum I have is whether to stay and why, might you ask! That is because they've offered to supply me with the login details so I can use my own device (I already have an apple airport extreme on standby as I was using it when bridging during the issues phase). If I were to move elsewhere would things be any better? Granted BT who I was with prior to Vodafone were ok - nothing outstanding but ok and as it was FTTC the speeds were as expected, the same. However, since those days we're more of a gaming family so stability is key. Speeds are great but ultimately consistent good connection (latency, jitter, etc) is of priority.

I'd appreciate any experiences/guidance on what to do. Does anyone use the Airport Extreme themselves - I had it working ok but the drops still came through courtesy of the Vodafone Connect Router. If I get the login details and it still drops I'm going to look pretty silly but I guess that further iterates the Vodafone feed is the issue. Vodafone is obviously cheaper than most deals and there's also the hassle of moving... Help!

Thanks in advance

Mark

What are you going to use as a modem? The Apple Airport cannot sit directly on the end of a VDSL2 line.

I hadn't thought of that to be honest. I've a good technical understanding but not that far in to IP! Do you have any recommendations?

My thought is if the line is dropping it indicates a fault more-so than a faulty router.

Does the router reboot when things drop, or does the broadband light change colour?

I use this http://amzn.to/2qFonnU TP-Link W9970 currently just £29.99 and run it in bridge mode, it can also work as a full modem/router on its own, but the wireless is only 802.11n so not that great.

It has a Broadcom chipset so has Vectoring and G.INP support, and boosts one of my lines by 3-4 Mbps and another by 2 Mbps compared to usual ISP supplied kit (improvements sound small but when on just 21 and 24 Mbps every little bit is nice).

The vodafone router is reported as being unstable

thanks for the replies.

Just as a bit of background - I've had the line checked (even had BT in to do that), run via the test socket, bridged with 3rd party device etc etc. If you read through the Vodafone support forums you'll notice there are just a few complaints about the ability of the router.

So if I were to stay, I could use the suggested TP Link device as the modem and bridge to the Airport Extreme to do the Wireless if the TP Link is not up to the task? I was running my wireless via the Airport Extreme whilst it was bridged so I know this works ok if not amazing.

The cheaper option is for me to stay - I'm effectively trying to work out if its the best option though.