FritzBox 7530 - Zen Edition

I've just acquired a FritzBox 7530 off eBay, and the label on the back has: " Edition Zen Internet" along with the WiFi key, etc. So clearly, it is an ex-Zen device.

It doesn't appear to be locked down, but given the label, can someone tell me if the Zen-supplied units have custom firmware and a non-standard interface? Or, are they bog standard, and the same as any other FritzBox?

I'm wondering if AVM does a limited production run purely for Zen-supplied units or just slaps a different label on a standard box.

AFAIK its just custom config, i.e. allows (auto)setup for Zen's network

I've got a 7530 from Zen, and as far as I can tell it's not customised in any way. It has had the same firmware updates as other Fritzbox users at the same time, and works exactly as the manual downloaded from Fritz says it should. It's been an excellent router for me - enjoy!

The firmware is not specific, you can download and install standard firmware from the AVM website.

However there is some customisation, likely hidden away in a non-volatile memory partition which allows a factory reset FritzBox to contact the Zen TR-069 servers with sufficient information to be provisioned for the customer it was sold to (I'm pretty sure this only works if you have a Zen FTTC/FTTP connection).

Unlike many ISP-provided routers you can freely configure it to work with any other provider - under Internet > Account Information, Internet Connection tab in the Internet Service Provider section if you select 'Internet service provider’ as ‘other internet service provider’ this autoprovisioning is disabled, so just factory reset and make this change before connecting the WAN.

Thanks to all for the replies.

......However there is some customisation, likely hidden away in a non-volatile memory partition.....

It could be that this is a section of memory set by AVM in those devices sold to ISPs as a customer premises item. The label on the back would simply distinguish the particular ISP.

I'm setting this one up for iDNet on an Openreach line so hopefully I won't encounter any problems

Edited by Tacitus (Tue 09-Jan-24 07:52:36)

For the curious, here is the secret:

https://forum.openwrt.org/t/restoring-oem-firmware-o...

Personally I would live with it and set the drop down to “other provider” when you change the Internet connection username/password.. Autoupdates etc work fine. No problems with IDnet.

In reply to a post by DrBob:

Personally I would live with it and set the drop down to “other provider” when you change the Internet connection username/password.. Autoupdates etc work fine. No problems with IDnet.

I'm not interested at present in flashing it with OpenWRT, although that may be something for the future.

I did set the dropdown to "other provider" and gave my iDNet settings. I checked the VLAN tag at 101, and now it seems to be working OK. The UI will take some getting used to, but over time, I'll get used to it.

Thanks for the help.