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[Mr Skrunts]

Has anyone got any of thier products.

Was talking to one of the plusnet support staff after a problem had started with my phone and broadband I had to reboot my router which takes a tad longer than others I have had in the past.

We then got talking about my modem router which is a dual band unit that I was impressed with when I set my mates up that I purchased one for myself, anyways this staff member said that he was'nt impressed with them overall.  So after getting him to open up (Which from what he said he was'nt allowed to make recomendations) he told me that he prefered the DrayTek units.

Not something that I had thought about too much, as long as it works thats me happy, but with all the problems from viruses and attacks etc I would value forum members comments.

[Kevin Wood]

I've got one. Can't remember which, as it's sat behind my desk just working for about a decade untouched.

Well, I logged into it just for you. Seems it's a Vigor 2800. System Uptime: 2579:43:10 and I reckon that's probably wrapped around a few times.

They were certainly well regarded when I got mine. No idea how the latest ones stand up, TBH.

[Mr Skrunts]

Seems a good recomendation. 

[TheBoy]

Between my brother and I, we have a bucketload. Mostly Vigor 2830n's, with a smattering of Vigor 2920n's.


They are fantastic. And shite. Wonderful and frustrating. In equal measures.

When you find a firmware and configuration that works for you, hard to beat in the sub £250 price range.

Generally, every time you try to do something "clever", you'll find that the firmware is buggy and it doesn't work as expected, or worse still, it drops its pants, bends over, and invites the whole Internet to have a piece.

We probably do use them far beyond what most people would dream of doing - a fact born out when we send configs to their support people when things are broken, and they take one look and immediately pass up the support chain.


If either my bro or I were buying another router tomorrow, it would likely be another £200 Draytek if that was the price range I was constrained to.  Mainly due to a combination of flexibility and the UK support are pretty good (though nowhere near in the league of Enterprise products level of support).

My biggest complaint, aside from buggy/quirky firmware, is the firewall is, well, shite.  Not enough room for rules, and not very intelligent.

[Kevin Wood]

Yes, actually, I find the stability decreases the more features you enable. Keep the config simple and they are bullet proof.

I suspect they simply don't have the resources to support every feature they've crammed into the firmware, so I've tended to offload everything but basic router functionality to other machines.

[aaronjb]

Yes, actually, I find the stability decreases the more features you enable. Keep the config simple and they are bullet proof.

That's just advice for life for about every single piece of IT equipment, ever, though

I used to have a Vigor 2600g many years ago - it was rock solid right up until a lightning storm killed it; but I can't really fault the hardware for that!

Since then I've mostly used Netgear units with DD-WRT flashed to them.

[TheBoy]

Since then I've mostly used Netgear units with DD-WRT flashed to them.

The Netgear consumer hardware is "ok"ish, but the firmware is astoundingly bad.

Keep WRT up to date, as frequent flaws are found, but I'm sure you know that


Just don't get me started on those shitty Prosafe network switches Netgear make. They are awfully unreliable, and many lockups need a power cycle, which is a mite inconvenient when miles away 

[Kevin Wood]

Just don't get me started on those shitty Prosafe network switches Netgear make. They are awfully unreliable, and many lockups need a power cycle, which is a mite inconvenient when miles away 

Hmm. Just as you said that I thought the name sounded familiar, and, sure enough, I've got one of them behind my desk too... and the cable that my audio streamer plugs into has been dead for a while. Not really an issue as I had assumed it was my dodgy cabling and dropped it back to wireless LAN for now.

But.. a power cycle of the switch has brought it back to life.

Any recommendations on a decent gigabit switch? Lowish power consumption and low RFI are the important factors, given that I've got a growing number of them dotted around the place.

[TheBoy]

I picked up some Cisco 100Mb (speed was unimportant, I needed POE) a couple of years back, and absolutely rock solid. Only glitches have been when they have run out of electricity.  So when bro needs new switches (if he ever completes the refurb on one of his shops), they will likely be Cisco gigabit, POE, 48 port. Cisco ones look to be SMPS though, so might not be ideal for your radios.

For work, when going to site to build/fix stuff, I use a Netgear consumer one. I know its rarely on for long, but instills more confidence than the ProSafe's.  Also got a 3com (which shows its age) 16 port gigabit (with a linear wallwart psu), that had been on for years with no reliability probs, but the throughput was poor.


So sub £100 for 16ports or less, no recommendations I'm afraid.