I think you may be right, firmware is never going to fix this infuriating router.
Anyone Using an Asus DSL-AC68U
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I think you may be right, firmware is never going to fix this infuriating router.
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With the Billion 8800AXL having dropped to £135 and £175 easily refundable in terms of the 68U, the Billion arrives tomorrow, with the courier taking the Asus away.
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Although I agree in principal, I disagree.The UK VDSL market has a very small number of providers. If someone wishes to sell a device that is purported to work with it, the burden of providing interop testing and proving the thing works in that market is up to them, not BT. Saying its BTs fault for being different to the rest of the world with their DLM implementation doesn't cut it. Asus have decided to sell a product in the UK that's touted to work on VDSL. It doesn't. I don't care if its works in Timbuktu or not, I don't live there and I dont want to use this modem there. It doesn't work well in the UK, and that is where ASUS have sold me this device for use.
Using a poor analogy, left hand drive cars work very well in most of the world, but they arent so effective over here. It doesn't mean its a poor car though. It's up to car manufacturers to tweak their product to work the best in this market, and that means moving the steering wheel to the other side.
Asus failed to perform a decent level of interop testing on this product before releasing it in this market. The fault squarely lies at their door for this one.
Agreed, if a cheap and nasty sky sagem 102 can work with dlm in the majority of cases then why not the asus which is advertised in this county as out of the box connectivity. I wonder how much my sky supplied Open Reach that is 100% stable costs to produce that I was given free by Sky, not much I expect. Yes we all understand the limitations and difficulties dlm can have but come on we are talking asus here not some small single product company who has a very large reputation to live up too which, with this product, so far they have failed...
Users of the DSL-N66U are still seeing problems. Essentially what needs to happen is Asus need to take their device to BT for testing like most others do. Only then will they get a better idea of what is going on. Either that or swap to a known working modem such as one in the Billion, TP link or Zyxel.
Sorry Jim but asus really failed me on this one. I am usually a big advocate of asus products because of their generally higher attention to detail, but i lost 1/3 of my speed using this as a modem (which has now recovered using the talktalk standard modem) certainly not plug in and play success and i fear more people have issues than realise. aka all those who don't check router settings and speeds. Am still using it as router but the modem part in the UK at least failed me totally
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Well my asus router has not been touched/used since late last year and took over 2 months for my internet to recover after i stopped using it which really is bad for an expensive product that is/was sold as a performance product....
Eitherway this router has loads of nice features and good points but because asus never made a region specific firmware's it was never going to work 100% whatever tweaks we made case in point all the extra settings which just seem to have a negative effect or we need to turn off to get the router to work correctly.
Tbh for how long these have been around and how long this problem has existed i am pretty shocked it hasnt been fixed and reps are just now appearing asking whats wrong
Eitherway this router has loads of nice features and good points but because asus never made a region specific firmware's it was never going to work 100% whatever tweaks we made case in point all the extra settings which just seem to have a negative effect or we need to turn off to get the router to work correctly.
Tbh for how long these have been around and how long this problem has existed i am pretty shocked it hasnt been fixed and reps are just now appearing asking whats wrong
Although I agree in principal, I disagree.
How do you know the device does not work perfectly well with say Kingston communications version of FTTC? They for people that do not know are the only supplier of telephone and broadband in and around the Hull area of the UK, BT have nothing to do with them.
Errr but if it works on others organisations VDSL products then clearly it does work. BT are not the only provider on this planet or even this country with their own version of VDSL.
Indeed and as i said their device meets ITU specs for VDSL....
http://www.itu.int/en/about/Pages/overview.aspx
The only problem with that analogy is AFAIK there is no agreed standard as to if roads should be made for left or right hand drive cars worldwide (thats the key here). There is a standard for VDSL though whether you are in say France (LHD) or the UK (RHD). The ITU AGAIN set that standard. Manufacturers build devices to meet that standard not what some organisation like BT think the standard should be.
You are basically arguing that if there was
1) An organisation (this would be the ITU when its comes to broadband) that has set a standard that all homes should be made to take SQUARE windows
2) A house builder decides to ignore that and makes homes with round windows (That would be BT with its DRM and other tweaks)
3) Then the 3rd company (That would now be Asus) that makes window frames should automatically appease the house builder (BT) that decided not to follow standards and now the windows frame maker should make them happy by making round windows for their houses.
Why should the window frame maker (ASUS) that works to set standards (From the ITU) appease the organisation (BT) that does not?
How do you know this?
The Asus has issues but claiming it is in someway faulty when it may work in other areas of the globe with suppliers that adhere to the ITU standards is ridiculous.
Yes its a flawed device, would those flaws affect a connection if the NON Standard DRM was not there though..... NO is the answer. Is DRM a standard for VDSL from the ITU..... Again NO is the answer.
Explained to you before thats Skys own gear tailored to their own network, the Asus is not tailored to a singular network. Sky is an SLU and has its own version of DLM different to Openreaches, it even connects differently using something called MER...... Something many modems does not fully 100% suport not just Asus.
Again its a case of a broadband seller tweaking a standard to suit them rather than following set in stone standards from the likes of the ITU.
How is any modem manufacturer supposed to make compatible gear if lets say every damn ISP on the planet had there own version of connectivity? OH and before anyone says xxx modem maker does it ok, id argue no they do not as any device will vary. Ixel with his fritzbox already has issues, not to the extent of the Asus but again its another flaw relating to configuration. Broadcomm stuff works better on short lines than say Lantiq.... WHY?? The list of examples is endless, it doesnt matter how "good or bad" a person considers a device to be, the question of "good or bad" would not even be there if suppliers and manufacturers all adhered to ONE STANDARD. They do not so blaming one organisation when there are several involved is silly.
Think about that carefully, think how many ISPs there are on the planet, now think what would happen if NONE OF THEM followed standards but went of on their own variation of a telcoms product. To even suggest a singular device should just work with a whole bunch of different providers own standards and variations of standards rather than set in stone standards is daft. That right there is square peg round hole syndrome.
You can not lay blame entirely at the round hole maker or the square peg maker, one wants to do things one way the other wants to do things different and vice versa. Neither is right or wrong they just disagree.
MOST OTHERS take their device to BT oh (ouch my sides)
What utter nonsense, name 3 manufacturers that have had their devices tested by BT and a link for each showing its passed this (cough, splutter) BT testing
This is just getting silly now bashing something is fine bashing something when you have no idea is just plain simple internet land of stupid moaning. BT testing indeed LMAO
Skys device as mentioned above would not pass BT tests as that uses MER to authenticate, BT call for PPPoE in their SINs so that device right there is an instant fail before they even look at it.
The asus device is poor, it has numerous bugs which need fixing, its just a shame people think some magical BT test is going to fix it. The thread has now obviously decayed into a free for all lets just bash something even though i have no idea why it does not work properly twilight zone dribble.
If i were Asus or the rep that appeared (MORE than what you would get from some companies) id just laugh at you all and say **** you all. Then you could moan a bit more LOL. Im tempted to not even go ahead with a replacement now, as even if i did rewrite firmware and get it stable i suspect the land of the stupid which is now appearing would be riding my backside demanding i put xxx feature back in and then stepping it up a gear to actual abuse when i say NO.
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Speaking as a member of the "i have no idea why it does not work properly twilight zone dribble", it still doesn't work properly. I don't need to know why it doesn't work properly because it isn't my area of expertise. I don't think it is unreasonable for me to expect it to work.
I'm happy for someone to offer me a route to getting it to work properly and i will take their advice, change settings, edit config files or whatever.
I think your last post is dismissive of the time people have spent trying to make this work whether they have been luddites or people with knowledge in the field. Feedback has been given to Asus over many months at varying levels of technical appreciation and awareness.
My box was delivered in August last year: it still does not work. That isn't me riding the manufacturer - that's me stating fact. I haven't returned it - I want it to work because I like Asus gear, I always have. Does that sound like someone riding the manufacturer to you?
I'm happy for someone to offer me a route to getting it to work properly and i will take their advice, change settings, edit config files or whatever.
I think your last post is dismissive of the time people have spent trying to make this work whether they have been luddites or people with knowledge in the field. Feedback has been given to Asus over many months at varying levels of technical appreciation and awareness.
My box was delivered in August last year: it still does not work. That isn't me riding the manufacturer - that's me stating fact. I haven't returned it - I want it to work because I like Asus gear, I always have. Does that sound like someone riding the manufacturer to you?
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Well all I know is, it doesn't work. Why it doesn't work is irrelevant. But it's entirely fair for me to say because it doesn't work - it's crap. I will bash the product all I like because clearly if Asus can't make the device work with the most popular VDSL services here, then they shouldn't be selling it. If one person reads me criticising the piece of junk and doesn't buy one, then good, that's one person's hard won money saved.
Yeah, I can see it's been a big problem for quite a few users on here. I'm sorry that you've had issues - one of the reasons I joined ASUS is because I've always been impressed with their mobos and it's unpleasant seeing a product disappoint people in a big way. But hopefully we can get to the bottom of it.
Well my asus router has not been touched/used since late last year and took over 2 months for my internet to recover after i stopped using it which really is bad for an expensive product that is/was sold as a performance product....
Eitherway this router has loads of nice features and good points but because asus never made a region specific firmware's it was never going to work 100% whatever tweaks we made case in point all the extra settings which just seem to have a negative effect or we need to turn off to get the router to work correctly.
Tbh for how long these have been around and how long this problem has existed i am pretty shocked it hasnt been fixed and reps are just now appearing asking whats wrong
I understand what you're saying, and I'm sorry about the issues you've had. I will do what I can from now onwards to get this resolved for everyone.
As for only appearing now, I've only joined ASUS recently - otherwise I would've been here earlier.
I get the impression that bitsnbobs wishes to argue the toss with everyone instead of working together to pressue asus to fix what is obviously a flawed product that is advertised to work out of the box with any connection, sky or who ever. I don't give a monkey's about what modem is setup for what all I want is a product that should work with any isp and clearly the asus doesn't and the advice they have given has made it worse. I do really think picking arguments over knickpicking is counter productive and will put people off from offering information that will assist asus to fix this hardware. This should not be about being right or wrong it should be about helping Jim to get a clearer idea of what this modem fails to do...
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For me this modem fails at keeping a sync rate near to what an eci or hg612 modem does.
- Keeping an ongoing connection that last longer than 24hours
- FEC in the millions
-CRC Bursts close to a 24 hour period that makes a resync and then the following day when dlm intervenes im punished badly.
As an example today I have had my line reset by an openreach engineer sync is now at 69.
If i turn my asus modem on then i will sync at 71 by 2moro after dlm kicks in i will be down to 58.
As the days progress ill be down to about 52 and this is where it will stay, further test past this point have not been done.
i have though intervened when it got hit down to 58 and connected back up my openreach modem for it to recover which it has many times.
This unit is consistent in the results i get maybe this is a starting point as its predictable.
to recap when using asus modem.
First day
-syncs the same as openreach modem
-Within 24hour period (when dlm kicks in) punishment starts with an initial drop.
-If monitoring stats and on interleaved already you will see high FEC and some CRC (Most cases there is steady climb of FEC)
-If your around and looking at stats before it disconects you will see rise in CRC
- Keeping an ongoing connection that last longer than 24hours
- FEC in the millions
-CRC Bursts close to a 24 hour period that makes a resync and then the following day when dlm intervenes im punished badly.
As an example today I have had my line reset by an openreach engineer sync is now at 69.
If i turn my asus modem on then i will sync at 71 by 2moro after dlm kicks in i will be down to 58.
As the days progress ill be down to about 52 and this is where it will stay, further test past this point have not been done.
i have though intervened when it got hit down to 58 and connected back up my openreach modem for it to recover which it has many times.
This unit is consistent in the results i get maybe this is a starting point as its predictable.
to recap when using asus modem.
First day
-syncs the same as openreach modem
-Within 24hour period (when dlm kicks in) punishment starts with an initial drop.
-If monitoring stats and on interleaved already you will see high FEC and some CRC (Most cases there is steady climb of FEC)
-If your around and looking at stats before it disconects you will see rise in CRC
I saw the same issues when using homeplugs with standard BT equipment. I believe it is down to DLM trying to stabilise your line so its introducing different interleaving depths resulting in a resync. You probably already know that though. If I found out the issues were resolved I would be straight down to the shop to purchase one. I'm more than happy to continue running my BT modem and Asus n66u router for the time being.
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Bring out a V2 of this device with a Broadcom or Lantiq DSL chipset instead of the MediaTek one and all this will probably go away!
If only it were that simple.
I think what would be useful for many to see would be the ES and SES counts as well as the CRC. I don't think DLM is too bothered about CRC counts (unless maybe they go crazy) but the ES and SES count is more important.
What I have noticed on a HG612 is that I could have 300 CRC in a burst but only 1 ES or 1 SES, and over the course of 24 hours my line would have a total of 240 ES+SES combined and DLM doesn't blink. The CRC count could be in the 10,000+ range.
So give people an easy way to monitor more of the line stats and they may be able to help diagnose the issues and work with ASUS a bit better.
The biggest stumbling block for testing in the UK is DLM - make too many changes that result in the line resyncing and DLM will intervene, so that means it's slow testing before any positive or negative changes are noticed unless people are willing to risk the wrath of DLM.
If only it were that simple.
I think what would be useful for many to see would be the ES and SES counts as well as the CRC. I don't think DLM is too bothered about CRC counts (unless maybe they go crazy) but the ES and SES count is more important.
What I have noticed on a HG612 is that I could have 300 CRC in a burst but only 1 ES or 1 SES, and over the course of 24 hours my line would have a total of 240 ES+SES combined and DLM doesn't blink. The CRC count could be in the 10,000+ range.
So give people an easy way to monitor more of the line stats and they may be able to help diagnose the issues and work with ASUS a bit better.
The biggest stumbling block for testing in the UK is DLM - make too many changes that result in the line resyncing and DLM will intervene, so that means it's slow testing before any positive or negative changes are noticed unless people are willing to risk the wrath of DLM.
100% agree about changing the modem side if it but seeing as they used the same modem as the previous DSL combo unit which had and still has problems, I doubt that would happen.
The cheapest and quickest route would be to have an Asus engineer/tech go to the BT testing facility for a few weeks. Do as much testing as possible then report back to HQ. For all it woukd cost and the advantages of the quicker it is resolved the better the sales of the device improves. It would aid future sales also if they know what they have to work with.
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I cant really be bothered to argue with you point by point. But the ITU arent the drivers behind the UK standards. That would be the NICC (http://www.niccstandards.org.uk/). These specs are generally based on the ITU or ETSI standards but with UK specific tweaks.
I've worked on the voice side of telecoms for the last 18 years for various telephone exchange equipment manufacturers that sell to worldwide markets. I am acutely aware that modifying the product for UK conformance is a huge timesink. Yes we have implemented ANSI standards for US customers and ITU for general EMEA based customers, but each country has their own specific tweaks on the standard.
BT call for some of the more outrageous changes to the base standards, and have some of the toughest interop testing to get through before you can be accepted into the market. This interop testing can be in the excess of a year for our gear.
So yes, as the dominant player in the UK market, BT can and do call for manufacturers to make specific tweaks to their products to interop correctly.
This is obviously something that Asus have not done properly or there wouldnt be so many people having issues.
The crux of the matter is not that Asus have to do this to work with BT (which you can say is BTs fault), the problem is that Asus have sold a product in the UK market that is not fit for purpose for the majority of users wanting to use it for VDSL within the UK.
Edit - And to say there is no test plan for UK interop is wrong. Just a quick google on the NICC site shows a VDSL2 Wires only test plan as spec ND1436 - http://www.niccstandards.org.uk/files/current/ND1436V1.1.2.pdf?type=pdf
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No it certainly is not unreasonable what is unreasonable is when other people that think they know why it does not work but clearly do not start mouthing off, stupid things like saying others have had BT testing LOL. I have freely admitted in every single post the device has bugs which should be fixed. Moaning for reason there is nothing wrong with, people moaning when they have no idea what you are moaning about but think they do is just stupid.
I think you will find the majority of my most recent rant was aimed in the main at people that have barely contributed to the thread at all.
No clearly you are not riding the manufacturer, that statement is more than reasonable, you are stating facts, rather than utter dribble like some about sending the device to BT for testing. As i said bashing for a reason is fair bashing with no clue is not.
Why it does not work is entirely relevant, you need to know and they need to know why it does not work before they can fix it. Stating something is crap because it does not work for you is also not "fair" using your logic one user in this thread Virus2k who it works flawlessly for, so is the device still crap for them? As to services and the why, ive already clearly explained that.
I see nothing on the box that states it will work with DLM Hybrid FTTC/FTTN products.
And as explained the sky example you used would not work on other ISPs, so that device is no different in its "dont work" stakes, unless you are now saying a device that works for 1 ISP but not the other 200+ in the country equates to a device that "works". Your moan was invalid.
Stating the advice they gave you makes matters "worse" is not going to help either.
If only people were doing that and instead of random clueless moaning actually stating things what are the issue such as increased FEC and CRC count leading to DLM and/or regular disconnections... Maybe then post some stats of the connection, a nice chart, you know some actual valid data and information for the poor man to work on...... Rather than dribble like send the device to BT LOL
^^^ Thats how information needs to be provided for any support to have any idea on where to start to look for issues to stand any chance of them being solved..... Excellent post
Changing the modem side hardware would require a complete software re-write, they would effectively be creating a brand new device. This aint lego where you can just remove one dark horrible black brick and shove in a bright shiney yellow brick instead.
Oh and what if BT with their David Blaine like powers of magic can not solve the issues? Its entirely possible the way BT have their network configured that it will not work with this devices chipset, that again will not be Asus at fault if their device meets the requirements of VDSL but BTs product does not. This whole go to BT thing is sheer stupid, show me any 3 manufacturers that have been BT approved, any 3 that have current VDSL devices on the market, im all ear about this amazing BT testing.
Oh really carry on....
Continue...
Who is the "our" you make reference to?
Rubbish...
Skys product uses a complete different authentication method and thus completely different end user gear to authenticate.
Talk Talks uses a entirely different SNR based DLM and their end user devices are SNR tweakable. BT state the SNR should not be tweakable
TP-Link use a standard firmware worldwide for their gear, so do Zyxel, neither of them have followed any imaginary BT guidelines.
Those are the next 2 biggest providers in the UK after BT just for starters and neither have the same "tweaks" or followed "BT" and what they want implemented into their gear. TP-Link and Zyxel also produce 2 of the most popular VDSL devices here in the UK and neither of them have specific UK or BT based firmware.
Show me any 3 manufacturers that have been certified by BT, go ahead any 3 will do.
No the problem is VDSL FROM BT DOES NOT MEET ITU SPECS...... Wait for it before you reply
Oh dear......... You better re-look at that and read the bottom of page 5....
"For the purposes of this document, VDSL2 is the technology defined in ITU-T Recommendation G.993.2 “Very high speed digital subscriber line transceivers 2 (VDSL2)”.
Please also see the raft of ITU specs on pages 6 and 7
Oh opppsss our own UK standards eh???
Now what was i saying about rants when people dunno what they are on about....... ho hum.
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And you should look at the documents in more detail yourself. I didnt say it wasnt based on the ITU specs, Im saying that there are likely modifications to the base ITU spec in order to meet compliance for BT interoperability, such as NICC ND1602 : Specification of the Access Network Frequency Plan (ANFP)
Applicable to Transmission Systems Used on the BT Access Network.
If it was totally based on ITU then they wouldnt have their own specs for access to BT network.
The crux of the matter that you keep missing the point of, regardless whos fault it is that these issues have arisen, is that this modem is not suitable for out of the box connection to BT FFTC connections. Asus have sold a product that just isnt working
As to your other comments regarding who has passed "BT testing", just googling for ND1436 compliance yields on the first page that EcoNet VDSL2 chipset has passed interop testing, so at least one company has deemed that UK interop testing is a good thing. (http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-re...trac-broadband-test-laboratory-231716931.html).
I've not yet bashed any of their products yet. All I have said was that I would buy this device tomorrow if it was proven stable and won't be buying it until it is.
As for the BT testing, I've been told (on here actually) devices were required to be approved by BT and were required to go through some sort of tests. Obviously not very close to the truth if you find it so hilarious. My bad.
At least if they tested the product on a UK line, then they would have a definitive answer whether its a software or hardware issue. It would save time and effort either way if its worth attempting to fix or not. Just a suggestion.
As for the BT testing, I've been told (on here actually) devices were required to be approved by BT and were required to go through some sort of tests. Obviously not very close to the truth if you find it so hilarious. My bad.
At least if they tested the product on a UK line, then they would have a definitive answer whether its a software or hardware issue. It would save time and effort either way if its worth attempting to fix or not. Just a suggestion.
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Hello. Our device supports cron jobs. This means that we have the command cru. If we write cru in telnet, we see what we can do. We can schedule to delete files on our disk or change wireless setting periodically or do whatever we want.
Example:
In this example, we set the router to reboot every day 6.00 in the morning. The problem is that after reboot, the cron jobs deleted. There is a partition on router which named jffs. This partition does not change with reboots. I read in this forum this http://www.snbforums.com/threads/scheduling-rebooting.11044/#post-68429 and this https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/wiki/User-scripts but I did not succeed. I will try and I will let you know.
Example:
In this example, we set the router to reboot every day 6.00 in the morning. The problem is that after reboot, the cron jobs deleted. There is a partition on router which named jffs. This partition does not change with reboots. I read in this forum this http://www.snbforums.com/threads/scheduling-rebooting.11044/#post-68429 and this https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/wiki/User-scripts but I did not succeed. I will try and I will let you know.