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I mean, there's not much else left is there in terms of consumer? Netgear which are meh for software, tplink who never update there firmware...
Who's left?
City Fibre
- Thread starter PzR Slim
- Start date
Who's left?
Soldato
Exactly this, plus most routers I see recommended lack things like 2x 2.5gb ports and dual WAN unless you spend quite a bit more or learn to use a NUC from aliexpress
Many recent Asus routers come well recommended and well reviewed and include 2.5gb with dual wan etc
I know it's an enthusiast forum, so recommending higher grade more costly gear is normal. But it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea
Soldato
Had a look through my emails and there is no account number provided so I can't register on their site. All I've had so far is a direct debit confirmation that's it. Will try messaging them.
Netgear make solid consumer grade routers, better yet why not the GL.inet Flint 2 for example? It’s available brand new for £100-145 and able to run *WRT. Something like the TPL ER7xx derivatives are multi 2.5Gb and despite your suggestion, TP Link are usually quite welcoming of feedback and interested in pushing firmware in the event of a CVE or replicatable issue. The Deco Pro’s aren’t bad, but I would suggest feature light and make better AP’s than routers, same with Nest and Eero. I haven't personally had the pleasure, but Synology reputedly aren't awful.
Nobody is recommending a 1Gb router where the requirement is stated as 2.5Gb. As above, why not a Flint 2 for £100-145? It is specifically developed to offer OpenWRT compatibility from a brand with a solid reputation for hardware/firmware update/support and ticks your stated requirements. When you say ‘review’, presumably you are on about a paid for advert? Just having read one of the contracts that comes with free Asus hardware for reviews, they are very, very restrictive.
As to costing more, thats not how it works, you can buy functionally better kit for the same or less money. Also short term you are obviously right if comparing to options like an ER8411 or UDM Pro or SE, but they’re 10Gb LAN and WAN and will NAT at near that speed, the Asus never will, so you’ll buy a 5Gb version and a 10Gb version and even at todays price for the 2.5Gb, thats going to be way more. As to learning to use a NUC, you turn it on, boot from a USB and within a few minutes have your chosen distro installed, allocate your interfaces and you’re done, after that, it’s just like any other router. In all honesty, I wouldn't bother with the Topton Ali boxes either, except possibly the 1u based stuff with native 10Gb. You can pickup an ex. corp. SFF for £35-45 and a suitable i225-T2 NIC for £30 and my Deco x20 kit was £99 for two nodes which give better coverage than a single router. Throw the rest of the budget at a mixed media 4x2.5/2x10Gb switch and you have vastly more speed, flexibility and functionality for similar money to the Asus with a cheap/easy upgrade path to 10Gb. I’ve run two such boxes recently, 6th and 7th gen which run 8-18w idle.
Check the Yayzi forums, the new whatsapp number was set-up yesterday, communication and announcements need to be briefed out before changes are made, but the new set-up promises vastly improved peering and lower latency hopefully, as well as IPv6 blocks.
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Flint 2 does look interesting, it is something I've been keeping an eye on, just not seen many reviews for it.
Soldato
If you want Dual WAN you lose both your 2.5gb ports
Would make more sense to have one of the 1gb ports be the 2nd WAN like on other routers
Soldato
Just got this email from No One
@Avalon This fumble was the last straw for me: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-routers-offline-faulty-update
Not as bad but they had a £25 rate my gear promotion where they don't actually pay out unless you hound them constantly and even then it's not right. The prices are also sickening. £339 retail for a dual band router which they can afford to now sell for £200... makes you wonder what profit margins they have.
Also about the review stuff it is just all paid ads unless you get someone you know isn't a shill. e.g this Flint 2 review is what you would expect just cold hard data and know what they are talking about: https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/0...w-part-2-wifi-6-2-5gbe-wireguard-performance/
Instead of relying on ads to tell me if a product is good I tend to just look at forums. The Flint 2 currently has some problems based on their own forums but atleast the company is reading it and responding. They got mediatek (the chip maker) in their offices last week to try and diagnose why the problems are happening. When the Flint 2 goes on sale for about £120 I'll be buying it.
Not as bad but they had a £25 rate my gear promotion where they don't actually pay out unless you hound them constantly and even then it's not right. The prices are also sickening. £339 retail for a dual band router which they can afford to now sell for £200... makes you wonder what profit margins they have.
Also about the review stuff it is just all paid ads unless you get someone you know isn't a shill. e.g this Flint 2 review is what you would expect just cold hard data and know what they are talking about: https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/0...w-part-2-wifi-6-2-5gbe-wireguard-performance/
Instead of relying on ads to tell me if a product is good I tend to just look at forums. The Flint 2 currently has some problems based on their own forums but atleast the company is reading it and responding. They got mediatek (the chip maker) in their offices last week to try and diagnose why the problems are happening. When the Flint 2 goes on sale for about £120 I'll be buying it.
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I'm a bit confused about the entire thing really Home Telecoms website suggests they're only handling the billing/backend while No One is suggesting HT is handling the support as well as the billing/backend. Which is it lol? I'd hope it's the former really, considering the support has always been great from No One. If it's the latter I'm a bit worried. To be honest I'm a bit worried anyway, it seems like these are the people who've bought out a bunch of customers from Cuckoo(though admittedly it did seem Cuckoo's choice), and the reviews on ISP Review for HT don't look that inviting either despite HT's supposed high trustpilot rating.
Overall it's not a great look for those of us who didn't even join that long ago. We thought we knew what we were getting into, and now we really really don't anymore. :/
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I've found Trustpilot to be full of fake reviews (both positive, and negative from competing companies), I've never trusted it wholly.
It's definitely not that useful, or well you have to sift through and try and find information that might be useful. I only mentioned it because they tried to use it as a positive in the email they sent really, where it clearly isn't.
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Trustpilot seem to be quite easy to game by companies soliciting reviews for individual interactions, so stuff like "how was this one delivery handled", "how did we answer your support query today" but then presents them as if people are reviewing the service as a whole. It's clear from reading the reviews what the context of them being written is.
I find it more useful to read the 1-3 star reviews and seeing if there are consistent problems that are actually a providers fault, and not people complaining that their road is being dug up and it's noisy.
I find it more useful to read the 1-3 star reviews and seeing if there are consistent problems that are actually a providers fault, and not people complaining that their road is being dug up and it's noisy.
Soldato
I don't suppose anyone has any success convincing a landlord to allow City Fibre to install the network in their building? My landlord owns the whole building and has apparently refused permission for City Fibre (my ISP has told me this when I tried to order via email) to install the totally free equipment for anyone to get a connection. Total lunacy.
Someone on ispreview has sifted through some of the t&c and it looks like they have the rpi increase buried and also some nastiness around late payment fees.
So no doubt at some point they'll likely introduce that on renewal.
I wouldn't trust trust pilot at all. They seem to side with the retailer and I've been threatened for my review being removed unless the retailer can validate my order details - so much for being able to remain anonymous for genuine poor experiences.
Soldato
Sent a WhatsApp msg at 1pm, no reply as yet.
Soldato
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Does seem like the firmware has quite a few issues after reading the forums. You'd think the issue with the chip they'd be able to sort their self too, I know Asus and other manufacturers have used the same chip and they don't seem to have the same issues.
Soldato
ASUS aren't that bad, plus there is plenty of support for how to use them (eg setting vlan to 911 for cityfibre). I bought a second hand ac86 for about £80 a few years ago, it's a single unit that does everything I and my 3 flatmates need. I've probably spent less than 30 minutes setting it up.
The people who hate on them the most have very different requirements to this.
The people who hate on them the most have very different requirements to this.