ISP Hardware

Macca4848 · 30 Apr 2022 at 11:07

I’m having some building work done and when it’s complete I want to make sure home network is as good as it possibly can be for fixed and wireless connections. I’m reading through the stickies in this forum but one question I have is regarding the router provided by ISPs - are these ok to use or is it best to buy something not locked to the network. Do any ISPs have good hardware?

Thanks

ChrisD. · 30 Apr 2022 at 11:28

What exactly are your requirements and budget? There is a myriad of options at different budgets available.

ISP provided hardware is decent enough for most homes, but if you are having building work done, depending on what is being done it would be prudent to have the house fully wired to a central point with cat 5e/6, such as the loft of a cupboard with power. And also have a cable going to the ceiling of the top floor and wire in an Access Point to deal with wireless.

Eurofighter · 30 Apr 2022 at 16:02

Who are you with and what connection do you have, maybe we can recommend a router.

Golf1.6 · 21 Jul 2024 at 23:30

iSP routers are pretty nice these days and they are pretty up to date with their tech.

P.s. sorry for the old thread bump. I just stumbled on here googling the statute of limitation for when isps can ask for old hardware back.

Anyways, there was a time when isps provided absolutely rubbish routers, and most devices were plugged in via Ethernet and people use those rubbish Wi-Fi repeaters or just used the laptop near the router to get a good connection.

Nowadays ISPs decided to market “guaranteed Wi-Fi coverage “ with the ads to get customers and that meant they needed to have very capable routers which the latest tech Wi-Fi 6, mesh etc.

I always used to use aftermarket tplink routers before, they were better than isp supplied ones. Recently my aftermarket ones have been lagging behind the ISP router in features because mine is ac1600 and the CF router I’m Wi-Fi 6 capable. My tplink is probably 6 years behind in tech.

The other issue used to be that ISP routers had custom admin section which is dumbed down and not configurable. Now you get full advanced access to tweak everything. Assigning static IPs, dns, etc was sometimes unavailable.

Anyway my reason to stumble here was to find out when I can sell me old CF gear on eBay. They said they’ll send a dpd return label but I got nothing.