New ADSL router for bad line

slipd

slipd

slipd

Soldato
Joined
26 Feb 2004
Posts
4,800
Location
Hampshire, England.
Hey guys,

I want to replace my dg834g (v2) and hopefully get something that's a little bit more forgiving with my flaky line… I've had the netgear since 2005 and it's been okay at making the best of a bad situation but in 6 years surely things have moved on a bit in the home router market, and there's a router out there that can do even better at holding a connection down :)

It'd also be good to get a router with faster wifi –pretty much off of the devices in my house now (and those of visitors) use technology beyond 54g.

So, what should I be looking at? I need stability/reliability and current gen wifi.

Cheers!
 
I am replacing my Linksys WAG200 which hasnt ever been particularly reliable with lots of freezing when multiple wifi connections are made and torrents seem to kill it.. I am also looking for a new router.. my priviso's are

ADSL 2+
Dual Band Wireless N
Backward compatible Wireless 802.11A for Xbox streaming
QOS control for gaming packets.
Max £100 ish..

Id happily take any recomendations from peeps.
 
I have gone for the Netgear DGND3700 - seems to come up trumps on almost every review site i have found plus it has dual band wireless N which is a must for future proofing.. :) Not the cheapest at £130 .. but hopefully it should last another 4 years like my last router and be worth the cost in the long run.
 
Can you post the stats on your line.

I have had to junk 2 "modern" routers and go back to a Netgear DG834GT (the BT 2700 also works well)
 
Billion 7800N, best thing out there right now.

Wireless speeds are fantastic, coverage is strong, gigabit ethernet with EWAN support, excellent CS support, regular new firmwares with added features/tweaks/fixes and allows for SNR tweaking that it keeps applied when you reboot the router as others apply it as a one off.

Got my lame 1 meg line up to 2.5 meg , rock solid. I live on the edge of getting broadband with 63.5db on the line. I've been told it's higher but routers don't read higher than that.
 
dg834gt is better for me than either the inbuilt ADSL modem in my Cisco 877 or my old Linksys WAG160. I just use it in bridged mode as a modem, my Cisco 877 does my routing features.

I seem to remember that the 2-Wire router i had a while back (before it died) held on to good sync speeds, might try and pick another up on the bay.
 
lay-z-boy said:
Billion 7800N, best thing out there right now.

Wireless speeds are fantastic, coverage is strong, gigabit ethernet with EWAN support, excellent CS support, regular new firmwares with added features/tweaks/fixes and allows for SNR tweaking that it keeps applied when you reboot the router as others apply it as a one off.

Got my lame 1 meg line up to 2.5 meg , rock solid. I live on the edge of getting broadband with 63.5db on the line. I've been told it's higher but routers don't read higher than that.
Click to expand...

Hi mate i am really interested to know how you get on with this as i like yourself have a poor internet speed being so far from the exchange. My line also is on the edge with 63db Attenuation downstream. Im with sky and have the sagemcom router which is pretty naff! What kind of things did you tweak to get over an extra mb of speed? Im in the middle of trying to fit a filtered faceplate so i can filter my adsl signal to my 1st extension socket as i have 6! hoping this might give me a little bit more but im having great trouble trying to remove the insulation from the pairs for the screw down terminal :(.

I was looking at the Billion 7700N model as its slight cheaper than the 7800N
 
I forced BT to come round and install an official BT filtered faceplate and do the extension wiring at their expense, a 1.5 meter triple shielded rj-11 cable and set a SNR margin target of 65425 on the 7800n. This will drop an 18db line down to 4.5db.

In reality it drops me down to just over 3db which keeps the line stable at a 2.5 Mb connection speed and a 2.848Mb sync speed. YMMV

http://www.spaldwick.com/broadband/billion-7800n

Great tweaking guide there.
 
Have you had the line checked between your house and the street furnature?
As most people dont know, the cable that runs between your house and the pole only has a life expectancy of about 10 years, it would be worth getting BT or your service provider to replace this line as its normally this that causes the greatest loss between the exchange and your house.
Give it a shot :)
 
TB1968 said:
Have you had the line checked between your house and the street furnature?
As most people dont know, the cable that runs between your house and the pole only has a life expectancy of about 10 years, it would be worth getting BT or your service provider to replace this line as its normally this that causes the greatest loss between the exchange and your house.
Give it a shot :)
Click to expand...

Thats nonsense im afraid. The cable between your house and the street cabinet is called a D side or commonly know..the drop cable, this houses 2-4 pairs depending on when your cabling was done and the cable is very well shielded to the elements and most certainly does not have a 10 year lifetime.

Think about it this way, if the cable was underground (and you have not specified if its underground cable or above) then bt would be digging up estates every 10 years to replace d sides, even though they dont get the elements, they would need to be replaced.

If you can provide some evidence then i will most certainly hold my hands up and say im wrong but working in the industry, i think that your information is wrong.
 
That cable is coated in a plastic which goes brittle with age, your birds cr@p on it, it gets damaged and the copper is exposed which in turn starts to gain surface corrosion (resistance).
BT wont normally replace any cable unless they find a fault with it, if its not reported then its not replaced but they do degrade with age, and it is noticable :( (unless you still have an aluminium cable from the 70's but those were all meant to be removed ;))

Worked in telecoms (including BT) for over 20 years :)
 
I'd be a lot more worried about junctions especially where BT engineers don't put the covers back on properly. Also most "engineers" simply cannot be bothered to test more than one pair (and they do vary a lot)

Still a lot Ali about

Billion 7700N still not available
 
There is nothing like a bit of water to cause a lot of attenuation lol but that should be noticable in bad weather rather than all the time and you can normally see the boxes loose, its just not like the good old days when the engineers actually liked fixing things rather than getting sent all over the place with their cr@ppy works manager system :(
My mate has just gone from doing switch O&M to back out into the field, he aint a happy bunny!
 
dmsims said:
Can you post the stats on your line.

I have had to junk 2 "modern" routers and go back to a Netgear DG834GT (the BT 2700 also works well)
Click to expand...
Hello mate,

Currently: 54db attenuation - that's more or less rock solid. My noise margin is (currently 14db) but it's up and down all the time... I think that's my biggest problem with my constant dropping connection!

I'm currently syncing at 1152kbps but I often go to half that and sometimes, momentarily, 3 times that :eek: I'm all over the show - annoying because it never seems to settle.

Even at the master socket, I get the same sort of results - that's using netgear, speedtouch (mine and bt's) and d-link kit. I'm using top spec microfilters and I have a premium dsl line going from the router to socket.

I'm liking the look of the billion - seems like a worthy upgrade ;)

My next plan is to get a nte2000/2005 filtered faceplate and place my router there - even though I trust my internal wiring; I installed it! Its top notch copper, probably better than bt's own stuff! From the master socket I'll run the router into a powerline and share my main connection that way? See if I can get a bit more stability with the billion.

So frustrating...
 
2wire 2700.

The best modem for long lines bar none. Even on my 6.5Mb line, I see 3dB lower attentuation by switching to the 2700 over my Netgear DG834V4, and the SNR is always 1-2dB better too.

Can pick one up on ebay for £5-20 and it's amazing if you want a "set and forget" modem.

Never had a modem that has managed a higher sync than the 2wire, and I've had all the "best for long lines" ones, when I live with my parents, on a farm in rural Wales.. top speed 2Mb :p
 
Sam you really have a problem!

I had terrible issues when we moved in but am now on a rock solid around 2.5 meg sync at 58.0db attenuation. There were internal wiring issues, line faults and the ring wire was connected

The NTE2000 filtered faceplate (the Openreach one) is the best solution but you cannot touch the master socket by law!

WRT to routers my Belkin N was hopeless (previous 2 years 8 meg sync with zero issues)

I have the 2700 and it's not bad - I prefer the DG834GT and have just ordered the Billion 7800N
 
Id love to hear your thoughts on the 7800N dmsims been looking at this myself but am a bit put off by the price. I like the idea you can tweak the SNR but never done that before so could be a trial and error game i guess. I have an attenuation of 63db with a downstream speed of 2800kbps and 644kbps upstream so i wanna get the most i can, im only using the crappy sky sagemcom just need convincing to get an expensive router :)
 
Call me David

I'll let you know soon enough:

"Order has been handed over to the carrier and is in transit - 14 June 2011 20:01:57 "
 
dmsims said:
Sam you really have a problem!

I had terrible issues when we moved in but am now on a rock solid around 2.5 meg sync at 58.0db attenuation. There were internal wiring issues, line faults and the ring wire was connected

The NTE2000 filtered faceplate (the Openreach one) is the best solution but you cannot touch the master socket by law!

WRT to routers my Belkin N was hopeless (previous 2 years 8 meg sync with zero issues)

I have the 2700 and it's not bad - I prefer the DG834GT and have just ordered the Billion 7800N
Click to expand...

Be interesting to see if the 7800N will give you a better than you're present 58.0db attenuation figure ?.

when can you let us know :).
 
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