Ideal Modem for Asus RT-AC88U

[Adam373]

Hi

I have an Asus RT-AC88U and am currently using the originally supplied Openreach modem - EchoLife HG612.  In a visit by the Openreach technician this morning, I was advised that I should replace the modem to prevent the glitches in broadband that we have been experiencing over the last couple of weeks.  Any thoughts out there about what I should replace this modem with?

Cheers

[licquorice]

Your choices are very limited, Draytek Vigor 130 or 166. However, I would be very surprised if your problem is the Huawei modem, they are rock solid and still popular.

[Adam373]

Thank you for the rapid response.  Symptoms are periods during the day when download speed collapses to around the 15mbps level, but recovering to previous levels (60-70mbps)  a short time later - not ideal with a few users on teams/zoom calls at the time.  These symptoms have only just exhibited themselves - it has been behaving itself pretty well throughout lockdown up until about ten days ago.  

[licquorice]

Is the modem unlocked so that you can see the line stats rather than just download speeds?

[Adam373]

The engineer that attended yesterday showed the line stats for the last ten days on his portable device - that seemed to show that there have been no issues on the line itself over that period.

[licquorice]

Its going to be difficult to diagnose. Ideally you need to be able to see the line stats and download speed at the time of the drops. I suspect the problem is one of congestion rather than anything else.

Have you still got your Home Hub that you could temporarily use to replace the modem and Asus to try and narrow things down?

[Adam373]

Yes, although we seem to have the same issues with that connected.

We reconnected the hub in order for BT to do some remote testing.  Compared to the Asus router, the wifi signal from the Hub5 is a lot worse around the house so we ended up going back pretty quickly to the previous set up (plus it would have meant that we needed to change a load of settings on chromecast, sonos etc) - so to be honest that has not been a helpful diagnostic exercise.  I have asked for a more up to date BT hub to be sent and that is due to arrive tomorrow so maybe before i buy more gear I will see how that one works.

To measure speed i have been using the BTW link that i was sent by customer service.  How do i monitor the line speed at these times of degradation?  

[licquorice]

Your modem would need to be unlocked to obtain the line stats from that. The Home hub 5 line stats can be obtained from the hub manager > troubleshooting > helpdesk

[Adam373]

Thank you.

I think what I will do is to plug in the new home hub when it arrives tomorrow and run that for a while to see how it performs, and if there are issues to use the route you suggest to ascertain the line stats at the time of any degradation.  Then hopefully we can count out a line issue once and for all - or relook at the line if that seems to be the source of the problems.

Make sense?

[licquorice]

Indeed it does