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Do I need to change router?

aj84

Member
Hi all,

New joiner but old lurker

We've been on BT FTTP for around 7 years without a single glitch in service however with costs being what they are, Sky were offering a slightly better package though reliability is yet to be seen!

Fast forward to today and it was activated. My setup is quite in-dept but the core principles is a Draytek 2860 router connected to two 24 port switches and then I have a number of wifi Ubiquiti APs connected to them (amongst a load of other devices)

So the first question is, do I need to change routers from the Draytek 2860 to something higher spec? BT worked fine but this was I believe upto 200mb/s whereas Sky is up to 515.

Ideally I want to add a 4G option for backup just to eliminate downtime given everything else has a redundancy from power to lights etc and so my option is if it does support it, I can get a dongle add-on or I can change altogether for another Draytek that already has built in sim option (unlikely due to cost), an upgraded model of what I have with an attached dongle (more like it) or change to a TP-Link Archer MR600 and move away from Draytek (for the first time in 10 years)

Thanks in advance!
 
I suspect based on https://www.draytek.co.uk/products/comparison/router-comparison & https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/draytek-2860-wan-throughput.18710865/ you'll need to replace the router to get enough throughput. Given you are using "proper" networking behind it :-) so don't need an AP on the router have a look at the TPlink ER605, I've got one as a backup for my Primary PFsense box & that managed to keep up with speed tests on a 900/100 Openreach FTTP line (peaking @ about 960 down / 110 up reported). If you can find something suitable though I would suggest PFsense (or your favoured equivalent) as it is a far better firewall than the ER605. Mine is running on a an *old* iGEL fanless thin client [a H-820C] with an added PCIe, 2 port, Intel Network adapter [in a hacked socket]to give enough interfaces. Handles the full bandwidth really well.
 
Interesting option and not one I looked into!
I do like it but... I think I still want the failover to a mobile network should things go pear shaped more with Sky.

This is why I stuck with Draytek or the MR600 as an option although I think the latter might be more "homely" than "corporate / that much more sturdier )

We have a combination of a lawyer who could be on a video-link to a court case to a developer who might be mid-coding on a remote server so that stability and seamless connectivity jump from Sky to Mobile sim is ideal
 
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add in a 4G router (one of my colleagues has got one of these & swears by it - https://www.msdist.co.uk/mikrotik/wireless/lhg-lte6-kit ), another PFsense box, a switch (or 2 if truly looking for full HA / Redundancy) & you'd have a fully redundant , Highly available solution.

I do agree it isn't a normal Domestic (or particularly pretty to look at) setup, however, a bit of woodwork & I'm sure a suitable box can be put together.

[actually I rather like that idea, might go for it myself :-), now how do I persuade she who must be obeyed. ;-) ]


I *suspect* that the jump between FTTP & 4G would (in reality) be far from seamless - [we've got 4G backups on our remote corporate WAN connections & it's not seamless, pretty good but not invisible [latency increases & band width decreases] & that is routing traffic internally via tunnels,] if you drop between 4G & FTTP as direct connections you'll get a public IP change if nothing else which may well st*f up the connections..
 
Just a closure on this (maybe) - looked into the individual route but there were a few issues - namely the dongle route would only allow a small number of connections and given you cannot prioritise which ones, this would not work for us.

So I went for the all-in-one solution which is the Draytek Vigor 2927LAC which does not have this limit.
The wireless AP will of course be disabled as I have no need for it and the LTE part will be on standby for failover.

Thats the the theory anyway!

As for the 2860, I finally managed to get this working however throughput was terrible as you eluded to. I'm not sure if its down to the firmware as this was geared for BT (though its all the same at the end of the day!) or just the fact that it was an older unit. Highest I got was 96mb/s on a 515 line.
Upload was around 5 whereas I think I should be getting 50+

It worked like this most of the day yesterday until around 10:30pm where the internet connection just dropped out. After that, I just could not get into the Draytek no matter how hard I tried. Best I could get is the login screen but after this it would just go haywire.
Turn off/on did not work either.

Really weird given the number of years of service without a glitch and then the day after going live with a new connection, it dies a grizzly death.

I'll factory reset once the new one is in and setup not that I can check the old one right now for any port mapping and VPN settings given I can't get into it.

Fingers-crossed its just a glitch and a factory reset fixes it - Should still get some £££ back on the bay so ideally it needs to work

Thanks again for the advice!
 
On the 2860 the throughput issue is the CPU which gets overloaded running the firewall at high speeds limiting the throughput, the 2927 has a more powerful CPU so can handle it. My 2925 will have the same issue when I get FTTP. You can get the 2860 to improve a bit by turning off the Data Flow Monitor and turning on hardware acceleration.
 
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