Hi all,
After getting slightly frustrated with the inconsistency of the functionality of my ZyXel VMG8924, I sourced a Billion BiPAC 8800AXL. Going into it, I expected the 8800 to perform as well on my ADSL2+ line as the ZyXel does (18.7Mb/s on a line with 25.5dB Attn at 3.2dB SNRM). However, the 8800 syncs at around 700-800 kb/s lower (circa 17.9Mb/s).
As far as I can see, all WAN settings are identical even down to PhyR, SRA and Bit Swap being enabled (by default in the 8800).
The other thing I've noticed is that the SNRM sits at 3.0dB +- 0.2dB constantly with the 8800. With the ZyXel, this would drop to circa 1.5dB during the day and bounce back up to circa 3.0dB +- 0.2dB at night. And I'm convinced the first night the 8800 was in service SRA bumped the sync by around 200kb/s as it had increased but the up time was consistent with when I first plugged the 8800 in.
UAS errors seem very high with the 8800 too whereas I don't remember seeing the ZyXel report any...
My thoughts are that there's something functioning within the 8800 to maintain the SNRM at 3.0dB (SRA? Bit swapping?) and that although the ZyXel shares this functionality, for whatever reason, it doesn't work with the ZyXel.
Overall I prefer the 8800 as it just seems to work (bar the lower sync). One specific issue I had with the ZyXel was the inability to create guest SSID's that performed as they should. That's not an issue with the 8800. Web access seems generally snappier too.
If any of you have any thoughts or advice, it would be very welcome.
Cheers,
Paul