Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => Broadband Hardware => Topic started by: tiffy on May 21, 2020, 09:29:36 AM
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After a bad experience with an Asus RT-AC68U router, contemplating buying a Netgear R7800 Nighthawk AC1900 router for use with my trusty ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A as modem, appears to have very comparable features to the Asus router I recently tried which unfortunately was faulty and had to be returned to Amazon.
Have decided not to try an Asus replacement.
Anyone had very good/very bad experiences with this Netgear router model ?
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Over on the Openwrt forums it seems very well supported:
https://openwrt.org/toh/netgear/r7800
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/build-for-netgear-r7800/316
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Anyone had very good/very bad experiences with this Netgear router model ?
I'm using this router (it's actually an AC2600 and not AC1900), pretty happy, good performance, although it's now in AP mode...
Should you go for it, have a look at the SNB forum (https://www.snbforums.com/forums/netgear-ac-wireless.53/) and you might want to try Voxel's firmware...
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Not sure about the R7800, but a lot of Netgear routers will not run full IPV6 on a BT line as they don't support the /56 PD flavour that BT use. I discovered this with a D6220 I used to have - it would only do 6 to 4 tunnelling for IPV6. For a lot of people this is a non-issue, but worth noting.
:)
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Not sure about the R7800, but a lot of Netgear routers will not run full IPV6 on a BT line as they don't support the /56 PD flavour that BT use. I discovered this with a D6220 I used to have - it would only do 6 to 4 tunnelling for IPV6. For a lot of people this is a non-issue, but worth noting.
:)
When I was with Sky I also used IPv6 with the R7800 and I just chose the option 'Auto Detect' and it worked like a charm, no idea with BT...
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When I was with Sky I also used IPv6 with the R7800 and I just chose the option 'Auto Detect' and it worked like a charm, no idea with BT...
A quick Google suggests Sky use a /64 PD config for IPV6 and Netgear do support that. It's the /56 PD that BT use that is the issue. For some reason Netgear don't want to update their firmware to support anything but /64 PD. Other manufacturers don't have issue with this - my Zyxel works and I understand Asus is fine too. Netgear need to get their act together on this one.
:)
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Many thanks to all for the advice and comments to date.
Had noted that third party FW such as Open WRT and Voxel's seems to be the preference by quite a few for the Netgear AC range.
Things like the "de-bricking" instructions on the Open WRT site would be inclined to make me a bit weary about installing !
The Voxel's FW installation seems to be a bit more straight forward to implement.
To be honest I doubt if I would require any of the enhanced features available in either of the alternative FW upgrades.
Is there anything drastically limited with the Netgear native FW for normal router operation ?
Reading through the manual the router features would seem to be quite comprehensive.
IPV6 limitations would not be a big issue on my system but appreciate the information.
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The Voxel's FW installation seems to be a bit more straight forward to implement.
Indeed, simple and easy to install: his firmware is based on the official NG firmware (and no actual modification in the GUI), hence you can go back and forward between stock and Voxel as many times as you like...
To be honest I doubt if I would require any of the enhanced features available in either of the alternative FW upgrades.
The actual enhancements of Voxel's firmware are under the hood, so regardlees if you want to use any additional feature - i.e. entware (his installation archive is optimised to get max performance from the R7800 CPU/FPU) or stubby or something else - unlike NG firmware, you'll still benefit of all the security patches that he periodically releases... ;)
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The R7800 is a great router and sits on top of 802.11ac router charts on smallnetbuilder.com for wifi range/coverage. As others have already suggested, highly recommended to use Voxel's firmware on it, if only for the security fixes (which Netgear are quite lazy to fix on their stock fw).
https://www.voxel-firmware.com/Downloads/Voxel/html/index.html
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Does the Voxel firmware support full IPV6 /56 PD unlike stock firmware? That was the main reason I stopped using Netgear routers, and moved to Asus and used https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/ with them
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Just so I understand : Tubaman is I presume talking about the BT retail ISP. I have a BT Openreach / BT Wholesale line but my ISP is not BT (retail); I don’t (directly) pay BT a penny. My ISP is Andrews and Arnold (AA - aa.net.uk) and BT resells services wholesale to AA.
I use IPv6 and AA routes a /48 to me and a single /64 to the DSL lines that go to my house. So as for people who ‘use BT’ by virtue of BT reselling services wholesale to the customer’s ISP, those people don’t have any problems with IPv6 as that’s all down to their ISP, and it’s nothing to do with BT.
Have I understood correctly?
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Just so I understand : Tubaman is I presume talking about the BT retail ISP.
<snip>
Have I understood correctly?
I believe so, for that, also, is how I read t*man's post.
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@Weaver,
Yes, it is BT as an ISP I am referring to who use /56 PD. As you say, if you use a different ISP on an Openreach line then the 'flavour' of IPV6 you get will be that ISP's and not BT's. For some reason Netgear do not want to make their kit work with /56 PD, despite BT being one of the largest ISPs in the country. I'm sure when IPV6 becomes a necessity they'll have to deal with it, but right now it's a simple 'no'.
:)