As I briefly mentioned elsewhere,
Digidave is selling a non-BT branded version of 2700HG, and I've bought one. These are my initial impressions.
Firstly I should say that it's not a truly generic 2-Wire model (if such a thing exists). The firmware is branded SBC (the US company SBC Internet Services). However the firmware isn't locked to that ISP, and all of the advanced features are available via the Management and Diagnostic Console at
http://192.168.1.254/mdc .
When you first launch the web interface you are invited to enter a password for access to the interface, then a wizard is launched to do the basic configuration of the router. You need a keycode for this, which is printed on the bottom of the router. The wizard is straightforward, although the defaults are applicable to SBC, so you need to manually specify several details.
There's a slight oddity in the wireless settings, in that initially it only offered three channels (5, 6 and 7) but when I came back to it later it offered all 11 channels. More significantly, the only security options are WEP and WPA, with no WPA2 available. This is probably not a big issue for most people. A choice of four levels of wireless power are offered, and I suspect that the highest level may exceed UK legal limits (but I have yet to check this).
According to the spec, this router is IPv6 capable, but it's not clear whether a firmware upgrade is required to enable this. On the subject of firmware upgrades, the documentation says that upgrades are available via 2Wire CMS. I still have to work out how to do this.
PerformanceThe ADSL performance seems to be identical to the BT 2700HGV. Over a couple of hours of running, all the stats are stable. I'll know more after a few days, but it seems likely that the two routers use the same ADSL drivers.
Wireless performance is at least as good as the 2700HGV - my internet radio shows 4 signal level bars, where the 2700HGV showed three. I'll probably turn the power down, as the signal is stronger than I need.
My initial conclusion is that this router is every bit as good as the BT 2700HGV (with the slight proviso over wireless encryption) and is not vulnerable to possible remote upgrades.
As this is a 2700HG, not HGV, there is no VOIP capability.
