Hi I have been on the 330mb Trial now for about a month and of that about 3 weeks I have been using the TG799vn Router that Dave supplied as part of the trial.
The 330mb FTTP line is working great, had zero issues or downtime that I have noticed ;D. Generally the extra speed over the 100/15 connection I had before is not that noticeable but occasionally you do notice some things come down a little faster. The biggest problem is going to be the allowance, 120gb when you can download 1gb in a minute, even during the day is very easy to use up. Like the 100/15 service it just works with no issues (other than ones of my own making like the wrong cables keeping the router to laptop speed down at 100mb)
As I said earlier I have also been testing the Technicolor TG799vn router, this seems to give about the same performance as the NetGear WNR3500V2 that I was using at the start of the trial. WiFi coverage is about the same and LAN connected download speeds show the same wide variations that I was getting with the NetGear router (anything from 50-60mb up to 240mb on Speedtest.net and similar figures from ThinkBroadband.com). It does have a number of other options like integrated VOIP to DECT connection and a few more firewall rules, compared to the NetGear router, but as yet I have not been able to test them due to issues with the User Interface hanging. Basically it seems the TG799vn router is nowhere near as robust as the Netgear router with regards to the user interface. It has hung on many occasions, usually if you try and start something else before the previous operation has completed. The only way to resolve this is to cycle the power, which as the router is in the loft is not very convenient. The router still works but you can’t access it to change any settings which as I have been trying to set up some firewall rules and set restrictions on times etc. has been a big issue. It may be that this is a known issue and there is a later firmware but due to the way Technicolor sell/distribute there routers you can’t seem to find or download any updated firmware from them, it would appear that you have to get it from the ISP, or PlusNet in this case. Because of this I have now switched back to the Netgear router which I have had none of these sorts of issues with.
So in conclusion the performance of the two routers is about the same, the Technicolor router has a better feature set, if you are patient enough to set it up, but is let down by the stability of the user interface. If the user interface issues for the Technicolor router can be resolved then it would be a better router due to the feature set compared to the NetGear but for now I think I will continue with the NetGear router.
Both of these routers are Home or SOHO type routers and so whilst very capable are probably struggling to cope with a 330Mb line. What is probably required is the very latest router models that benefit from the fastest CPU and the latest hardware to really be able to cope with the sort of line speeds and potentially the home/SOHO network that a 330Mb line could support. I have seen that the ZyEXL routers seem to be limited to 100mb WAN to LAN which suggests that the 330Mb line is far faster than some router manufactures had envisaged for their products, so maybe for these line speeds you need more commercial grade routers.
Gary
