Solved Sick of my internet issues

So where we live, maximum speeds are 8mbs. Yes I know it's rubbish. After having issues for a year or so (1mbps or less) an engineer said - you want to be on 10/40 instead of 20/80 at the connection box - speeds won't be faster but they'll be more stable. So switched to another provider, ensured it was 10/40 and had stable 5mps for a year - which was fine. A few months ago, internet kept cutting out completely. Had engineer out - he said line was ok, it's the box in the house. He changed it. Fine for about 2 weeks then the same issues again. Engineer came out tested everything and said - you're getting the full 8mbps to the box inside the house - it's your router.

Now I had a very good Router - to try and get the best out of the internet speeds - Asus RT-AX88U ans a Vigor modem. I was sure it wasn't the router. Engineer said - definitely the router.

After some testing it turned out to be the Vigor modem that was the issue. Updating firmware and rebooting fixed it temporarily. But it needed rebooting every few days.

So I was on the look out for a new modem. Don't know much about modems - and there doesn't seem much info or availability for "just" a modem. And Vigor seems the most popular. But articles said this Vigor is notorious for starting to fail within 6 months to a year. There is a newer model but it's not supposed to be as good.

So the options were - try and get hold of an older model new Vigor, or a much more expensive modem. Or spend the same amount on a new Asus router with built in modem. Which is what I ended up doing - and keep it simple.

So - I have just set up the new Asus - DSL- AX82U

And it's worse! Only 1.7mbps - takes 2 minutes to open a web page. At least if I rebooted the Vigor modem daily I got better than that!

I cannot see how the new router with built in modem can be worse than the failing/faulty vigor.

It's nothing to do with placement of the router - a laptop right in front of it gets the same speeds. Ethernet is only marginally better at 1.84 gbps

Any suggestions? Otherwise I'll be sending the Asus DSL-AX82U back and looking for a new modem - any recommendations for a modem? The amount we have spent on routers just to eke out a few mbps on this lousy connection. Moving location isn't an option unfortunately but we may get 5G in the next year.

@Hazel123

As an alternative, have you looked into StarLink?

Cheers. I did look at getting a private ftp connection. It was going to cost £500 a month! Believe me I've looked into all the options locally. The only option is to pay for a private business connection at £500 a month. Which is a bit too steep for me!

It's £500 a month for gigabit connection. Or less than 7mbps (but more like 1.7 mpbps at the moment). I'd be happy to have the stable 5mbps back!

hsehestedt said:

As an alternative, have you looked into StarLink?

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Off to look ! .............

Hazel123 said:

Cheers. I did look at getting a private ftp connection. It was going to cost £500 a month! Believe me I've looked into all the options locally. The only option is to pay for a private business connection at £500 a month. Which is a bit too steep for me!

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You need to get the neighbors involved.
Unless you win the lottery or something... it's too big for any one person.

1. Find someone that CAN do it.
2. Get the neighbors together to come up with the money.
3. Be the organizing force, if necessary.
4. Sit back and download a Windows ISO in 5 minutes.

Ghot said:

You need to get the neighbors involved.
Unless you win the lottery or something... it's too big for any one person.

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Neighbours are very widespread! Yes it needs a number of people in a group to get a voucher from the gov to go towards building a private network. Can't get enough people interested as most of them have half decent speeds - it's just a few of us who are slightly more rural.

Annoying thing is, a local landowner had his own private gigabit installation put in - it's only 5 miles up the road. But apparently we can't tap into it! I did ask the engineers about that. They said no you have to have your own installation separate from it. I said - but most of it's already there, why not just extend it? Bureaucracy I think.

hsehestedt said:

As an alternative, have you looked into StarLink?

Click to expand...

Interesting! Says it's available in the Uk. Not much info on the page except - sign up now to order it. £75 a month plus £460 for standard hardware (£2,410 for high performance). It would be good to know the difference between standard and high performance!

Hazel123 said:

It would be good to know the difference between standard and high performance!

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£1,950

Go with the recommendation of your ISP/engineer, ask what equipment you can buy/use that works best with their equipment.

Hazel123 said:

Neighbours are very widespread! Yes it needs a number of people in a group to get a voucher from the gov to go towards building a private network. Can't get enough people interested as most of them have half decent speeds - it's just a few of us who are slightly more rural.

Annoying thing is, a local landowner had his own private gigabit installation put in - it's only 5 miles up the road. But apparently we can't tap into it! I did ask the engineers about that. They said no you have to have your own installation separate from it. I said - but most of it's already there, why not just extend it? Bureaucracy I think.

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Don't know about your area but in the US someone wanting service such as electricity, telephone, TV, etc., that was not already near their property they had to pay to run the cable from the nearest junction or substation, gets expensive quickly. Then there's the franchise rules where cities limit who can provide service, example for us is one electric company but another just 5 miles away can't compete in the same franchise area. If we wanted the second company we'd have to pay for the new poles, the line and right-away/easement to cross private property.

Reviews on Trustpilot - 45% 5 star, 41% 1 star. Good when it works. But some people pay for it and can't get a signal. Customer service non existent apparently.

But there is a 30 day free trial (off to read the small print on that).

Haydon said:

Go with the recommendation of your ISP/engineer, ask what equipment you can buy/use that works best with their equipment.

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They just say use the Vodafone router. Results are no different. Their router doesn't have enough security for me. You can't turn off WPS and only one guest network (I use separate guest networks for smart devices).

Hazel123 said:

Reviews on Trustpilot - 45% 5 star, 41% 1 star. Good when it works. But some people pay for it and can't get a signal. Customer service non existent apparently.

But there is a 30 day free trial (off to read the small print on that).

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Yes but Starlink is from SpaceX, which is Elon Musk's company.
So if there's any problems... just get all the neighbors with Starlink on Twitter for a couple days... and I bet it gets fixed... post haste.


Just so you know... satellite internet (well... satellite anything), is susceptible to atmospherics.
Sun spots, electrical storms, just general bad weather can cause interference.

Hazel123 said:

They just say use the Vodafone router. Results are no different. Their router doesn't have enough security for me. You can't turn off WPS and only one guest network (I use separate guest networks for smart devices).

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Then the Vodafone router is your best bet, everything else will be worse. Find workarounds, that's still your best bet.

Well I've signed up for Starlink and will give it a go for 30 days (but had to pay upfront). Sounds like pot luck - you either get good speeds or virtually no speeds.

Haydon said:

Then the Vodafone router is your best bet, everything else will be worse. Find workarounds, that's still your best bet.

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Can't even find it lol. I know I put it away in a safe place about 15 months ago when I had a big clear out and tidy up. Thing is the Asus router and modem were perfectly fine and stable for about a year. I still think it's the line but they say it isn't.

Que?!

Hazel123 said:

Can't even find it lol. I know I put it away in a safe place about 15 months ago when I had a big clear out and tidy up. Thing is the Asus router and modem were perfectly fine and stable for about a year. I still think it's the line but they say it isn't.

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It's likely that your ISP made changes to make things work better with the Vodafone router (their recommended router) but is less compatible with everything else.

Well, good luck!