I recommend the TP-Link TD-W8980 which is now the more reasonable price of £45. There's an N300 version the 8970 for a tenner less. Bought it in 2014 for my gf and it's vastly extended the range in her house. This has now been superceded by the newer Archer ones, but they cost more than most people are willing to spend.
Broadband router
- Thread starter Houthakker
- Start date
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StuAff
Silencing his legs regularly
- Location
- Portsmouth
On Plusnet fibre here, replaced both the BT Openreach VDSL (fibre) modem and the Plusnet-supplied Technicolor box with a TP-Link W9980 (not to be confused with the similarly numbered one @marinyork mentioned, as that does ADSL only). http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/cat-15_TD-W9980.html A doddle to set up, wireless speed in this 1920s house massively improved, and much less faff to troubleshoot when I've had issues as it's one box not two, saving a power socket on the somewhat crowded surge protector. Wired connections are gigabit Ethernet not just 10/100 as well. If you've got fibre (or you might upgrade shortly), mine is recommended. If you haven't, I second the W8980 which is otherwise identical and cheaper, naturally.
Plusnet have recently changed their router offerings, but judging by the specs if they send you a new one it won't be much if any of an improvement.
Plusnet have recently changed their router offerings, but judging by the specs if they send you a new one it won't be much if any of an improvement.
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Yellow Fang
Legendary Member
- Location
- Reading
What sort of connection into your house do you have, is it ADSL or something else? When setting up your new router, you may need to know some settings, like your account name and password. From memory, the password is the same as you would need to access your PlusNet account on the internet. There are also a bunch of other settings, like whether to use PPPoA, PPPoE, etc. If you have a CD disk, it may take you through all this, or you can download instructions from the internet. It may be worth printing them off, because when you replace the router, you won't have access to the internet until you set it up right. If you find you cannot set up your new router, you can put your PlusNet back in, and access the internet for more help.
I had a lot of trouble with all this.
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/hardware/
StuAff
Silencing his legs regularly
- Location
- Portsmouth
Correction: you will need to know some settings. Or know where that handy little card from Plusnet with all of them on is (if you've lost it, on the bottom of the Technicolor router as well). And if you want to keep all the same Wi-Fi settings as on your current router, you'll need to know or note those down too (or have to change the wireless settings on every device you'll use on the network!). A little research first is strongly recommended, I found a link for the 9980 which gave me everything I needed and made the switch of equipment very simple. There's a lot of good stuff on the Plusnet community forums, many use their own modems and/or routers on there.
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
My old TalkTalk router is a Technicolor model.
The apparently dodgy router that Plusnet supplied me in May of this year is a Sagem model ...
The apparently dodgy router that Plusnet supplied me in May of this year is a Sagem model ...
mybike
Grumblin at Garmin on the Granny Gear
- Location
- Not 'emel 'empstead
And don't use the default settings for the wifi!
StuAff
Silencing his legs regularly
- Location
- Portsmouth
A lot of the comments I've found reckon it's worse than the Technicolor...
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
I've got one of those, courtesy of PlusNet. My PC is 6 metres line of sight from it. The computer consistently reports a weak or very weak connection and drops it entirely several times a week.
D
Deleted member 1258
Guest
Yes its technicolour, I use mine wired not wireless and I've not had any problems
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Ah ha - I have discovered a possible cause for the problem! 
I searched for other people suffering from the same issue and found THIS Plusnet support forum thread discussing it. Somebody thought that Avast anti-virus might be interacting with the router and killing it. It sounded unlikely, but I just did the suspect 'Home Network Scan' and sure enough, my router rebooted!
There is no need routinely to run that scan. If you want to run it manually from time to time, fine. I have now disabled it and will see if my router manages to stay working for more than a day or so at a time!
I searched for other people suffering from the same issue and found THIS Plusnet support forum thread discussing it. Somebody thought that Avast anti-virus might be interacting with the router and killing it. It sounded unlikely, but I just did the suspect 'Home Network Scan' and sure enough, my router rebooted!
There is no need routinely to run that scan. If you want to run it manually from time to time, fine. I have now disabled it and will see if my router manages to stay working for more than a day or so at a time!
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
I have managed to cause the problem at will! 
Running Avast Home Network Security scan and accessing the internet at the same time 3 times rebooted the router each time. I managed to do a couple of scans without causing the reboot as long as I didn't load any web pages during the scans.
Clearly there is an unfortunate interaction between Avast and that router, but the workaround (hopefully!) is a simple one which should not cause any problems.
Good luck!
Running Avast Home Network Security scan and accessing the internet at the same time 3 times rebooted the router each time. I managed to do a couple of scans without causing the reboot as long as I didn't load any web pages during the scans.
Clearly there is an unfortunate interaction between Avast and that router, but the workaround (hopefully!) is a simple one which should not cause any problems.
Good luck!
mybike
Grumblin at Garmin on the Granny Gear
- Location
- Not 'emel 'empstead
I have managed to cause the problem at will!
Running Avast Home Network Security scan and accessing the internet at the same time 3 times rebooted the router each time. I managed to do a couple of scans without causing the reboot as long as I didn't load any web pages during the scans.
Clearly there is an unfortunate interaction between Avast and that router, but the workaround (hopefully!) is a simple one which should not cause any problems.
Good luck!
Just make sure that nothing on your router is accessible from the Internet. And run ShieldsUp to make sure.
subaqua
What’s the point
- Location
- Leytonstone
I found similar on the ASUS thing we have. I had a virgin superhub but configured that as just a cablemodem rather than a router as it is much more relaible as that only and the asus is much more relaible as a wireless router. problem i am nearing is needing more LAN ports for direct connected stuff as its apparently better if direct connected.
dunno as i am an IT and tech phobic
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
I just ran all the tests and apparently my router is being very 'stealthy' and playing dead to the outside world, where necessary!
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
The router has not rebooted in 18 hours, so it is looking good ...
