I'm here in Germany and currently using Vodafone Cable Internet, which is terrible in so many ways. I want to switch to using DSL (250Mbit/s Down/40Mbit/s Up). I'll likely be using 1und1 DSL and now I'm looking for a modem&router that I could use. Here are my Parameters:
Price: Total of 300€ all in, I have some headroom but don't want to overspend (who does?)
Modem: I have none, an integrated Modem in a Router would be a plus, but not a requirement.
Wifi: 6Ghz Band strongly preferred. Wifi 7 not a requirement. I live in a small Flat and am just one Power User but the 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz Bands are flooded with Signals from all my Neighbors. My bet is I'll be the only one using the 6Ghz Range. MU-MIMO would be nice.
LAN: I'll need like 2-3 1gig Ports. A single 2.5gig port would be a nice to have but not a requirement.
Setup: I'm pretty open here, All in One Device, Router Modem and Wifi Access Point in different devices, etc.
Misc: I'm pretty security consious (Graphene OS Phone, QubesOS Notebook, etc.). So an EOL Device or Device that gets no security updates when necessary would be a big minus. I'd also like some compute power for VPN, Network Segmentation, etc. A single USB Port for a Backup LTE Connection would be a plus.
I'm mostly stuck on figuring out which (external) Modem I should get and if I can just use a NUC/Mini Computer and just add some Wifi 6e USB Sticks and still get the benefits of MU-MIMO and decent Wifi Range.
Vodafone Cable internet in germany is meh for real! Good call to switch to SuperVectoring if no FTTH is available at your place!
GL-MT6000 + Zyxel VMG4005-B50A-EU01V1F or any decent SVDSL modem with a good chipset would be a good combo imo. The BCM63138 chipset in the Zyxel modem performs great with SV lines (stable and high Sync).
The GL-MT6000 + Zyxel modem would be ~250€ total at Amazon. For the Zyxel Modem you would also need to order a TAE-F to RJ11 cable or adapter to use it in germany but they are quite cheap ~5-8€.
Not sure if you also need VOIP support but you could use any old and cheap Fritzbox for this purpose...
I'm currently using a GL-MT6000 with OpenWrt + DGA4130 (same Broadcom chipset as the Zyxel modem) and I can't complain.
I'm getting FTTH soon so the DGA4130 will be replaced with a ONT but the GL-MT6000 will stay!
OpenWrt support with the GL-MT6000 is great, it's quite powerful (VPN, SQM), has 2x 2.5G ports (1x WAN + 1x LAN) + good Wifi 6E and u can buy it for a decent price (~150€). I don't think there is a better Router for OpenWrt at the moment unless you are going x86 and build one.
Just to be very clear, the gl-mt6000 does support wifi6, it does not support wifi6e; the number of currently supported 6 GHz capable routers is pretty small (less than a retired carpenter's handful).
I believe, but am not 100% sure, that 1%1 is likely to default to ds-lite instead of full dual-stack. It might be possible to ask for being switched to dal-stack, if affected by that I would try to argue with home office/VPN requirements to get full DualStack, but I digress.
There really are only two options: FritzBox 7530/7520 (without AX and only version on of the 7520 the one with the "Stummelantennen" and some of these need special patches to allow using DSL). These will operate decently as bridged-modem under OpenWrt and depending on your needs even as modem-router. These should be available second hand (at the usual places) for 50-60EUR...
For instructions see here: https://openwrt.org/toh/avm/avm_fritz_box_7530
Please note that with OpenWrt you will need a separate SIP-base station no matter what, so a full all in one profile 35b modem-voip-router is realistically off the table.
But you can use either a stand alone SIP base station or repupose anther FritzBox to do duty as SIP/VoIP base station.
Well, there is no guarantee, but OpenWrt tends to support popular models (without showstoppers like very low amounts of RAM or flash) quite a long time...
That would work, the market for stand alone modems (nowadays these are typically full modem-routers that can also be configured to act as bridged modem only)) is not really that large... I believe there are a few dryteks and some speedports can be configured into bridged mode (these should also be available second hand).
*1, these seem to be quite popular ATM.
Made my morning, glad I had not sipped coffe just before reading this
I believe, but am not 100% sure, that 1%1 is likely to default to ds-lite instead of full dual-stack. It might be possible to ask for being switched to dal-stack, if affected by that I would try to argue with home office/VPN requirements to get full DualStack, but I digress.
I have long given up on the dream of having a useful home internet with dedicated dual stack. I can work around it for VPN purposes, it's mostly outgoing VPN that matter to me.
Please note that with OpenWrt you will need a separate SIP-base station no matter what, so a full all in one profile 35b modem-voip-router is realistically off the table.
But you can use either a stand alone SIP base station or repupose anther FritzBox to do duty as SIP/VoIP base station.
Luckily I don't need any VOIP/Phone Access.
That would work, the market for stand alone modems (nowadays these are typically full modem-routers that can also be configured to act as bridged modem only)) is not really that large... I believe there are a few dryteks and some speedports can be configured into bridged mode (these should also be available second hand).
Ah the pain of not having a fiber connection at home never stops. I remember many moons ago, when my ISP gave me a black cisco box with COAX on one side and Ethernet on the other connected to a OpenWRT Router and true dual stack with a new IP on every (manual) reboot. Never had an issue, life was good. Than they got bought and I had to deal with increasingly worse ISP provided Shitboxes, Dual Stack Lite, Double NAT, etc. Southpark had it right a decade ago.
Mmmh, as I said if 1&1 defaults to ds-lite there is a chance of getting dual stack activated, alternatively both Telekom and O2 default to DualStack (but neither guarantees this anywhere, so this might change in the future).
I mentioned "VPN" mostly as that might be a use case to present when convincing 1&1 to enable dual stack (assuming their customer service agent will try to talk you out of it).
Excellent, that makes things considerably easier.
Not sure what to say, I try to avoid cable/docsis in general so I never had contact with VF, but some years ago the customer service that VF inherited from KabelDeutschland had a very good reputation, it seems either you are in an ex-UM area or the quality declined considerably...
I mentioned "VPN" mostly as that might be a use case to present when convincing 1&1 to enable dual stack (assuming their customer service agent will try to talk you out of it).
I'll try, but they are just as shady as all other ISPs. Their "Buisness" Connection promises a stable ipv4. Then you click on what that means and they just provide you a small VPS instead.
Not sure what to say, I try to avoid cable/docsis in general so I never had contact with VF, but some years ago the customer service that VF inherited from KabelDeutschland had a very good reputation, it seems either you are in an ex-UM area or the quality declined considerably...
EX UM Area is right and the Quality has declined to the point where it's borderline unsable with frequent total dropouts throughout the day. Back In the UM days it was glorious. Literally never had a single hour of downtime in over 4 years, Bandwidth was always above what was promised and it was rock solid. But then they overprovisioned it to hell and back and I have learned to avoid DOCSIS now too.
Oh, they are, but the Bundesnetzagentur is of the opinion that an ISP that can supply dualstack public IPv4 should do so if customers request it, and since VF can do this they are likely to hand it out if you supply some credible rationale (to avoid you complaining to the BNetzA). But that is just me guessing... as I have no direct experience with 1&1.
Gl.iNet is currently running a sale at their EU shop.
So if you haven't bought a GL-MT6000 yet you could save some money: https://store-eu.gl-inet.com/
It's 99€ + tax and you can also put in THANKS10 as discount code (10%) to bring the price further down (~107€ total, tax included).
