I‘m searching for devices for days now and can’t figure some stuff out so I hope somebody can explain that and recommend specific devices.
I do have a FritzBox 7490, DSL Information tells me VDSL2 Supervectoring. I do have a 50MBit down- and 10MBit Upload contract. First question here: is it mandatory to have a Modem which supports supervectoring since I don’t have that much speed? I don’t know if a device supporting VDSL2 only is fine to use and curious.
Are the technologies MU-MIMO and Beamforming really worth it?
Basically I want a system which supports my connection, has at least 2 1GBit Lan Ports for wired connections with my switch and for my NAS. WiFi with 2,4 and 5GHz. I want a strong WiFi signal. Also I’ve read that more than one core is recommended.
I think TP-Link devices could do the job, but unfortunately the Archer Vr900v is not supported it seems.
In the end I want a device which is reliable and will not let me down like my fritz did, and I want to use OpenWRT.
Oh and I am not searching for a super special device which has billion antennas or so. But I don’t know if there are stuff which influence the latency of my wired/wifi connection.
That would be a showstopper for an all-in-one OpenWrt device, OpenWrt currently does not support any Supervectoring (35b) capable modems. If your line mandates a Supervectoring modem you will have to use an external one.
Edit: However, if your 50/10 line is running on your current Fritz!Box 7490, it can't be Supervectoring, since the 7490 does not support Supervectoring either.
Edit: oh nice. Does it have any other advantages other than more speed anyways? If the line stays reliable and the latency would not change I wouldn’t mind having any other connection type.
There's exactly one device that fulfills all of that out-of-the-box, the British Telecom Home Hub 5 Type A (aka HH5A) (and its rebranded twin, the Plusnet Hub One). It's a bit of a hassle to get it outside of Britain, and another bit of a hassle to install OpenWrt on. Other devices lack the dual-band Wifi, they either have 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz Wifi, but not both.
(Personally, I use a Fritz!Box 3370 that does 5GHz 802.11n-Wifi and supplemented the 2.4 GHz Wifi with a small dongle, I only have two legacy devices that still need 2.4G.)
You mean Supervectoring? No, not that I know of. It's just necessary in order to get more than ~175 (realistically more than 100) mbit out of that doorbell wire going to your telephone plug.
Okay, I would also not mind using a modem and a router, but don’t know if the cost would be much higher or the energy consumption would increase significantly. I live in Germany so I don’t know if this specific device would run here.
So I'm still unclear about your current situation. You already have that 50/10 line going to your Fritz!Box 7490? Or did you just order your 50/10 line? If so, have a chat with your ISP, ask them exaclty what kind of line you will get (regular VDSL2, Vectoring or Supervectoring), that will tell you what modem you will need.
Well then you definitely don't have Supervectoring. The FritzBox 7490 does not do Supervectoring. Like, it's technically not capable of doing Supervectoring. You don't need a Supervectoring modem.
Best VDSL2 Modem with support for the 35b profile is imo the Draytek Vigor 165. It can be driven via PPPoE Passthrough, so that your internet connection will terminate on your very own router. It sort of makes the choice of router independent from the technology that transports your internet access.
I also found that modem, it seems like there are not much options out there. But it costs like 120€ here, can get a used one for under 100€. What Router would you recommend additionally? If my ISP tells me that VDSL2 only is enough without vectoring I think there is a cheaper option (I hope). Actually I want it to be worth the money and not that pricey.
I just didn’t get why there are not that much dual band routers.. there are plenty of devices, like from TP-Link, which support dual band. Did you mean with VDSL2 support?
No, I'm actually talking about dual-band wifi. Sorry, yes, I was talking about devices that contain both dual-wifi and a modem.
For all intents and purposes, "OpenWrt-supported VDSL2+ modem" means that the device is based on a chipset in the Lantiq VRX200 "VR9" family. And unlike many other SoCs these Lantiq chipsets do not come with built-in wifi, so they rely on external wifi chipsets to provide wifi functionality.
This means that wifi on those routers is only supported where the wifi chipset is supported by OpenWrt. And a lot of Lantiq routers are supplemented with the "Xway Wave 300" wifi chipset that is not supported by OpenWrt. Take the TP-Link W8980/9980 for example, it contains the Lantiq SoC, an Atheros chipset for 2.4 GHz wifi (that is supported by OpenWrt), and a Wave 300 chipset for 5 GHz wifi (that is not supported by OpenWrt.)
That's why a lot of those routers don't have "dual-band" wifi with OpenWrt, even though they are dual-band in the manufacturer's firmware. Or they were single-band wifi to begin with (like the Fritz!Box 3370.)
But that’s a bit disappointing if you want to use dual band.. thought everybody loves openwrt because it just works if supported. how to overcome that? Using a usb WiFi dongle for the not usable band?
It depends foremost on the ISP and what combination they enforce (that said, I wouldn't really expect their first level support to have an idea about what they're talking about).
For normal vectoring (profile 17b) up to (usually) 100/40 MBit/s, all modems connected to the line bundle must support vectoring - if yours doesn't, it's restricted to a minimal fallback profile (16/1 MBit/s), in order not to disturb your neighbours[0].
For super-vectoring (profile 35b), which goes up to 250-300 MBit/s, I'm not yet aware of any details. maybe a normal VDSL2-vectoring modem is good enough to prevent interfering with your neighbours (while being limited to 100/40 MBit/s), maybe it isn't. And which profiles the ISP enforces - and which concessions they'll make for existing users with old hardware is purely up to them.
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[0] the concept of vectoring depends on not only using your two phone wires, but to use the neighbouring ones (as kind of antennas) as well, for this to work all modems connected to the cable bundle under the pavement must cooperate with each other - and non vectoring capable ones don't. Yes, there are non-vectoring VDSL2 modems around - and those certainly won't work.
Thanks for the insight. Maybe first of all I can get a cheap used device with VDSL2 support and see if it works.. they throw away used TP-Link w8970 for like 5 bucks..
Lots of people use OpenWrt on routers that don't contain (and do not have to contain) a DSL modem. Those are often based on SoCs that do contain wifi or a collection of chipsets that are all supported by OpenWrt. So, yes, it mostly "just works if supported."
Like I said, personally, I use a small and quite horribly limited dongle to supplement the missing second wifi band for those super aging devices that require 2.4 GHz. If you only have somewhat modern devices, you might just be alright with only 5 GHz wifi.
Most of my devices are modern and I think all of them support 5GHz. I’m just thinking about my second room, it’s like 2 walls away from my Router. I don’t know if with openWRT I can expect better signal or so, but with my 7490 i get like 1-2 bars for wifi signal in my phone and other devices as well.
