Thank you Des. I'll be sure to check it out. It would be nice if things just 'worked'!

Then my job as an IT consultant would be redundant ...... It times of frustration I just say "billable time" to comfort me

Very disappointing to hear your story, but not surprising. I've had lots of problems with my Draytek router on the VDSL line. I don't think Draytek routers effectively handle noisy lines

(Mine is/was noisy due to the underground tel. cable not being twisted pair and ageing, plus there was a faulty lightning protection module at the pole and the wrong grade of the connecting cable between the pole and the property, all only identified after I made a second CEO complaint to Openreach and after 18 months of them claiming it was a WiFi issue).

For the past 6 months, I've been using a Fritzbox and it's more stable than Draytek in lots of aspects despite having an Infineon/Lantiq chipset like the Draytek too (although newer).

If you search for my posts, you'll also find a post dealing with a different modem codes and what they refer to. Experimenting with modem codes can also improve the situation on VDSL lines (for mine, MDM3 worked best). However, it could be that the modem side of your Draytek is faulty - you're not really providing any more information on what Openreach said.

(From my experience of dealing with 20+ Openreach engineers, a lot of them have no idea of what they're talking about or that they know where the problem is but because it'd be costly to fix it, they tell you lies it's your WiFi to avoid claims for compensation. They're charlatans).

I have the 2866 and it keeps disconnecting every 12 hours, I have a ticket open with Draytek but no solution so far, all modem codes gave been tried with no change, I honestly thing there is serious issues with modems in these things

I think you're right.

I don't have the ax model but do have the 2866Lac and running 4.3.2.1_BT firmware. I too have seen line speed degradation when the VDSL is plugged into the Draytek. To over come this I use the Zen ISP supplied Fritz!Box 7530 for the VDSL connection and cable to WAN2 on the Draytek. I have found that the Fritz!Box is both faster and rock solid with no line drops. For what it is worth, with FTTC the phone line is 1.4km away and the houses are 70+ years old.....one of the few occasions I would like a new build!

I use the Draytek for DHCP and Wi-Fi as well as the "firewall" and have an open connection from the 7530 to the Draytek despite dire warnings from the Fritz for doing so.

The Fritz!Box does nothing else - no Wi-Fi , phones etc., everything on my home network is connected via the Draytek.

Thus when the Draytek decides to reboot for reasons best known to itself, the exchange does not see any issues and line speed does not drop. I seem to get about 100 hours before each reset with nothing scheduled...

HTH