Some time ago I owned a Vigor 2800 which I disposed of (to some unlucky soul, I guess) because of multiple, serious issues.

Now I have decided to give DrayTek another chance by investing in a 2820Vn. I wish I hadn't. I upgraded the factory-installed firmware to 3.2.1_RC4a, as previous builds were almost completely unusable. There are all sorts of issues I still encounter, however...

1. The DSL chipset. Not as bad as the 2800 was (it wouldn't hold a connection for more than a few hours), my 2820 actually holds a connection reasonably well ... but only at a ridiculously low speed. With various consumer-grade routers (LinkSys, Netgear, BT and Billion) I can get a reliable 7.0 - 7.3Mbps down on my ADSL Max line, but with the 2820 I can't get more than 5.9MBps - usually around 5.3 or 5.4. This really is a core function of any firewall/router, but it seems that DrayTek can't get it right.

2. Web Content Filter and URL Content Filter. While the category-based blocking seems to work OK (I haven't tested it extensively yet), there appear to be no facility to except certain URLs. Suppose, for instance I'd like to block the Gambling category but allow national-lottery.co.uk, this doesn't seem possible.

As a test I tried adding a URL Content Filter whitelist entry for national-lottery.co.uk to see what would happen. Then LAN clients can indeed access national-lottery.co.uk, but they can't access ANY other external sites at all. OK, so it can't be used to customise the Web Content Filter. Not only that, if the URL whitelist can only be used to specify ALL the sites LAN clients can visit, having just 8 keyword boxes to specify all the allowed sites makes it pretty much useless.

3. VoIP. I defined a SIP account, configuring it to timeout every 1 hour. Using Draytek's Syslog util, however, shows the 2820 insists on re-registering the SIP account every 29 seconds. Ad infinitum. No timeout settings on the 2820 affect this in any way. Apart from the wasted traffic usage this causes, I doubt our SIP provider will be very happy.

4. CSM. It is not possible to use CSM profiles in filter rules. If you set a filter rule to anything but "pass immediately", the CSM profile selector is disabled.

5. QoS. I haven't gone anywhere near the QoS and Bandwidth Limits as yet, as posts here and elsewhere suggest this destabilises the 2820.

I really wonder whether any major feature of the 2820 works at all. If anyone can suggest a fix for any of these issues I'd be interested to hear.

As a follow up...

My 2820Vn dropped the ADSL connection this morning and re-connected, but the VoIP SIP account failed to re-register at all with the SIP provider. So now, no VoIP.

I have tried every which way to get it to register, all without success. There are also no diagnostics which the 2820 will provide, so troubleshooting is impossible. I can, however, register without problem using SIP software on client PCs.

This 2820 appears to be a complete, expensive load of junk.

My 2020Vn is not too bad now except for known issueswith the same beta.

Telnet to the router and enter: voip debug showmsg -t

This should help degug VOIP

You may see the following fault codes:

1 Call in progress
100 Connecting
180 Ringing...
181 Call forwarded
182 in waiting queue
200 OK
300 Several possibilities
301 Permanently forwarded
302 Temporarily forwarded
380 Different service
400 Wrong number Aufruf
401 Not authorised
402 Payment necessary
403 Not permitted
404 User not found
405 Method not allowed
406 Not acceptable
407 Proxy-Authentification necessary
408 No Answer
409 Conflict
410 No longer reachable
411 Length necessary
413 Message too long
414 URI too long
415 Media type not supported
420 Wrong ending
480 Not reachable at this time
481 User doesn't exist
482 Loop detected
483 Too many "hops"
484 Wrong address
485 Ambigous
487 General fault
500 Server-Fault
501 Not implemented
502 Wrong Gateway
503 Service not reachable
504 Exceeding time with Gateway
505 SIP-Version is not supported
600 Busy
603 Given
604 Doesn't exist
605 Not acceptable

Have fun...

One of our customers has some of the same problems a you. The VOIP just doesn't work - it appears to randomly register then after a reconnect it's unregistered until you change a setting or two - then it's gone again after a reboot! The modem in the 2820 connects at about 2/3 the speed as an old speedtouch we have. I would use the speed touch as the main connection if the 2820 allowed the IP aliasing from the 2nd LAN (using the built-in modem as a standby).

If the 2930Vn had a USB port (for 3G connections/FTP via memory stick) it would be perfect (we have NO problems at all from a 2910VG used with a speedtouch).

After the 2800 I thought that Draytek would have got the internal modem right this time.

The latest firmware is good - it looks like all the latest rpouters are getting IP alias for the 2nd connection - this is great! This allows me to put a faster modem on the LAN and make everything work as it should.

But the VOIP still doesn't work - seems random. No problems at all with a 2910.

2. Web Content Filter and URL Content Filter. While the category-based blocking seems to work OK (I haven't tested it extensively yet), there appear to be no facility to except certain URLs. Suppose, for instance I'd like to block the Gambling category but allow national-lottery.co.uk, this doesn't seem possible.

I too also have this exact same dismal problem. I have the Vigor 2800. My customer complained that they required the Content Filter but wanted to allow certain URLs. How do I change the precedence of the URL filter so it checks the content filter first, but then permits a blocked site if its URL is whitelisted?

As a temporary workaround I am forced to untick "Block all uncategorised sites" which is not what I want. With all unknown sites allowed, the customer could easily end up getting the "fake antivirus" pest. I really could do with some help here.