they just can't afford to replace their unit with the current model.

For a SoHo user I can understand that (£130+ or whatever is a lot to a single person) but I think a business surely means they just don't want to and would rather you (the ISP) find a solution for free

Do you have to upgrade their lines; can you leave them on the old DSLAMs or are they being replaced ?

admin wrote:

they just can't afford to replace their unit with the current model.

... Do you have to upgrade their lines; can you leave them on the old DSLAMs or are they being replaced ?

The lines are automatically upgraded by BT. We can hold off on the upgrades but it is a case of 'for how long...'

Once updated the modem should work fine but wont get the faster speeds and does have issues with INP.

I think there is another issue here that has not been aired yet....

The new 21CN services being supplied are ADSL, ADSL2 or ADSL2+.

The 2600 series hardware was supplied as supporting ADSL, and has worked at doing this well for a long time. But now without the end user doing anything that same ADSL device no longer works. Its been argued that this is old kit and should just be replaced. But why should it? Why has there not been more effort to ensure that ADSL devices continue to be supported?

Things would not be so bad if the issues I'm seeing with Draytek hardware were restricted to 2600's. From what I've seen so far the 2800's, which are supposed to be ADSL2+ devices, are looking pretty useless on 21CN as well.

There may be a valid argument for the 2600's being retired, but I would be interested if this is the view is extended to the 2800's as well. From my discussions with my ISP it certainly seems that way.

I think Draytek could also help by disclosing the ADSL/21CN issues they know about and the proposals to resolve these issues.

I understand why my clients with 50+ units are not happy at the thought that 2800's are also now junk.

Alan

I think the issues on the 2800 are the same as the 2600; it's to do with 21CN using INP; higher settings of INP were introduced in a later amendment to the ADSL spec. The manufacturer of the chipset appear to have no interest in writing new code for that (it's a discontinued chipset so they wouldn't sell any more to router/modem mfrs).

n.b. there might be other reasons for incompatibilities - i.e. the new dslams have different tolerances, but the same thing applies - the chipset is obsolete and the mfr. (I've forgotten who it is) isn't issuing updates. Also, I think the 21CN is much stricter about ANFPi3 compliance which wasn't around in the 2600/2800 days. The chipset maker would argue that they can't make a chipset future proof.

admin wrote: n.b. there might be other reasons for incompatibilities - i.e. the new dslams have different tolerances, but the same thing applies - the chipset is obsolete and the mfr. (I've forgotten who it is) isn't issuing updates. Also, I think the 21CN is much stricter about ANFPi3 compliance which wasn't around in the 2600/2800 days. The chipset maker would argue that they can't make a chipset future proof.

Is it possible for you to find out what chipset the modem has in the 2800 series please.

I understand the new 2820 uses the Connextant chip and thus it is a lot more stable than older versions. I am now seeing a lot more issues to do with INP and the 2800 which concides with your statement about them. The reason for the chip information is reference only.