Bargain at this price, bought this at the start of the year to replace the rubbish BT homehub and white Openreach Fibre modem, runs rock solid on Plusnet Fibre and now Sky Fibre (needs latest firmware update for Sky). The £100 - £200 wireless routers with lots of aerials are overkill for the vast majority...
Top comments
frownbreaker
13 Oct 163#45
This looks like a good deal for a combined AP and VDSL unit from a respected brand. Heat++
I've noticed a few comments about and wanted to comment, as there are several factors you might want to consider.
1) On some routers the large volume of traffic created by Bittorrent clients can cause memory problems. Specifically the need to periodically reboot, restart the unit. From what I have noticed this seems to be a memory leak in the SPI side of things. Thankfully most new units like this are tested in anger with high volume torrent and streaming media so its no longer an issue. When I had the Virgin SuperHub it had a timeswitch on it to turn off the power for 1 minute a day. This stopped the lock ups,
2) The intergraded units that the ISPs send out used to be underpowered especially the ones older than a 18months. Again using the Virgin Superhub as an example if I disabled the Wifi and switched it to modem mode I'd get faster torrent downloads (A jump from 4 to 6 mb down)
3) If you have a problem on your VDSL line and are with BT it will help a lot if you KEEP your home hub in case of problems. I had to plug mine in for 2 days so they could view the statistics that it collected. They then said yes we can see lots of errors and sent out an engineer. This feature was only in the Homehub, not the Openreach unit I was using.
4) The separation of the Modem and the Access point into 2 device might be of use if a) You have many wireless devices need fast him data rate Wi-Fi (e.g. HD streaming to 3 or more devices) b) You master phone socket is not near the center of your house e.g. is on one side of the ground floor not on in the middle of the first floor. In both these cases a dedicated WiFI AP might make sense but you would need to link the Modem to the AP (e.g. network cable)
5) As more people stream video now newer units like this one may have much better that the clunky old units designed when iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon, Chromecast, Smart TVs, Kodi were new so even if the specs look the same the performance in the real world may be better
6) Firmware - This is the software that runs on the unit from the comments on this tread it is clear that the firmware is updated and this a good thing. It allows bug fixes and tweaks needed for the UK market.
7)This unit has beam forming which is great as more and more devices support this.
8)There may be custom firmware for this unit if you are so inclined (https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/vr200v#restore_tp-link_fw)
9) The unit comes with a 3 year warrantee, REMEMBER to register to extend the 2 year cover to 3 years. Also its Amazon who is the retailers so returns / warranty items should not be an issue.
BlackJackJoe
12 Oct 163#18
Password extraction are no longer needed for Sky Fibre, I simply input username: admin, and password: install
All comments (57)
louiselouise
12 Oct 161#1
This is the router I have. Months of moaning at TalkTalk (Fibre Medium, Huawei HG633 router) about my wireless disconnecting all the time - bought this and not a single problem since.
keepitonthelow to louiselouise
12 Oct 16#11
There is another way the HG 635 router was a good router
KiNG
12 Oct 16#2
looks a good router
yiu
12 Oct 16#3
How easy would this be to set up to work with Virgin?
Hi would anyone know if this would be ok to use with my sse Fibre broadband? It has an openreach socket. My technicolor router is rubbish. Thanks
MrWani to latics
12 Oct 161#7
yes will replace both your openreach modem and technicolor router. You will need your user and password from SSE but that was no problem with their customer service team for me. I upgraded to a dlink 868L (ac1750) and to be honest didn't get significant improvements over the technicolor. Got quite a few issues into the mix. Maybe just my setup but thought I'd share.
chazziee
12 Oct 16#6
very good router, i use only down side is no usb 3.0 port
ganon
12 Oct 16#8
How's this compared the Asus Darknight?
gogboy
12 Oct 16#9
Home hub 5 not too bad is it?
60/17 on wifi with iPhone upstairs.
This thing looks atrocious in the users photos on Amazon
![Fresh Breakfast Meat Box (Using code) @ Campbells Meat [Haggis / Lorne Sausage / Bacon / Black Pudding & More]](/images/topics/208684_1.jpg)
![[Xbox One] Q. u. b. e: Director's Cut on Deals with Gold](/images/topics/208716_1.jpg)
Opening post
Top comments
I've noticed a few comments about and wanted to comment, as there are several factors you might want to consider.
1) On some routers the large volume of traffic created by Bittorrent clients can cause memory problems. Specifically the need to periodically reboot, restart the unit. From what I have noticed this seems to be a memory leak in the SPI side of things. Thankfully most new units like this are tested in anger with high volume torrent and streaming media so its no longer an issue. When I had the Virgin SuperHub it had a timeswitch on it to turn off the power for 1 minute a day. This stopped the lock ups,
2) The intergraded units that the ISPs send out used to be underpowered especially the ones older than a 18months. Again using the Virgin Superhub as an example if I disabled the Wifi and switched it to modem mode I'd get faster torrent downloads (A jump from 4 to 6 mb down)
3) If you have a problem on your VDSL line and are with BT it will help a lot if you KEEP your home hub in case of problems. I had to plug mine in for 2 days so they could view the statistics that it collected. They then said yes we can see lots of errors and sent out an engineer. This feature was only in the Homehub, not the Openreach unit I was using.
4) The separation of the Modem and the Access point into 2 device might be of use if a) You have many wireless devices need fast him data rate Wi-Fi (e.g. HD streaming to 3 or more devices) b) You master phone socket is not near the center of your house e.g. is on one side of the ground floor not on in the middle of the first floor. In both these cases a dedicated WiFI AP might make sense but you would need to link the Modem to the AP (e.g. network cable)
5) As more people stream video now newer units like this one may have much better that the clunky old units designed when iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon, Chromecast, Smart TVs, Kodi were new so even if the specs look the same the performance in the real world may be better
6) Firmware - This is the software that runs on the unit from the comments on this tread it is clear that the firmware is updated and this a good thing. It allows bug fixes and tweaks needed for the UK market.
7)This unit has beam forming which is great as more and more devices support this.
8)There may be custom firmware for this unit if you are so inclined (https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/vr200v#restore_tp-link_fw)
9) The unit comes with a 3 year warrantee, REMEMBER to register to extend the 2 year cover to 3 years. Also its Amazon who is the retailers so returns / warranty items should not be an issue.
All comments (57)
60/17 on wifi with iPhone upstairs.
This thing looks atrocious in the users photos on Amazon