Compatible WiFi 6 Router for Fibre Max

[RichardB76]

Hello Two days ago I had Fibre Max 500 installed. Installation was a good experience from Open Reach..issue I am trying to overcome is to find a compatible third party router to replace the supplied Smart Hub.

Cut a long story short, I have a complex set up which includes a Netgear unmanaged switch hard wired to 2x Wax 610 Access Points. Prior to the move to FTTP I was achieving the same speed from the APs as router itself..now I am seeing a 50% drop. Even though I have Fibre Max 500, Smart hub is reaching just 300Mbps.

For years I was using Netgear D7800 which was excellent..however this is seemingly incompatible with FTTP even in WAN only mode.

I have searched high and low for compatible third party modem routers with WiFi 6 and stumped.

Some vendors claim ONT is the modem yet open reach engineer told me all the account settings are stored in Smart Hub..so how would any third party router work?

Another vendor stated that most routers do not have fast enough WAN port to accommodate high speed FTTP.

Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks

R

[XRaySpeX]

Netgear provide plenty of documentation - see Netgear RAX43 Data Sheet 

[RichardB76]

Thanks again. If there is no reason why the RAX43 will not work with FTTP I will order router this evening.

Thanks to all for guidance. Much appreciated.

R

[XRaySpeX]

There is no reason for practically any router not to work with FTTP. What stops any router working with any particular BB is that it doesn't contain the compatible modem. Here the router doesn't need a modem as the ONT is the modem (again!).

[RichardB76]

Yes, but D7800 did not work and falls in category of 'practically' any router.

Yes, I fully registered that ONT is the modem..however, upon speaking with EE support they were slightly less confident that it would work and reminded me of the 14 day by return policy. Fingers crossed the RAX50 which I ended up with does the job.

Thanks

[XRaySpeX]

I'd be hard put to name a router that didn't run with FTTP. I'd say it could only be an ancient router that does not supply an Ethernet WAN.