DrayTeK Vigor 166 – G.fast capable As some of you may know, Draytek produce a range of Routers and modems for the UK that comply with BT SIN498 I have recently contacted DrayTek to ask them...

[UK Sentinel]

Great news, thanks

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[smallal]

For owners of the EU version (GEN1 & GEN2) – Draytek in Germany have added a beta firmware page to their server

http://draytek.com/download_de/Firmwares-Modem/Vigor160-Serie/Vigor166/BETA-TEST/

Note: The UK model V166-K won’t accept EU firmware & Draytek UK doesn’t seem to have a beta site yet.

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[smallal]

For anyone looking to buy a V166 – On eBay I’ve just spotted a Vigor 166 GEN2 (EU model) up for auction here in the UK, can’t be too many of these around! It’ll be interesting to see how much it sells for.

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[UK Sentinel]

smallal wrote:

For anyone looking to buy a V166 – On eBay I’ve just spotted a Vigor 166 GEN2 (EU model) up for auction here in the UK, can’t be too many of these around! It’ll be interesting to see how much it sells for.

£60 starting price, no bids currently, but as you say, will be interesting to see what the final price end at

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[UK Sentinel]

A few more Vigor 166 are appearing on Ebay

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[smallal]

Trying to sell on Ebay for £150 new (or £120 open box) is a bit rich as they’re under £110 (inc delivery) retail

A friend of mine bought one recently, obviously a new batch has arrived as it came with 4_2_3_BT firmware from the factory.

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[UK Sentinel]

smallal wrote:

Trying to sell on Ebay for £150 new (or £120 open box) is a bit rich as they’re under £110 (inc delivery) retail A friend of mine bought one recently, obviously a new batch has arrived as it came with 4_2_3_BT firmware from the factory.

They are still trying to profit from the believed lack of affordable G.fast kit,

BT shop has them for £105 but not in stock, not sure if Gen 2, but still a fair price

https://shop.bt.com/products/draytek-vigor-166-vdsl-g-fast-modem-v166-k-G4XR.html?utm_source=awin&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_content=ZA0000&utm_source=awin&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_content=ZA00&awc=3043_1624707523_0d5f94b770825c7c5b8826a456490b70

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[smallal]

The new one my friend bought certainly isn’t GEN2. There may be a problem if they change to the GEN2 chipset in the UK model as they’ll probably have to go through certification again by Openreach to get the new hardware approved (which can take months!). As Openreach haven’t indicated any intention of utilising the GEN2 (212Mhz) technology I doubt DrayTek will bother investing the time & money involved if they don’t have to. (unless the older GEN1 chipset is discontinued forcing the change).

Stock is low at the moment, £103.50 here but on back order: https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/41275-draytek-v166-k/

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[UK Sentinel]

I agree, Openreach Will be more concerned with FTTH /P installs and that is there priority – GEN 2 is a great idea but with all that old copper lying around that will still need to be maintained, fibre is where the investment is needed and the way ahead ;)

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[thesage01]

stumbled across this forum and thread while doing the Google search for info on my 166. For reference I picked up a Gen 2 166 EU version from eBay last year to use on my g.Fast line.

In terms of the use of it, it worked fine on first connection and I was getting solid speeds from it and was able to see all the line stats etc.

Then it started getting regular DSL drops each night out of hours and wouldn’t auto reconnect again until manual intervention and a hard restart.

That led me to looking into upgrading the firmware to the latest BT approved version but it looks like that isn’t possible on the EU gen 2 boxes due to getting the unsupported hardware error message.

I’ve not tried the normal no BT 4.2.3 version yet but I’ve got back to the Openreach g.fast modem for now

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[UK Sentinel]

That is interesting that the Gen 2 166 EU version is not supported by BT approved firmware.

I will drop DrayTeK an email and ask for clarity as I am surprised and there support is usually helpful ?

 

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[thesage01]

In all honesty I’ve not even thought to contact them myself. I just put it in a drawer when it wasn’t updating and dropping DSL overnight.

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[UK Sentinel]

I did contact Draytek UK but have had no reply as yet.  I believe there is no suitable BT approved firmware for the GEN 2, but it would have been nice to have that confirmed via DrayTeK UK ?

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[UK Sentinel]

UK Sentinel wrote:

I did contact Draytek UK but have had no reply as yet. I believe there is no suitable BT approved firmware for the GEN 2, but it would have been nice to have that confirmed via DrayTeK UK ?

Maybe worth you dropping them a support call, especially as you have the GEN 2 model to reference

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[UK Sentinel]

Ok, so I have had feedback from those nice people at DrayTeK regarding the Vigor 166 GEN 2 and BT approved Firmware.

—–

The Vigor 166 models are functionally identical. The only difference is that one can support 212Mhz G.Fast which may be introduced in some countries, however Openreach (BT) have no plans to use/adopt 212Mhz in the UK and it’s not currently supported in the specification of the UK model. We wouldn’t expect any different in performance between the v1 and v2 models.
Only the model with product code/SKU ‘V166-K’ would be the UK specification (UK specific hardware/firmware/support).

 

Hope that helps.

—–

So no BT approved firmware for the Vigor 166 GEN 2 at the moment

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