DrayTek Vigor165 VDSL2 Supervectoring Bridge-Modem/Router Review

This is a short review about the DrayTek Vigor165 VDSL2 35b Supervectoring Modem/Router. The Vigor165 is a VDSL2 35b supervectoring modem/router. This model has one RJ-45 port for the WAN connection and 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports for LAN, delivering VDSL download speeds up to 300 Mbps. The Vigor165 is router or bridge configurable, which means you can use it as a normal router or, like I do, as a bridge modem in front of another router/firewall. In the latter case you could use a reasonable router/firewall such as pfSense. Maybe to get rid of your crappy provider router like the AVM FRITZ!Box... 😆

I originally bought the Allnet VDSL Bridge Modem ALL-BM200VDSL2V, which I reviewed here. But for the reasons described in that review (no true 100mbit support) I sold it on eBay and bought the DrayTek Vigor165.

The Vigor165 is capable of the typical Supervectoring VDSL connection you rent from Telekom, 1&1 and other providers in Germany. So you will be able to fully utilize a DSL250 line, as long as your provider will actually connect you to a port of that speed in the white distributor box next to your street... Or you might end up with a 175Mbit connection although you pay for 250Mbit - thanks f***ing Telekom! 😡


Click here for tech specs at the manufacturer's website.

The modem comes preconfigured in bridge-mode, so you can connect it right away to your preferred router/firewall, in my case a virtualized pfSense machine. This is nice because if you update the firmware there is no need to reconfigure anything. Yes, you could flash a firmware file which keeps your settings, but I prefer clean updates with such devices.

Overall I can definitely recommend this bridge modem. Price is around 100€.


The user interface offers numerous setting for fine tuning, if you need to.




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