[Hampshire] DSL Upgrade woes

As it seems to be the season for DSL/ISP problems, I thought I'd share
some with you lot out there.

I'm with PlusNet on a Pro Package (no throttling etc) non LLU and for
the last 2.5years everything has been hunky dory.
Last month I got an email about them upgrading my line. Fair enough I
thought. I'm 2.3km from the Aldershot Exchange and up to now, I was
getting 4-5Mbits steady.
The line gets upgraded and the woes start. The line can get incoming
requests (for the AFCC Picture Gallery) no problems but can I get out?
Pings & traceroute work find but after a while, they just go off into
nothingness. So I start investigating.

Firstly, I run a Netgear DG834G V3 Non Wireless Router. I've had it for
getting on for 4 years. So I upgraded the firmware. no improvement.
Digging a bit deeper, I find a technote describing exactly my problems.
The DG834G V3 does not like ADSL2+. End of.

I saved the config and replaced it with an V4 device. After uploading
the config (yeah, I have VPN's and lots of firewall rules) it synced
fine and was rock steady.
But could I get to the AFCC website? Nope. No a chance.
Back to the Netgear website to find that the latest firmware (Sigh)
fixes a problem with local loopback. I've configured the firewall to
only accept the DynDns FQDN and not the Ip Address for connections. So,
I'm putting out a HTTP request to a FQDN that points at itself.
The logs say 'firewall rule matched' but wireshark sees nowt coming out
of the router. Upgraded the Firmware and reloaded the configs and all if
fine once more.
My speed had gradually crept up to 6224kbps so I'm reasonable happy
given the distance from the exchange.

My only gripe was that It would have been nice to have known in advance
that my router would not work with ADSL2+ and then I could have had time
to get something like a Draytek Vigor but I needed a replacement in a
hurry and I could get a netgear the next day for less than £50.00. For
some reason everywhere I looked had draytek's on back order.

so, if you DSL line is connected to an exchange that has or is going to
have the BT 21CN upgrade AND your ISP tells you that your line is going
to be upgraded you might like to check that your router can handle ADSL2+.
If you buy a Netgear DB834G V4 then you must upgrade the firmware.

Have fun
Stephen D