I do find it very odd the stance that is taken with regards to the connection credentials, especially as no one except Sky does this so its not a popular business model.
On the one hand I can absoloutely understand that standardising on equipment will lead to a lower cost of support for Vodafone. Easier to train people to troubleshoot, less time wasted diagnosing issues that are not to do with Vodafoen but introduced by the customer etc.
However not enough features have been crippled in the router to make it infallible. A user logging in via the app or web interface can do enough damage with setting IP addresses and DMZs to create difficult to diagnose problems for support. So why not provide the ability to specify DHCP ranges then?
I guess somewhere there are some statistics on the proportion of problems raised for a typical ISP as a result of the user's own equipment and this was a factor in the decision.
The silly thing is that people who buy their own routers tend to know what they're doing to a certian extent. They also know if they have an issue the first thing to do is plug back in the ISP provided kit and ensure the problem is still exhibited before getting support.
I'd prefer it if we could use our own kit but were categorically told there's no support for your service unless you use Vodafone provided kit. ISPs do this with customers and BT Openreach in terms of saying "if the fault is with your internal wiring you're getting charged if an engineer comes out".
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