recommendations for a router

[Marin85]

Hi,
yet another router recommendations thread... We have recently obtained an internet connection with 2 MB/s down and about 200 Kb/s up (quite strange ratio to me, but anyway...) and we have three computers, two of them are connected to the router wirelessly, the third one has a wired connection to the router. I need them to be able to access the internet simultaniosly without making the router irresponsive. I simply need a rock-solidly working router that can support simlutanios connections of all 3 computers to internet 24h a day I also need it to be a/b/g as I believe the other laptop doesn´t support the standard g (but I´m not sure, maybe it does...). WEP and WPA (or WPA-PSK) should be also supported (we currently run WEP, but I´d like to move on to WPA for privacy reasons). I have to admit I´m a heavy torrent user and I do even sometimes game in BattleNet (so some sort of port-forwarding capabilities wouldn´t be bad at any rate). And last but not least we have quite a lot of wireless networks in the surrounding (I can count at least 20 different) running in different channels (from 1 to 13), so some robustness against signal interferences wouldn´t be bad either.

Thanks

Marin

[jdhurst]

I use a commercial Netopia router that works 24x7 without failure (3387WG - ENT). I do not, however, believe it would stand up to your demands. Nothing less than what I use is likely to either. I would suggest Cisco or some such. ... JDH

[Stargate199]

Linksys WRT54G with the DD-WRT firmware hack. You will basically have a super router and be able to tweak what you need for your use.

[bill bolton]

so some robustness against signal interferences wouldn´t be bad either.

Unfortunately, that's not something a WiFi router can realistically do anything about.

Given your overall requirements, a Linksys WRT54G sounds like a good choice. I ran one for a couple of years with excellent results.

Cheers,

Bill

[Marin85]

Thanks for your replies! It seems that Linksys WRT54G is the way to go for me

Unfortunately, that's not something a WiFi router can realistically do anything about.

I thought they may implement some sort of advanced signal filtering, but I guess this is not that easy doable for wireless signals as it is for sound nowadays. Anyway, I don´t believe signal interferences are really that big of a problem here despite the amount of wireless networks. I can remember of only very few times when our router had very weird behavior that I would attribute to signal interferences.


Marin

[jdhurst]

You had a tall order of requirements - did you look at Cisco products? .... JDH

[Marin85]

You had a tall order of requirements - did you look at Cisco products? .... JDH

I admit it sounds like being a lot of requirements, but they are actually not (apart from the one about the signal robustness ). I guess every more or less recent decent router should be able to fulfill them. It´s just that I have recently had some bad experience with some particular router, so I wanted to outline a few things as important to me which should be actually a matter of course. In the end this is the type of individual rational economical behavior: you declare more requirements (conditions) than you might really need... As for the Cisco routers, yes, I toke a short look at them, everything sounded perfect in theory, so I googled for some real-life experience with them and found some negative (certainly, the same would apply to the Linksys router, there are people who are never satisfied) and I added my father´s opinion about Cisco (which is basically not much different from his opinion about M$ considering the fact that he is from the old school, you know, IBM, OS, UNIX, VMS, DEC, VAX and some more other abbreviations the like), so my conclusion was simply Cicso is taboo for now Now, seriously, I need something more than just to look at the Cisco routers in order to purchase one whereas I also searched our forum a little bit and found some very positive comments on the Linksys router in some past threads. I´m not going to buy it right now, so there is still some time for users to add their opinions or experience on the matter which could eventually convince me in some other direction (well, it´s actually not about convincing, I only wanted to hear some opinions from more experienced users like you or Bill Bolton on that topic).

Thanks

Marin

PS: This post could be looked at as a BUMP

[GomJabbar]

The router's frequency band you choose can make a difference in interference. You should try to use the 802.11A or 802.11N (5Ghz) bands to reduce interference problems. Note that type 'N' routers can support more than one band, but might not support more than one band at one time. I remember reading something about this, but not the details. I believe there is a thread here regarding type 'N' routers that DAH posted to, that has good information on this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11

[Marin85]

GomJabbar,thanks for your suggestion, but I´ll try to avoid the N standard for now. As of now, it is not really a standard, there are many things to do about it, nobody in this house has an N-capable wifi card, the devices that can support it are also somewhat expensive (especially in Germany). So, basically it´s way too complicated for me at this point and hence promises only problems which I have to deal with alone anyway --> N-draft is taboo as well

Marin

[jdhurst]

Given what you say, I am very happy with my Netopia G Router (3387 WG - ENT). Good solid router with broad wireless WPA/PSK reach (3 floors in my house). I have had LinkSys and they are fine, but I like my Netopia better. More costly, but worth a look. .... JD

[Marin85]

Well then I guess I already have two candidates

[TTY]

I also need it to be a/b/g

The only Linksys router that i found that meets these requirements is the WRT610N.

[Marin85]

Hm, what is then with the WRT54G? Does it support only g standard?

[TTY]

The WRT54G isn't offered any longer. They have a WRT54G2 and a WRT54GL. Both support only 802.11b and 802.11g.

[Marin85]

I just checked the offerings here in Germany and that seems to be indeed the case. So, can anyone comment on WRT54G2 or WRT54GL? I also checked the wifi card of the other laptop and the good news is it is an Atheros based a/b/g card, so the g standard will do in any case. Now, the only question is about the reliability of the WRT54G successors...

Thanks

Marin

@JDHurst: I found out that Linksys is a daughter of Cisco, so I guess I´ll have to work out my taboos a little bit

[RealBlackStuff]

There's loadz of Linksys WRT54G on eBay.
I'm sure some sellers will deliver to Germany

[carbon_unit]

I've sold a bunch of WRT54G2's to my customers. They all seem to like it and they have good range. The only one that came back was a customer who needed it to work with an Xbox360. Apparently it does not or the customer couldn't get to work anyway.
I have always had good luck with Linksys routers. YMMV.