Help me buy a new Wireless Router, as mine just pisses me off...

[STiMULi]

I am looking for a very good & very reliable wireless router that will manage 800-1000+ simultaneous port connections (I don't mean computer connections) :D

4 or greater switch 100/1gb ports

I would like multiple assignable SSIDs (3 or more) with different bandwidth and security assignability. (It would be great to see them have different subnets but that is asking for the world);)

I would like A/B/G/N compatibility with standard antenna connectors (of some type) so I can use my 12db gain panel :) (Diversity or Triversity is not required)

DDNS compatibility

MAC address restriction table

MAC SPOOFING :p

REAL PLUSES would be:


HDD connectivity



data encryption



torrent client application w/ remote control

I will buy used if under $200 (Cisco or comparable)

Any ideas? :confused:

(thanks in advance)

[tomei]

ASUS RT-N16 is what you are looking for. It has:

Firewall protection, 128-bit encryption, NAT support, 64-bit encryption, auto-uplink (auto MDI/MDI-X), Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI), packet filtering, print server, MAC address filtering, URL filtering, firmware upgradable, built-in 2 port Hi-Speed USB hub, event log, Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), DHCP server, FTP server, static IP mode, DNS proxy, EZQoS, BitTorrent Client

Plus it can run custom firmware like Tomato with superior QOS. It is $92 on zipzoomfly right now. It is gigabit router with USB to connect hard drives.

Look at this thread for the custom firmware. Tomato ND USB Mod with kernel 2.6 - LinksysInfo - Community Forums for Linksys Devices

[STiMULi]

ASUS RT-N16 is what you are looking for. It has:

Firewall protection, 128-bit encryption, NAT support, 64-bit encryption, auto-uplink (auto MDI/MDI-X), Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI), packet filtering, print server, MAC address filtering, URL filtering, firmware upgradable, built-in 2 port Hi-Speed USB hub, event log, Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), DHCP server, FTP server, static IP mode, DNS proxy, EZQoS, BitTorrent Client

Plus it can run custom firmware like Tomato with superior QOS. It is $92 on zipzoomfly right now. It is gigabit router with USB to connect hard drives.

Look at this thread for the custom firmware. Tomato ND USB Mod with kernel 2.6 - LinksysInfo - Community Forums for Linksys Devices (http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/showthread.php?t=63587)


Although it does not meet all of my major criteria I did checking and it came the closest with caveats;



Single SSID (no guest network), I decided once I get the new one working I would modify my current router to fill in the blanks. Hopefully there will be little interference when I run both at the same time on different channels. By doing do I will be able to use separate networks and keep my intranet more secure.
No A band. This means no 5gHz and more interference with other devices in and around the house as well and my neighbors. I live in a trough against the mountains and some of the neighbors networks carry pretty far. At times this is a good thing.

It has DDNS, HDD connectivity, a Torrent client and remote control. Reading about Tomato and DD-WRT I should have fun configuring and managing it. We'll see :). As with everything nothing is perfect so I may go and buy an AC powered 1.5TB MyBook HDD as a BT drive. I have not seen a stand alone router that does any encryption on the drive. It sure would be nice to have Tomato embed TrueCrypt in the firmware.

I like the fact it has FTP and QOS. My second biggest complaint is QOS. My primary was that the CPU in this Cisco/Linksys SOHO router (WRV200) I have now can not keep up with BT tasks and regular surfing without killing the wireless and causing the DHCP devices to pull IPs (somehow) from the cable modem. That is a fail.

If anyone is interested, avoid the WRV200 unless you must have a decent VPN and multiple SSIDs with variable security. I know now that at the time it was a $180 error on my part. The first 4 months of it's life with me I was an unwilling beta tester. After 4 firmware upgrades they stopped supporting it in English and would only support me if I spoke Farsi. :rolleyes: (there was no more FW upgrades so I guess they were in "screw you" mode)

So long story short, thanks for the info and I will update this thread once it goes in and I do my usual hacking :) Obviously if I though it was bad stuff ZZF would not have my $92 right now ;)

[protias]

All SOHO routers suck when it comes to torrents. Best of luck to you.

[swarga]

I am looking for a very good & very reliable wireless router that will manage 800-1000+ simultaneous port connections (I don't mean computer connections) :D

Just as an aside, the number of protocol ports is irrelevant. You could have 10,000 open connections with no traffic going between them and any router could handle it. All that matters is the amount of traffic.


4 or greater switch 100/1gb ports

Does your stereo system have a built-in radio, 8-track player, and record changer too?

Separate components are usually better. Let the AP be the AP and let the router be the router.



I would like multiple assignable SSIDs (3 or more) with different bandwidth and security assignability. (It would be great to see them have different subnets but that is asking for the world);)


This is where a separate AP will probably be required. The typical all-in-one consumer-grade stuff just isn't designed for this kind of oddball stuff.


Any ideas? :confused:

You could do what I did: build your own router out of a Linux box and plug an A/B/G/N AP into it. If there's any flexibility this combination won't give you, then you don't need it. :D

[protias]

You could do what I did: build your own router out of a Linux box and plug an A/B/G/N AP into it. If there's any flexibility this combination won't give you, then you don't need it. :D

Agreed. I have Untangle for my firewall and a WRT54GL (flashed with DD-WRT) setup as my AP. SOHO routers just cannot handle the load of torrents.

[STiMULi]

I am looking for a very good & very reliable wireless router that will manage 800-1000+ simultaneous port connections (I don't mean computer connections) :D

Just as an aside, the number of protocol ports is irrelevant. You could have 10,000 open connections with no traffic going between them and any router could handle it. All that matters is the amount of traffic.

You are speaking from the point pf view of half way decent router. My WRV300 would crash just looking at the internet


4 or greater switch 100/1gb ports

Does your stereo system have a built-in radio, 8-track player, and record changer too?

NO

But I do have a separate 10/100/1G switch and I did want at least one or 2 devices plugged right into the router for troubleshooting and onboard QOS management.

Does yours have a record player and 8 track? Too Cool! :p

Separate components are usually better. Let the AP be the AP and let the router be the router.

I agree see above.



I would like multiple assignable SSIDs (3 or more) with different bandwidth and security assignability. (It would be great to see them have different subnets but that is asking for the world);)


The WRV 300 supported mutiple SSIDs with separate security types and B/W settings. I used it for WEP access on an old tablet. I will keep it alive and also use it as a my guest access with limited B/W. The ASUS can handle it via QOS as a link to the WAN of WRV the from one of the 10/100 ports onn the ASUS.

This is where a separate AP will probably be required. The typical all-in-one consumer-grade stuff just isn't designed for this kind of oddball stuff.

What I had was SOHO/sort of business but it was actually an over priced POS. What I was looking for was the somewhat same thing as I need RIP V1 & 2 for my network lab.


Any ideas? :confused:

You could do what I did: build your own router out of a Linux box and plug an A/B/G/N AP into it. If there's any flexibility this combination won't give you, then you don't need it. :D


The ASUS RT-N16 recommended by tomei kicks butt and it is running right so far. It has big CPU and big RAM for almost any endevour. It is a few steps up from the WRT54XX considering the USBs CPU and RAM. Currently it is running the ASUS F/W until I know it is not an OOBF and then I will try the DD-WRT or Tomato (TeddyBear version) as recommended.

Let the fun begin...

[voyager7]

I am looking for a very good & very reliable wireless router that will manage 800-1000+ simultaneous port connections (I don't mean computer connections) :D

4 or greater switch 100/1gb ports

I would like multiple assignable SSIDs (3 or more) with different bandwidth and security assignability. (It would be great to see them have different subnets but that is asking for the world);)

I would like A/B/G/N compatibility with standard antenna connectors (of some type) so I can use my 12db gain panel :) (Diversity or Triversity is not required)

DDNS compatibility

MAC address restriction table

MAC SPOOFING :p

REAL PLUSES would be:


HDD connectivity



data encryption



torrent client application w/ remote control

I will buy used if under $200 (Cisco or comparable)

Any ideas? :confused:

(thanks in advance)

Not asking for much are you? ;)

[STiMULi]

I am looking for a very good & very reliable wireless router that will manage 800-1000+ simultaneous port connections (I don't mean computer connections) :D

4 or greater switch 100/1gb ports

I would like multiple assignable SSIDs (3 or more) with different bandwidth and security assignability. (It would be great to see them have different subnets but that is asking for the world);)

I would like A/B/G/N compatibility with standard antenna connectors (of some type) so I can use my 12db gain panel :) (Diversity or Triversity is not required)

DDNS compatibility

MAC address restriction table

MAC SPOOFING :p

REAL PLUSES would be:


HDD connectivity



data encryption



torrent client application w/ remote control

I will buy used if under $200 (Cisco or comparable)

Any ideas? :confused:

(thanks in advance)

Not asking for much are you? ;)


The only way I could get what I wanted was to ask. :)

Most of what I want is available and what isn't yet available is being worked on. There is an ASUS N13 that looks pretty good and close to my wish list but I don't know enough about it yet.

The N16 when compared to anything else out there seriously kicks butt as far as speed goes when being heavily taxed by the torrent world. Compared to my Linksys @ $200 2 years ago, it runs circles around it.

I learned a great deal from Linksys/Cisco after buying that POS.

When you unpack the box there is an invisible middle finger that comes with it that has the power to change the speed of time. The more phone calls you make to tech support as to why this is broken and why that is rebooting or is uncommunicative, the bigger the finger gets and the slower time passes (as far as getting support and the speed of your device) as well as the more difficult the Farsi embedded English is to understand that "Robert" is speaking. Within a very short time I found they just stopped putting out F/W updates even though there were unresolved issues. They just moved on.

I caused me to join their beta group. In the beginning I was genuine but later I learned that they did not give a flying conception so stayed with them just so I too could lie about how well the devices were operating while being tested. If you can't beat'em, join'em and beat'em at their own game. The beta group is a farce to be dealt with. Their beta group is just a big lie so they can say their stuff is beta tested. It is being beta tested, by consumers.

[STiMULi]

Found this in case any one else was looking...

NETGEAR RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router WNDR3700 Wireless router - EN, Fast EN, Gigabit EN, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n (draft 2.0) (http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=wndr3700&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&cid=16362613695425164468&os=reviews&start=10)

[swarga]

Found this in case any one else was looking...

NETGEAR RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router WNDR3700 Wireless router - EN, Fast EN, Gigabit EN, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n (draft 2.0) (http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=wndr3700&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&cid=16362613695425164468&os=reviews&start=10)

Hope this one works out better than your first "experiment." :thumb2:

[STiMULi]

Found this in case any one else was looking...

NETGEAR RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router WNDR3700 Wireless router - EN, Fast EN, Gigabit EN, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n (draft 2.0) (http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=wndr3700&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&cid=16362613695425164468&os=reviews&start=10)

Hope this one works out better than your first "experiment." :thumb2:

RT N16 is fine and it is 10 better that the WRV200/300 (whichever one I had) It screams.

Next week Tomato goes on it. I just hope that it passes some RIP stuff for the lab.

[voyager7]

I learned a great deal from Linksys/Cisco after buying that POS.

When you unpack the box there is an invisible middle finger that comes with it that has the power to change the speed of time. The more phone calls you make to tech support as to why this is broken and why that is rebooting or is uncommunicative, the bigger the finger gets and the slower time passes


Holding nothing back I see.

I was not making fun of you in the other post.
If you never ask you will never get it.
I'll check with my soon to be son in-law this is his field.

[voyager7]

I'll check with my soon to be son in-law this is his field.

Here is his response.

I'm Having a hard time finding routers within that price range that meet all the criteria you listed. It might be necessary to go to a commercial grade router which will run some big money, not to mention a lot of knowledge to setup correctly and administer. Here is what I've come up with so far:

Newegg.com - Cisco Small Business WRVS4400N Draft IEEE802.11n, IEEE802.11g, IEEE802.11b, IEEE802.3, IEEE802.3u, 802.1X (security authentication), 802.11i - Ready (security WPA2), 802.11e - Ready (wireless QoS), IPv4 (RFC79 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124082)

This router has the external antenna, not sure if your gain panel with hook into it but I suspect it will. This one does not support multiple SSID's but it supports all the standards you listed as well as MAC filtering, logging and built in URL restriction and other security features.



Newegg.com - NETGEAR WNDR3700-100NAS IEEE 802.11n Draft 2.0 Rangemax Simultaneous Dual Band Wireless Gigabit Router - Premium Edition (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122326)

This one looks most promising to me. It supports all the standards supports at least 2 SSID's. It however does not have an external antenna.

There was no mention of MAC filtering but I believe that could be handled by a hardware or software firewall or at least some other piece of equipment. This one will also allow a USB storage device to be connected to it.



I had a look at the cisco website to see what they offered and to be honest found myself a little overwhelmed with the technical jargin. :(

One other thing you listed that concerns me is the 800-1000 simultaneous port connections. Small business and residential routers may not be able to handle that kind of traffic without noticeable lag and slowdowns, of course I am only guessing when I make that statement so please forgive me if you know that I'm wrong about that.

[The Chariot]

Been a while, but does ZyWALL have anything these days which fits the bill?

[mikedotd]

I am looking for a very good & very reliable wireless router that will manage 800-1000+ simultaneous port connections (I don't mean computer connections) :D

Just as an aside, the number of protocol ports is irrelevant. You could have 10,000 open connections with no traffic going between them and any router could handle it. All that matters is the amount of traffic.

This isn't quite right. At least as important as the total throughput is the session state table, which tracks each TCP/IP connection between you and the internet, and handles things such as NAT (network address translation), which allows you to have multiple IP's (rfc1918 space) behind your generally assigned 1 "external" WAN IP.

While the number of sessions a SOHO router can handle has dramatically increased over the years, it's still the number 1 limitation. There's only so much memory in those cheap routers; while their interfaces have more than sufficient buffer space to handle the throughput of 100Mb/s (while most US broadband is limited to 50Mb/s), the can only track so many connections simultaneously.

[swarga]

I am looking for a very good & very reliable wireless router that will manage 800-1000+ simultaneous port connections (I don't mean computer connections) :D

Just as an aside, the number of protocol ports is irrelevant. You could have 10,000 open connections with no traffic going between them and any router could handle it. All that matters is the amount of traffic.

This isn't quite right. At least as important as the total throughput is the session state table, which tracks each TCP/IP connection between you and the internet, and handles things such as NAT (network address translation), which allows you to have multiple IP's (rfc1918 space) behind your generally assigned 1 "external" WAN IP.

Well NAT is a different story. However, a plain router doesn't need to store any per-connection state information, and hence the memory limitation does not apply. As each packet comes in, the destination address is examined, the routing table is consulted, and the packet is forwarded out the appropriate interface.

[STiMULi]

I'll check with my soon to be son in-law this is his field.

Here is his response.

I'm Having a hard time finding routers within that price range that meet all the criteria you listed. It might be necessary to go to a commercial grade router which will run some big money, not to mention a lot of knowledge to setup correctly and administer. Here is what I've come up with so far:

Newegg.com - Cisco Small Business WRVS4400N Draft IEEE802.11n, IEEE802.11g, IEEE802.11b, IEEE802.3, IEEE802.3u, 802.1X (security authentication), 802.11i - Ready (security WPA2), 802.11e - Ready (wireless QoS), IPv4 (RFC79 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124082)

This router has the external antenna, not sure if your gain panel with hook into it but I suspect it will. This one does not support multiple SSID's but it supports all the standards you listed as well as MAC filtering, logging and built in URL restriction and other security features.



Newegg.com - NETGEAR WNDR3700-100NAS IEEE 802.11n Draft 2.0 Rangemax Simultaneous Dual Band Wireless Gigabit Router - Premium Edition (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122326)

This one looks most promising to me. It supports all the standards supports at least 2 SSID's. It however does not have an external antenna.

There was no mention of MAC filtering but I believe that could be handled by a hardware or software firewall or at least some other piece of equipment. This one will also allow a USB storage device to be connected to it.



I had a look at the cisco website to see what they offered and to be honest found myself a little overwhelmed with the technical jargin. :(

One other thing you listed that concerns me is the 800-1000 simultaneous port connections. Small business and residential routers may not be able to handle that kind of traffic without noticeable lag and slowdowns, of course I am only guessing when I make that statement so please forgive me if you know that I'm wrong about that.


Sorry it took so long to reply but the company has had me on the road for a while.

Thanks for the research. I had decided not to trust anymore linksys SOHO stuff even if they have the "CISCO" name on it. I thought I had been making a good decision before and since my last purchase I found that the name CISCO on a plastic router is less than it used to be.

This is one of the reviews I read about it.


NOT GOOD

http://c1.neweggimages.com/WebResource/Themes/2005/Nest/write.gif Reviewed By: rwarton on 3/5/2009http://c1.neweggimages.com/WebResource/Themes/2005/Nest/goldegg.gifhttp://c1.neweggimages.com/WebResource/Themes/2005/Nest/whiteegg.gifhttp://c1.neweggimages.com/WebResource/Themes/2005/Nest/whiteegg.gifhttp://c1.neweggimages.com/WebResource/Themes/2005/Nest/whiteegg.gifhttp://c1.neweggimages.com/WebResource/Themes/2005/Nest/whiteegg.gif http://c1.neweggimages.com/WebResource/Themes/2005/Nest/n1_tech.gif Tech Level: high - Ownership: more than 1 year Pros: Features if they workedCons: This has to be the worse wireless router. Linksys (Cisco) should be ashamed. I don't know where to start, the wireless in now just unusable unless you want to unplug it everyday. The VPN is worthless, and now the router after one year is locking up complete all the time. Maybe I just got one of the bad ones, but from what I'm reading in the forums it sure seems like allot of bad ones were made.Other Thoughts: With me being a professional network engineer, my suggestion is don't even think of buying this model of router unless you willing to gamble.

I have decided to keep the ASUS (IT REALLY DOES ROCK) and then back it up with the WRV200 I just took out of service. Because of the extensive QOS, security and Logging in the ASUS I will be using the old unit as my guest router. I will still be able to use the VPN and the B/W controls of the older router via the DDNS of the ASUS.

I will update more as I go. Right now I could not be happier with the operation and flexibility. Tomato will go on next week with the ASUS overlay if I am not working again. What makes it rock so much is hardware wise it is on the bleeding edge and since the S/W and F/W are open source it will probably remain on the bleeding edge there as well.

Big thanks to TOMEI again.

I want to say that I have seen speeds with this ASUS in both the wired and wireless environments that I have not seen before with my DLINKS or the (metal case) CISCO or the Linksys routers.

In one case I was DLing 1.8 mBYTES (speed) of Torrent material and was still able to get 20 MBITS of browser speed testing. This is not to say that I was getting 35+ MBITS from my connection it is more to state that the CPU could manage the DLing of that content and still support the speed testing and internal video streaming within the home. Like I said mind blowing....

[kpatz]

Well NAT is a different story. However, a plain router doesn't need to store any per-connection state information, and hence the memory limitation does not apply....Most if not all consumer routers nowadays have state-aware NAT built-in. Hence a connection table.

For Linux gurus, think of iptables vs. the old ipchains. One is state-aware, the other isn't.

[STiMULi]

Well NAT is a different story. However, a plain router doesn't need to store any per-connection state information, and hence the memory limitation does not apply....Most if not all consumer routers nowadays have state-aware NAT built-in. Hence a connection table.

It has been a long time since I have seen an Enterprise Router that didn't have NAT and PAT.