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Cheap ADSL Holds Up 802.11n Router Design
sholto writes "Ever wondered why you can't find the perfect 802.11n router? You know, the one with dual band, great range, USB print server and storage? Australian ISPs used to give away modem routers to consumers with expensive ADSL plans, but competition has forced them to drop the plans' prices so low they can't subsidize the boxes any more. D-Link Australia says R&D into N routers is now becalmed in a Catch-22."
DDWRT helps but the hardware on the market is just garbage. And it's NOT because it's made of commodity components, but because it's poorly engineered. Best example of this is the horrific power/thermal management on newer Linksys products. Ethernet _switch_ traffic alone is enough to make the whole system overheat and crash no matter what firmware you're running. A competent engineer could have made it work right for the same BOM. I used to make wireless devices and our biggest category of support problems was crappy wireless routers either spontaneously rebooting, or needing to be rebooted. I just can't believe we are still at the same state of reliability as the 802.11b days - actually it seems worse now.
PS I don't mean to pick on Linksys, it's just that they're the ones I'm most familiar with. Overall the fails seemed to be in proportion to market share although every one had its particular problems.
Is it really the ISPs fault? Most people I know bought there own router and connected it to the modem supplied by their ISP. I'm still on my old Linksys WRT54G with Tomato on it because its the best thing out there. I'd buy a new 802.11n router in a heart beat if it supported gigabit lan and wan, dual band, external antenna(s), OpenWRT support, and a USB port or two would be nice but not really needed. I really don't think its to much to ask but last I looked no company makes one.
Agreed. I don't care in the slightest about any advanced features. What I want in a router.
* 802.11n (duh).
* 5+ Gigabit ports
* ADSL2+ Modem
* Reliable NAT, including basic UPnP port mapping
* Software that isn't entirely shit (I'm looking at YOU d-link).
I'm happy to pay $300+ for a reliable router, but it's damned hard to find one even at that price range. D-Links products are notoriously bad. The web interface for the last one I used would only work in IE6. (And specifically only IE6).
the perfect 802.11n router? You know, the one with dual band, great range, USB print server and storage?
It's called the Time Capsule. I own one, and it offers all that. What, exactly, was the question?
(oh yeah, maybe you don't like Apple for whatever reason. That's not the point. The point is that such a device does indeed exist, contrary to the claims of the author that it doesn't.)
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I can't believe I wasted my time reading that dribble from D-Link.
In short, you can't buy the magical 802.11n router “because the market is not asking for it”.
Why in the world would you want an ADSL2+ modem (or any modem or media adapter other than ethernet or USB) built in to your router?
That's rather like wanting a boat trailer built in to your automobile. They work just fine as separate components, thank you, and putting them together will not foster competition or improve performance.
It's a little bit expensive at ~ $200, but you get what you pay for. It has great features for the price and is rock solid. Dual-band 802.11N, Gigabit Ethernet, IPv6, SNMP, bridging and routing modes, etc, etc. The only drawback is the proprietary GUI required to configure it (no web interface). This is a show stopper it if you do not have a Windows or OS X based computer at your disposal, but few people are in that situation.
The only reason to pass it up is if you're one of those weirdoes that immediately write off anything with an Apple logo.
Beyond a few rare anomalies, every other consumer router I've used in nearly a decade has been complete garbage, I'd sooner build a PC based Linux or BSD gateway over dealing with that nonsense.
Because I currently have three boxes sitting in the corner of my living room taking up space, causing a cable mess, wasting electricity, and just generally being annoying.
Putting them all in the one device makes perfect sense for me, when they are all essentially components of the same system.
That's like saying "Why would I want an email client, twitter client, ipod, *and* telephone in the same device"
Because it's a home, not a datacenter.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Since we're on the topic of Australians holding back the market...why are y'all hoarding the Four'N Twenty's, eh?
Not in Australia there isn't. There's ADSL, and there's only one single ADSL standard (well, two if you consider ADSL/ADSL2+). and there's Cable. (and dialup modems/satellite if you want to be picky, and lets face it, who doesn't!). No one's really investing in cable anymore, since the infrastructure for ADSL already exists, and just requires exchange upgrades and back-haul upgrades, instead of in-street wiring of cable and back-haul upgrades.
That's several million homes in Australia who all get an adsl modem from their ISP, and if the isp recommends a wireless router/adsl modem, then they're pushing a path that allows them to invest in R&D on newer features. They all still offer the simple ADSL modem, but there's plenty of room for people with multiple computers (something a large fraction if not the majority of australian households now have) to warrant the availability and simplicity of a modem/router pre-configured by the ISP to just work when you plug it in.
http://www.avm.de/en/Produkte/FRITZBox/FRITZ_Box_Fon_WLAN_7270/index.php
Best piece of electronics I've owned, bar none. Sip telephony, answering machine, nas, print server, fax, dsl modem, dect base station, wireless N 300 mbps with triple antennas, usb port for 3g modem fall back connectivity, vpn server, firewall, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some features here.
Runs linux, and hacker community has extended firmware to run p2p daemon for example.
Ever wondered why you can't find the perfect 802.11n router? You know, the one with dual band, great range, USB print server and storage?
Because you've got myopia and you're only looking at the D-Link range? D-Link hardware's ok, as far as cheap goes, but their tech support is the pits.
I don't want a router. My linux box works quite well for that, thank you very much. However nobody sells a simultaneous dual-band, gigabit, 802.11n access point (at least not in an affordable, consumer-grade package). Instead I have to pay for crap that I don't want and that just makes things more complicated (I have to figure out how to turn stuff off, if it can even be turned off at all).
Also, internal antennas suck, especially for 5GHz. If I put my router/ap in a central closet that I have wired for ethernet and power, I'm lucky if I get 2 bars on 5GHz in my main usage area. Now instead of having my access point neatly tucked away I have to have it sitting out in a different room just so I can cover half of my house. And I don't even have that big of a house!
MOD UP!!! AC is correct. I too was a victim of the DGL-4500 firmware fiasco. Apparently, the DNS forward lookup would buffer overflow and lock up the router. D-Link sat on their ass for what seemed like a year. They also screwed me on a DNS-323 storage NAS. Fuckers! I will never buy D-Link shit again!
Life is not for the lazy.
The odd thing is, I already have the router that both you, and the article describe...
It has:
Simultaneous dual band
Ability to broadcast a guest network as well as my secured ones 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz ones
Gigabit ethernet switch
Range good enough to get from one corner of my house to the other far corner, and probably more.
USB print server
Ability to add storage
Ability to act as a backup server
Doesn't overhead
Hasn't crashed since it started running several months ago
Hasn't ever dropped a connection
Hasn't ever had compatibility issues with random 3rd party hardware/software
What is it? Oddly... it's an Airport Extreme
I've gone through so many bad experiences with D-Link equipment over the years that I will never buy any equipment from D-Link ever again. I will go out of my way to get people I know to replace these craptacular pieces of shit every chance I get.
I've had D-Link PCMCIA cards, routers, modems, etc and every single one of them is an overheating piece of garbage. It's like no one in the company has ever heard of heat management.
OTOH, I set up an Airport Extreme Base Station at my parents' house last year. It has all of the features Sholto says you can't find (Dual band-N, great range, USB print and storage, etc) and does it without needing to be reset every ten fucking days. Care to venture a guess the uptime this AEBS, D-Link? 16 MONTHS. I'm usually pleasantly surprised when D-Link crap can make it 16 days without needing a reset.
I suppose I have to give the old Linksys WRT-54 units their props.
I wonder how a standard router (commercial or OpenWRT) would work on their network.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I went through a steady stream of these - some with integrated DSL some without - Linksys, DLink, Netgear etc. They all had stability and speed issues or other niggly little things that required reboots and firmware updates. Finally I broke down and bought a Cisco 857W which is a real Cisco device running IOS including DSL, Wireless, Statefull Firewall and IPSEC VPN. I was studying for my CCNA so it was a good device to learn on and was how I justified the purchase to the Mrs.
It might cost AU$450 and have a pretty masstive learning curve to configure it properly but man is it solid and a great performer. It has an uptime currently of over six months with only 2 DSL activations (ie it has only had to reconnect to my ISP once in six months) and I do quite a bit of bittorrenting via wireless with hundreds of connections and with the firewall on getting over 16MBit/sec out of my ADSL2+ link.
There is a reason that you see them or their more expensive 877 cousins provided with the business links - because the telcos know they work and are stable as hell and will result in greater uptime and fewer support calls making the cost worth it.
Cisco may be overpriced, especially with it only being 802.11g, but you also get what you pay for. I'll never go back to the SOHO kit for my home.
Yea, sure, so when one component fails, you're stuck without ANY connectivity of any sort while you wait for the replacement for the entire kit.
Or you could get REALLY short cables, stack the units properly for airflow, and if something fails, you're less likely to have to wait upon a service technician to deliver something to you, as you can likely run to a store and pick up the replacement within hours instead of days.
Plus, blinking lights, man! Blinking lights!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Plug in a modem.
I understand that putting the modem into the router saves space, but it creates headaches. I'd rather own my own router, and have the telco only own a trivially-swapped modem. I don't like it when I have to operate hardware in my house that I'm not permitted to tamper with and keeping the modem separate minimizes this.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Carriers are forced to lower margins, can't cross-finance as much.
For everyone who can't calculate it themselves: It's pretty much always better for the customer to buy stuff and pay lower monthly fees instead of the other way round. Large one-time costs are better than medium long-term costs.
That being said, just get a Fritz! Box 7390 and be done with it.
2 * POTS
1 * ISDN with optional pass-through to a proper telco appliance
6 * DECT handsets
2 * USB; the mass storage can be exposed via SMB & UPNP-AV/DLNA
4 * Gigabit Ethernet
802.11 bgn
IPv6
And a ton of other features. Plus, you can install freetz!, a free modifcation of the Linux that runs on the Fritz! boxes.
PS: I am aware of how bank credits work, but I am talking utility costs, not buying a house, here.
Of course, in my new house design I actually have a comm closet - wouldn't necessarily put the wireless router in there, but I sure as heck would put the cable/DSL modem in there and use an ethernet run to any wireless routers. Hmmm... at that point might as well use POE and those thin wireless APs. But that's a commercial solution and a LOT more expensive than a consumer integrated unit.
You can roll your own PoE, just run half-duplex connections to your kit (1/2 and 3/6 pairs, IIRC) and use the other wires in the bundle to carry power. Don't make the mistake of trying to run AC power down the line, most anything like that which runs on AC will also run on DC, although it usually only works with one tip polarity because such small crap devices often have half-wave rectifiers. A couple jacks and wall plates will cost you $10 at the home despot. Do yourself a favor and get odd-colored jacks to denote half duplex. If you just install some other kind of power jack in the wall (buy jacks and plugs at radio shack) for the power to come out of, you can't even harm a device by plugging it in.
I get internet access from a local WISP. They installed a bridge/AP in a metal box on the antenna mast. The PoE injector is in my living room closet along with my primary AP/router. (WRT54G with DD-WRT.) Then I have a cable run to the entertainment system hooked up to another AP, as well as to the Xbox (about to be removed as it has died), Xbox 360, Wii, and a PC. This is the AP that I hammer when I want to transfer files, so that my lady can still get access. I don't know if it's a problem with 802.11G or a problem with DD-WRT but if I have a file transfer going I get dropouts, and my two APs are on different channels with no others visible in the area since I live in the boonies.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
SonicWALL is good. Their products are aimed for the small, medium, and large business through. So expect to pay a lot more. But I would recommend them for home use if you can afford it.
Their TZ 100 Wireless-N lists for $360 on CDW. The TZ 100 Wireless-N with 1 Year Total Secure lists for $410. 1 Year warranty is extra I think.
Life is not for the lazy.