Linksys Resurrects WRT54G In a New Router

jones_supa writes "A year after purchasing the Linksys home networking division from Cisco, Belkin today brought back the design of what it called 'the best-selling router of all time' but with the latest wireless technology. We are talking about the classic WRT54G, the router in blue/black livery, first released in December 2002. Back in July 2003, a Slashdot post noted that Linksys had 'caved to community pressure' after speculation that it was violating the GPL free software license, and it released open source code for the WRT54G. The router received a cult following and today the model number of the refreshed model will be WRT1900AC. The radio is updated to support 802.11ac (with four antennas), the CPU is a more powerful 1.2GHz dual core, and there are ports for eSATA and USB mass storage devices. Linksys is also providing early hardware along with SDKs and APIs to the developers of OpenWRT, with plans to have support available when the router becomes commercially available. The WRT1900AC is also the first Linksys router to include a Network Map feature designed to provide a simpler way of managing settings of each device connected to the network. Announced at Consumer Electronics Show, the device is planned to be available this spring for an MSRP of $299.99."

Comments

Cost?

[Anubis350]

Part of the appeal of the 54g was its relatively cheap cost for a nicely hackable router (I have serveral of the first gen ones lying around, the ones from before they got downgraded and the old version rebranded as the "gl" with a higher price tag), $300 kinda kills its usefulness

Re:Cost?

[MightyYar]

Yeah, my jaw kind of dropped there at the price.

Re:Cost?

[H3lldr0p]

And it is almost to guaranteed to drop over time.

Don't forget you're getting: The A/C radio standard , a huge amount of space to store/program in, and support. Yes, support. So if you brick the thing with your endless tweaking of it, they'll try to get it back to working condition.

That stuff is going to cost early adopters. Like it always does. So chill out, have a cool beverage of your choice, and wait awhile. Let the other people absorb the early costs. Wait some for others to figure out the traps.

But for heaven's sake, shove the whining about the price right up your ass.

Re:Cost?

[spire3661]

I could build a x86 based router for less. $300 is absolutely ridiculous for this kind of hardware.

Re:Cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Prove it. You can't do it - not supporting the 802.1AC standard and actually routing at a decent speed.

Re:Cost?

[NatasRevol]

As long as you don't count labor.

Re:Cost?

[MightyYar]

If you are buying a router to screw around with DD-WRT, you almost certainly aren't counting labor anyway.

Re:Cost?

[hawguy]

Considering I built my current router is a low-power dual core 2.0GHz x64 CPU with 4GB DDR3 RAM, 16GB SATA-III SSD and 5 gigabit Ethernet ports for ~$200, it shouldn't be too hard to add a wireless card for around $100 and call it a day.

How much power does it use? Power consumption is an important factor in a device that's going to be running 24x7. 20 watts of difference in power consumption could be costing you $20/year or more depending on how much your power costs.

Re:Cost?

[MightyYar]

I'm failing to see your point. SJHilman made a router for $200 that could easily be expanded with a wireless card for $300 total. The retort was that his setup does not include labor. I replied that labor is silly to include in a discussion where people are dicking around with the firmware anyway.

Re:Cost?

[Patch86]

I could sit on the sofa all evening watching telly or reading books, or I could assemble a computer. Does one have more worth? As long as I enjoy either, does it matter which I pick for my downtime?

And I definitely won't be working all evening. No one can (or should) work every waking hour of the day- if you do, I pity you. Everyone has downtime- you can pick which hobby you want to fill that time with to your heart's content.

Being a workaholoic is nothing to brag about.

missing it

[Mr Krinkle]

I think they are missing the main reason that router sold so well..

At least the reason I bought them, and recommended them for others....
IT WAS CHEAP AND good.
It was a moderate priced option, that I KNEW would work for people. The fact that it had all the hackable benefits was gravy for me to have my own versions.
I didn't trust a lot of the other low end units to not constantly have problems. I could also talk someone into spending 50-75$ instead of 40$.
There is no way I could get someone to spend 300$ instead of 20-50$ now days..

$300?

[nurb432]

Yikes. Could build a really small fan-less PC and run pfsense on it AND have storage..

Re:Belkin, eh?

[J'raxis]

I always blast the software the router came with. Even router software from a company with an otherwise untarnished reputation I don't trust; if it's closed source, you may as well assume it has a backdoor in it.

But I will never give this company another dime for what they did back in 2003, and I will take every opportunity to inform people about that incident, so they may make the same decisions.