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The WRT54GL: A 54Mbps Router From 2005 Still Makes Millions For Linksys
Jon Brodkin, reporting for Ars Technica:In a time when consumers routinely replace gadgets with new models after just two or three years, some products stand out for being built to last. Witness the Linksys WRT54GL, the famous wireless router that came out in 2005 and is still for sale. At first glance, there seems to be little reason to buy the WRT54GL in the year 2016. It uses the 802.11g Wi-Fi standard, which has been surpassed by 802.11n and 802.11ac. It delivers data over the crowded 2.4GHz frequency band and is limited to speeds of 54Mbps. You can buy a new router -- for less money -- and get the benefit of modern standards, expansion into the 5GHz band, and data rates more than 20 times higher. Despite all that, people still buy the WRT54GL in large enough numbers that Linksys continues to earn millions of dollars per year selling an 11-year-old product without ever changing its specs or design.
Because people have these setup in commercial/industrial settings due the popularity of DD-WRT.
If you're looking to replace a failed one or extend your range, you buy the exact same model and drop the exact same config on it.
It's a damn shame other manufacturers don't follow this model.. In fact all makers of all items don't follow this model. It's an old one... If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.
Actually, a lot of them still are hackable. The challenge being in WRT54G land, it was *the* definitive hackable router. While several are hackable, it's more confusing and frankly with projects named things like 'openwrt' or 'ddwrt', the very name of the ecosystem is still rooted in that product line. So people who want to load up a custom distro but aren't *that* informed have a hard time knowing what is and isn't and which download to pair with which product.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Can't remember the specific problems I had with it, but yeah, I owned one. I'm surprised to see it lauded since they don't sell all that well on ebay; my recycling company has huge boxes of them but they move very slowly, and the only wholesale volume markets offer scrap value only. But I admit they do sell, one by one, individually, for about $9.99 plus shipping, which is ok for old, used, non-antique (vintage) electronics, but not scaleable and not in the same league with other tech of the same vintage. Now take a Wyse-55 dumb terminal monitor, on the other hand, that will fetch $100 easy. Wish I would have kept the 5,000 or so of those we scrapped 15 years ago... and the PS1 IBM "clicky" keyboards sell for hundreds of dollars. I guess I don't see how the Linksys WRT54GL merits this attention as compared to (chills!) Okidata Microline dot matrix printers. I'd trade all our Linksys WRT54GL for a solid Oki 520.
Gently reply
It's a damn shame other manufacturers don't follow this model.. In fact all makers of all items don't follow this model. It's an old one... If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.
Why would a company continue to produce a product if there is no way to make any money doing so? The ONLY reason this router is still made is because people are willing to buy it at a price higher than it costs to make it. Has nothing to do with it being broken or not.
Don't confuse broken with obsolete. Sometimes people find economic utility in something that isn't state of the art. My company uses some presses that are older than I am and they will probably still be working after I'm dead. They aren't state of the art but they work fine for specific uses. But they also cannot be sold as new profitably because they lack features that customers want and new presses have and there is a large secondary market for them so used ones can be bought cheaply. It's not broken - it's obsolete. No company could make money making new ones.
People still buy the old WRT router because it still has some utility and because it can be made cheaply enough to still make a profit. Eventually that will go away but there is a modest market in the mean time. The tail might be long but it won't last forever.
Now that average consumers are buying wireless routers, we have meaningless speed fixation and corresponding price inflation. Take a look at some of the absolutely horrible advice offered on consumer-grade router reviews, by doing a google search for "wireless router ratings."
Exhibit 1: Forbes: Choosing the best wireless router
The page is one big chart showing theoretical speeds, and recommending getting 802.11ac. 802.11a is the 5Ghz standard that was discarded for dead since it doesn't penetrate through walls. Whoops! That's why for 10 years, hardly any router or NIC supported it. It's kinda useless in most homes. For a while, 5Ghz was billed as a way to do high-speed over short distances. Since people may have multiple network devices in one room or cubicle, you could put a 5Ghz router in each one. The range is so short they won't interfere with each other. But that was too expensive, and the moderate speed boost wasn't worth it.
But it's faster, so "oooooh shiny" now it is back!
Exhibit 2: Wireless routers at Newegg
An observant shopper soon learns that routers are speed rated: N150, N300, AC1750, AC1900, AC2600, AC5300, etc. By this system, a G54 router is ancient. They make it look like buying a 100Mhz CPU in 2.6Ghz era. But if you ask "Why would I need a 5300Mbps router when my internet is 50Mbps?" The only reason to buy a router with such a high rating is that you will probably get a fraction of that actual speed. But even that number doesn't correlate because the number in AC5300 refers to the "A" speed that most devices don't even support. So the number is doubly meaningless.
This stupid system is so prevalent that people sometimes think that AC1750 is the model number. They get confused and buy the wrong router, or can't figure out why there are 5 routers all called the BrandName AC1750.
Exhibit 3: PC magazine recommends the most expensive consumer routers ever
PC Magazine's recommended routers: $300, $250, $174, and $17. Wow, that's quite a price difference. Unless you have lots and lots of people using the wireless network, and some kind of crazy university-sized internet pipe, and devices that support the 5Ghz band, that $17 router will do just as well as the $300 router.
What these review sites need to do is actually measure wireless performance at various ranges and in different rooms. Unless they do that, the speed ratings are meaningless.
I have bought half a dozen of the WRT54GL since they came out--two for me and the others to help other people. They were great, and I'm surprised to see them still for sale. I've loaded DD-WRT and Tomato on this model and was very happy in general. My last one bit the dust and I've moved on.
There are plenty of routers out there now that work with DD-WRT. After doing a bit of research, I settled on the TP-LINK TL-WDR4300. I did not get a newer model, however, because DD-WRT didn't support the newest radios. Take a look before you buy, these firmware projects are always updating.
After having run the new hardware, I would recommend going this way. The processors are so much better that it's a dream to run the custom firmware compared to the WRT54GL.
...5 GHz, which has better range and performance (yes, I know 2.4 has better signal range, but the higher interference leads to a higher usable range in 5GHz in many real-world applications.
No it doesn't. 5GHz has trouble going through simple walls, it's almost line of sight only.
Do a site survey and you'll learn this pretty quick.
If I have to transfer lots of data between computers, I would use Ethernet.
Behind the WiFi of my Router is a 'relatively' slow DSL line.
I would not know why I would need a Router with more than 54MBit WiFi bandwidth.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Could never understand the appeal of the original WRT54G router. I think I actually have one sitting in storage that I haven't used in years (just in case). There are literally hundreds of modern routers with much higher speeds and more memory that support the same DD-WRT firmware:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/ind...
I'm using one right now, and it has 802.11ac and 5 Gigabit ports. Has been rock solid ever since I updated the stock firmware to DD-WRT.
I'm posting this on 5GHz, 4 walls away from the AP. 234Mbps connection, rock solid. The 2.4 gets more bars, but lower speed, and drops off when certain appliances are used, or other environmental factors. The 5G only drops when the router crashes (stupid TP-Link is shit).
Learn to love Alaska
Nope, wanting commercial grade uptime and reliability from a home device. Sure, you can do it, buying separate dustproof encolsures and external antennas, and re-mounting the board from inside the linksys (yes, I have seen someone spend more modding a Linksys than it would have been to buy the thing they were trying to mimic, they just had to do it on principle).
Range is rarely the only consideration. Nobody cares what the range of an AP is. They only care about coverage. Yes those are different. If you'd ever worked on a network with more than one AP, you'd know that.
Learn to love Alaska
At the time, the WRT54G(L) was a great router. I've still got two of them on the desk next to me. Don't buy them now.
They were wonderful routers, but it's time. Unless you're just doing it for the nostalgia, do yourself a favor and get something that uses the improvements that have been made in the last 14 years.
-=Lothsahn=-