Mini-Router

Hello,
I am looking for a mini-router that can handle a fair dataflow. I have
looked at Soekris, WRAP, Routerboards, etc but they just don't seem to
have great throughput.

I am putting up some 802.11b/g for client access with 802.11a for
backhaul. For some sites I do not need routers do to the fact that it
is a simple .11b/g <-> .11a setups. However, somesites will have
multiple .11a links for multiple hops and/or fail-over links.

CISCO is too much money for multiple sites, so I am trying to find
some other router for this task and I am wondering what other people
are using for a problem like this.

Thanks,
Scott B.

On 3 Feb 2006 09:09:49 -0800, "darktiger" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I am looking for a mini-router that can handle a fair dataflow. I have
>looked at Soekris, WRAP, Routerboards, etc but they just don't seem to
>have great throughput.

Realize that most of these boards are just 486 or ARM 7/9 processors.
They're made for low power, no fans, but not speed. For example:
http://m0n0.ch/wall/facts.php
On a net4501, m0n0wall provides a WAN <-> LAN TCP throughput
of about 17 Mbps, including NAT, when run with the default
configuration. On faster platforms (like net4801 or WRAP),
throughput in excess of 50 Mbps is possible (and > 100 Mbps
with newer standard PCs).

One of my home made Freesco router, with an ugly ruleset for packet
filtering, runs at about 50Mbits/sec peak thruput. That's running
with five 100baseTX-HDX Intel Pro100 ethernet cards on a PIII/733 with
128MB ram and a 256MB CF card for a hard disk. I've never measure
average, which I'll guess(tm) will be approx 30Mbits/sec. I've never
checked what happens when I simultaneously load more than one
interface.

Can I ask you for some numbers? How many MegaBloats per second were
you expecting? Peak and average please. The most you'll get out of
54Mbit/sec 802.11a is 25Mbits/sec thrupout, so anything faster should
be acceptable.

> I am putting up some 802.11b/g for client access with 802.11a for
>backhaul. For some sites I do not need routers do to the fact that it
>is a simple .11b/g <-> .11a setups. However, somesites will have
>multiple .11a links for multiple hops and/or fail-over links.

You probably also don't need a router at the sites with multiple ports
because a local switch will insure that only the traffic destined to a
specific remote client will go via the connecting radio. Only
broadcasts will go everywhere. However, if you want to isolate
clients from each other, and do a RIP2 based fail-over, a router will
be necessary.

> CISCO is too much money for multiple sites, so I am trying to find
>some other router for this task and I am wondering what other people
>are using for a problem like this.

Try asking on the ISP-Wireless mailing list:
http://isp-wireless.com
which has more WISP providers on the list.

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