New Wireless Router - What you recommend?

Hi, I would like to purchase a Wireless Router (Wireless G). Been looking at
DLink, Netgear and Linksys. Are there any others I should be looking at, or
are those the 3 biggest manufactures?

Thanks,
Gareth

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 15:15:36 +0100, "Big Brother" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Hi, I would like to purchase a Wireless Router (Wireless G). Been looking at
>DLink, Netgear and Linksys. Are there any others I should be looking at, or
>are those the 3 biggest manufactures?

No, they are just the cheapest. There are other manufacturers that
offer features, quality, reliability, and astronomical prices that
these three do not offer. Also, note that these companies do NOT
manufacture anything. They put their name on products made in China,
Taiwan, Korea, and such, and resell them. You can often find
identical guts inside different plastic boxes from different
companies. Similarly, you may find the same guts with radically
different firmware.

Since you didn't offer any applications criteria for selection, I
can't offer any specific advice. I suggest you dig through the
reviews at:
http://www.tomsnetworking.com
http://www.practicallynetworked.com
and see if anything looks interesting.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

Big Brother,

From personal experience, I had two SMC wireless routers. One had
a connector in the back go bad after a year....the other had faulty firewall
(blocked images on IE), so it had to be run with firewall disabled.
Eventually, it refused to load certain pages. I bought a Linksys 54G
wireless router 3 months ago. It has excellent range and has operated
flawlessly from day one. It even works with the SMC wireless card
in my notebook.

Just my $.02.
Scott

Big Brother wrote:

> Hi, I would like to purchase a Wireless Router (Wireless G). Been looking at
> DLink, Netgear and Linksys. Are there any others I should be looking at, or
> are those the 3 biggest manufactures?
>
> Thanks,
> Gareth

Thanks for your input. I am interested in that device, I have looked at the
dlink wireless routers, but they don't seem to provide dynamic dns options
which I'm looking for. I believe the Linksys 54G wireless router has this.

Gareth

"Scott" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Big Brother,
>
> From personal experience, I had two SMC wireless routers. One had
> a connector in the back go bad after a year....the other had faulty
> firewall
> (blocked images on IE), so it had to be run with firewall disabled.
> Eventually, it refused to load certain pages. I bought a Linksys 54G
> wireless router 3 months ago. It has excellent range and has operated
> flawlessly from day one. It even works with the SMC wireless card
> in my notebook.
>
> Just my $.02.
> Scott
>
> Big Brother wrote:
>
>> Hi, I would like to purchase a Wireless Router (Wireless G). Been looking
>> at
>> DLink, Netgear and Linksys. Are there any others I should be looking at,
>> or
>> are those the 3 biggest manufactures?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Gareth
>

most routers have dyn/dns, read the spec it should show, di624 here has it.

One router worthy of a look thats not well known is compex, cpx.com.
I have one here I've played with a lot in several different setups - really
like it!
the only thing I dislike is firewall beyond NAT is a $25 option.
Has couple of extra features not heard talked of often.
They dont seem to advertise it but the np26g-USB router can be flashed into
a 4port/AP. sort of a wired or wireless client AP wds. Which is handy!

"Big Brother" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:cgnvah$91m$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Thanks for your input. I am interested in that device, I have looked at
the
> dlink wireless routers, but they don't seem to provide dynamic dns options
> which I'm looking for. I believe the Linksys 54G wireless router has this.
>
> Gareth
>
> "Scott" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > Big Brother,
> >
> > From personal experience, I had two SMC wireless routers. One had
> > a connector in the back go bad after a year....the other had faulty
> > firewall
> > (blocked images on IE), so it had to be run with firewall disabled.
> > Eventually, it refused to load certain pages. I bought a Linksys 54G
> > wireless router 3 months ago. It has excellent range and has operated
> > flawlessly from day one. It even works with the SMC wireless card
> > in my notebook.
> >
> > Just my $.02.
> > Scott
> >
> > Big Brother wrote:
> >
> >> Hi, I would like to purchase a Wireless Router (Wireless G). Been
looking
> >> at
> >> DLink, Netgear and Linksys. Are there any others I should be looking
at,
> >> or
> >> are those the 3 biggest manufactures?
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Gareth
> >
>
>

Hi, allow me to join in. Let's say I want a hotspot at home. I'll go over
your links when I can, and shop for whatever. If I were to hook something
up, care to recommend anything? My budget is not unlimited, but not really
restricted either. I can bring in DSL, cable or satellite. No I do not
need a t-1 for my needs. I don't care if the neighbors crash my system
occasionally, but I want the option to password access the system just in
case. I have two desktops at home and two notebooks. The one notebook
802.11bg, and my IBM R-40 is just 802.11b. The desktops will have whatever
I buy to put it together. Keep it simple and reliable. No external
antenna's, no range extenders, and no yagi please.



> Since you didn't offer any applications criteria for selection, I
> can't offer any specific advice. I suggest you dig through the
> reviews at:
> http://www.tomsnetworking.com
> http://www.practicallynetworked.com
> and see if anything looks interesting.
>
>
> --
> Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
> 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
> Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

"Alesandra" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>If I were to hook something
>up, care to recommend anything? My budget is not unlimited, but not really
>restricted either. I can bring in DSL, cable or satellite.

You really need to talk about your coverage expectations and what kind of
construction you will be installing in. That said, I've been pleased with both
my Linksys WRT54G and Dlink routers. Both are available for well under $100.

www.broadbandreports.com is a good resource also.

100 foot radius is fine. The lot is 50 by 200, and the house is wood frame
stucco. Most uses are within 30 feet of the wireless router. I'll check
out your link too, thanks

"Clark W. Griswold, Jr." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Alesandra" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> >If I were to hook something
> >up, care to recommend anything? My budget is not unlimited, but not
really
> >restricted either. I can bring in DSL, cable or satellite.
>
> You really need to talk about your coverage expectations and what kind of
> construction you will be installing in. That said, I've been pleased with
both
> my Linksys WRT54G and Dlink routers. Both are available for well under
$100.
>
> www.broadbandreports.com is a good resource also.

Big Brother wrote:

> Hi, I would like to purchase a Wireless Router (Wireless G). Been looking at
> DLink, Netgear and Linksys. Are there any others I should be looking at, or
> are those the 3 biggest manufactures?
>
> Thanks,
> Gareth
>
>


I have a d-link model DI-514 that I haven't thrown in the trash yet, but
I probably will. (I never could get it to work and I went back to wired
network.) I'll probably never buy another d-link product, even though
my employer buys *lots* of their switches and hubs. They buy Cisco
wireless stuff.

Bob

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 20:16:28 -0700, "Alesandra"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hi, allow me to join in. Let's say I want a hotspot at home. I'll go over
>your links when I can, and shop for whatever. If I were to hook something
>up, care to recommend anything?

Yeah, but you didn't bother to describe the coverage area. That's
critical. For example, if you have a 3 story house with concrete
floors, you'll need one radio per floor. Rule of thumb:
Going through one inside wall is no problem.
Put some chicken wires, concrete, or foild backed insulation in the
walls and nothing works between rooms.
Two walls is a crap shoot.
Three walls won't work.

>My budget is not unlimited, but not really
>restricted either.

Find. Middle of the road. I don't like combination routers and
radios. The radios never seem to be located where all the wires come
together at the router. You want the router under the table (where
nobody can trip over the wires), and the radio up high where it has
the best coverage.

My favorites for this week is:
Netgear RP614 or Linksys BEFSR41 router.
Linksys WAP54G access point.
Senao based client radios:
http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/SenaoCard
(see list of vendors)

Disclaimer: These aren't the best. They're just what I've played
with and kinda like. For my customers with money, I tend to buy Cisco
350 and 1200 systems.

>I can bring in DSL, cable or satellite.

DSL or cable will work just fine. However, satellite is expensive and
has a horrible minimum latency (about 600msec) which screws up many
things (streaming anything, VoIP, VPN, games, etc). Cable is somewhat
faster than commodity DSL, while DSL is usually cheaper.

>No I do not
>need a t-1 for my needs. I don't care if the neighbors crash my system
>occasionally, but I want the option to password access the system just in
>case.

What system? If you're gonna share the bandwidth with the neighbors,
be sure to impliment MAC address filtering and either WEP or WPA
encryption. That should keep people like me out of your computah.

>I have two desktops at home and two notebooks. The one notebook
>802.11bg, and my IBM R-40 is just 802.11b. The desktops will have whatever
>I buy to put it together.

The laptops get Senao based PC Card Bus cards.

I suggest direct CAT5 ethernet wiring for the desktops. If that's
difficult, then I suggest some USB wireless device, which gives you a
better antenna location than a PCI wireless card shoved up against a
wall and behind the metal computah case. For that, I suggest a
Linksys WUSB54G USB radio.

>Keep it simple and reliable. No external
>antenna's, no range extenders, and no yagi please.

Bah, you're no fun...


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# 831.421.6491 digital_pager (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS