Recommendations for wireless router

Do people have any good or bad experiences of the various wireless ADSL
routers that are available?

The ones I've identified from the reviews on www.adslguide.org.uk are:

- Linksys WAG-54G
- Netgear DG834G
- 3Com 3P002815 (what a mouthful!)
- Belkin FSD7632UK4 (another nice catchy name!)

As far as I can tell, they all seem very similar, with the Netgear maybe
scoring slightly higher on signal strength after travelling through several
walls.

All are priced very similarly - around the £65-£70 mark.

Is there anything else that I should be looking for in a router? I presume
all have firewalls with the same capabilties.

Are there any other makes/models that I should be considering in addition to
the four listed above?

Does a router need any special features or any port routes creating to allow
a PC on the private network to access a VPN over the internet (assuming that
the appropriate VPN client spftware has been installed on the PC and that
the company network end of things has been set up correctly) - in other
words, are there some routers that will allow VPN traffic through and some
that won't? I realise that you *do* need a special VPN-capable
router/firewall at the *company network* end for people to access it from
outside, but that's not what I'm asking.

"Martin Underwood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:4238b688$0$533$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Do people have any good or bad experiences of the various wireless ADSL
> routers that are available?
>
> The ones I've identified from the reviews on www.adslguide.org.uk are:
>
> - Linksys WAG-54G
> - Netgear DG834G
> - 3Com 3P002815 (what a mouthful!)
> - Belkin FSD7632UK4 (another nice catchy name!)

I have a WAG54G, and I'd recommend buying one of the other three.
I have to cycle the power on mine several times a day to resurrect
it, several "features" don't work, and Linksys's support is dire.

YMMV, of course.

Chris

"Chris Harris" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:42394488$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Martin Underwood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:4238b688$0$533$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Do people have any good or bad experiences of the various wireless ADSL
>> routers that are available?
>>
>> The ones I've identified from the reviews on www.adslguide.org.uk are:
>>
>> - Linksys WAG-54G
>> - Netgear DG834G
>> - 3Com 3P002815 (what a mouthful!)
>> - Belkin FSD7632UK4 (another nice catchy name!)
>
> I have a WAG54G, and I'd recommend buying one of the other three.
> I have to cycle the power on mine several times a day to resurrect
> it, several "features" don't work, and Linksys's support is dire.
>
> YMMV, of course.

Is that because the wireless part of it locks up or because the router/ADSL
part of it locks up?

Thanks for the warning.

"Martin Underwood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:423945be$0$57163$(E-Mail Removed)...

> Is that because the wireless part of it locks up or because the
router/ADSL
> part of it locks up?

I've not had any experience of the wireless part failing, in fact
its performance has been pretty good once I'd established which
channel worked best. I've been able to transfer 500 Mb files
between two machines on the network without difficulty.

But every now and again the router just stops responding; when it
happens I can't even open the admin page on the router by typing
in its IP address in Firefox. Someone suggested that if a site
opens a lot of connections, (even if they're allowed) it overwhelms
the firewall on the router, and kills it. Still investigating this
one at the mo, but I'm getting increasingly fed up with the Linksys
and if anyone out there has a suggestion for a decent 54g wireless
modem/router/firewall I'll be very interested to hear it.

Cheers
Chris

"Martin Underwood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:4238b688$0$533$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Do people have any good or bad experiences of the various wireless ADSL
> routers that are available?
>
> The ones I've identified from the reviews on www.adslguide.org.uk are:
>
> - Linksys WAG-54G
> - Netgear DG834G
> - 3Com 3P002815 (what a mouthful!)
> - Belkin FSD7632UK4 (another nice catchy name!)

I have two Netgear DG834G units, one is a MkI, the other a MkII. Both are
100 percent reliable.
They are the most stable router I have had here. No lock ups, no crashing,
just stable and reliable.

1.0.5.00 is as stable as it gets. I am very pleased with my two units.

The Netgear DG834G gets the thumbs up from me, I can't see where you would
go wrong with one of these.

Dave

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:08:37 -0000, "David" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>
>"Martin Underwood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:4238b688$0$533$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Do people have any good or bad experiences of the various wireless ADSL
>> routers that are available?
>>
>> The ones I've identified from the reviews on www.adslguide.org.uk are:
>>
>> - Linksys WAG-54G
>> - Netgear DG834G
>> - 3Com 3P002815 (what a mouthful!)
>> - Belkin FSD7632UK4 (another nice catchy name!)
>
>I have two Netgear DG834G units, one is a MkI, the other a MkII. Both are
>100 percent reliable.
>They are the most stable router I have had here. No lock ups, no crashing,
>just stable and reliable.
>
>1.0.5.00 is as stable as it gets. I am very pleased with my two units.
>
>The Netgear DG834G gets the thumbs up from me, I can't see where you would
>go wrong with one of these.
>
>Dave
>
>
I also have the Netgear DG834GT don't know what the T means but I've
had it about 2 weeks Just plugged it in walks you through the setup
and away you go also netgear have it bundled with the WG111T (usb
wireless stick) great for laptops and around the house I gave the
stick a try and it works.
James
--
They think it's all over... it is now.
Take the FUN out of my email address to replay.

"Chris Harris" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in news:42394488$1
@news.star.co.uk:

>
> "Martin Underwood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:4238b688$0$533$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Do people have any good or bad experiences of the various wireless ADSL
>> routers that are available?
>>
>> The ones I've identified from the reviews on www.adslguide.org.uk are:
>>
>> - Linksys WAG-54G
>> - Netgear DG834G
>> - 3Com 3P002815 (what a mouthful!)
>> - Belkin FSD7632UK4 (another nice catchy name!)
>
> I have a WAG54G, and I'd recommend buying one of the other three.
> I have to cycle the power on mine several times a day to resurrect
> it, several "features" don't work, and Linksys's support is dire.

I also have the WAG54G, and it's only okay. Wireless drops out on average
every other day, but only needs a 'Repair' on the wireless NIC to re-
establish the connection. Ironically, this was far more frequent before I
replaced the Netgear WNIC with a Belkin one!

Just installed a DG834G for a mate, and was impressed by its far superior
interface. It hasn't been up long enough to report on its reliability,
though.


--
treeherder.co.uk (marcus)

Any reference to trees or their herding is purely coincidental.

"James" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:08:37 -0000, "David" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
>>I have two Netgear DG834G units, one is a MkI, the other a MkII. Both are
>>100 percent reliable.
>>They are the most stable router I have had here. No lock ups, no
>>crashing,
>>just stable and reliable.
>>
>>1.0.5.00 is as stable as it gets. I am very pleased with my two units.
>>
>>The Netgear DG834G gets the thumbs up from me, I can't see where you would
>>go wrong with one of these.
>>
>>
> I also have the Netgear DG834GT don't know what the T means but I've
> had it about 2 weeks Just plugged it in walks you through the setup
> and away you go also netgear have it bundled with the WG111T (usb
> wireless stick) great for laptops and around the house I gave the
> stick a try and it works.

I think the difference may be that the DG834G has 54 Mbps wireless (standard
802.11g) whereas the DG834GT has 108 Mbps ("Super G). Very naughty and
misleading of Netgear to give two different models almost the same name.

I like the idea of that WG111T USB wireless adapter. I wonder if it will
work on my ancient laptop with Win 98 SE? ;-) Be nice if there was a way of
roaming round the house with that rather than having to be tethered to
Cat 5. Ah, I see that the WG111T is USB2, so it may or may not work in my
laptop's USB1 port. I notice that it's also 54 Mbps rather than 108 Mbps.
Mind you, for web browsing etc, any speed above 2 Mbps is superfluous!

Martin Underwood wrote:
<snip>
> Cat 5. Ah, I see that the WG111T is USB2, so it may or may not work in my
> laptop's USB1 port. I notice that it's also 54 Mbps rather than 108 Mbps.
> Mind you, for web browsing etc, any speed above 2 Mbps is superfluous!
>

The WG111T is 108Mbps:

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WG111T.php

--
[ste]

"[ste parker]" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Martin Underwood wrote:
> <snip>
>> Cat 5. Ah, I see that the WG111T is USB2, so it may or may not work in my
>> laptop's USB1 port. I notice that it's also 54 Mbps rather than 108 Mbps.
>> Mind you, for web browsing etc, any speed above 2 Mbps is superfluous!
>>
>
> The WG111T is 108Mbps:
>
> http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WG111T.php

Yes, I noticed this after posting. I rest my case about the marketing
decision to give products with different specs virtually the same name:
WG111 is 54; WG111T is 108. I suspect that the sublety of that "T" suffix
will be lost on many people.