Afternoon folks. I'm at work so I'll be keeping this short! I moved home earlier this month. While I previously had VM cable as a primary internet connection, I've decided to try solely with an ADSL connection this time round, with BE, as I had such a good experience with them as my secondary internet provider at my last home. So, the BT engineer is supposed to show up at some stage today, and I'll (finally) be connected to the interwebs sometime shortly thereafter. My problem is this: With ADSL coming to the forefront of my new home network, I’ll need a good wireless modem router (or series of devices) to deliver content around the house and recommendations are needed. I don’t mind having a few devices if it will improve the odds of a decent set-up (But you’ll have to tell me how!) Budget = £250 or less. The device(s) must: Be available for purchase in the UK Connect me to my ISP (So an ADSL2+ modem is required) Have 4 gigabit ethernet ports (Two computers in the man cave/”office”, NAS box, and television) Suitable for use with CAT 6 cables (In line with the above) Have ‘N’ wireless (For HD streaming to laptops and general phones and tablet use) Be suitable for use with any OS (There will be a mix of Windows, OSX, *nix, iOS and Android at any one time) The device(s) must not: Be a fully-fledged computer (The device(s) need to live on a windowsill or cabinet somewhere) Require a CCENT or similar to set up, administrate or use (There will be simpletons using the network) Cause unnecessary latency or network overheads due to millions of sub-sub-sub-sub-nets Thanks in advance, TSB EDIT: With separate devices if at all possible, I would much prefer the ethernet and the wireless to be provided by the same device thus the only "outwards facing traffic" goes to the modem and out the telephone line.
Honestly, any old router your ISP provides will probably have the features you want except the gigabit ethernet ports and 'proper' wireless-n (e.g. the freebie thompson router from plusnet has 1 aerial 65mbit "wireless-n compatible") and you can get a small switch to provide the gig-e backbone for the network. There are some netgear devices you could get for £40-60 with wireless-n or if you want something 'small business' class then a draytek vigor 2820n would set you back £180-190 (and has features you haven't specced like dual WAN ports, load balancing, USB storage/3g dongle support, web filtering etc). You would need a gig-e switch with both of these. thompson http://www.technicolorbroadbandpartner.com/dsl-modems-gateways/products/product-detail.php?id=161 netgear dgn1000 http://www.netgear.com/home/products/wirelessrouters/simplesharing/DGN1000.aspx netgear dgn2200 http://www.netgear.com/home/products/wirelessrouters/work-and-play/DGN2200.aspx draytek http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/vigor2820.html
Oh man. The Draytek looks PERFECT. Well no - it's hideous... BUT in terms of spec, it does exactly what I want it to and if I find the ADSL to be insufficient, I can sign up with VM again and have my cable connection route through there and it'll balance the load between the connections... God mode! DAMN. Just seen it's lacking gigabit ethernet. Luckily though, I see it's bigger brother the (2830) has it, so I'll get that instead. Now I just need to find somewhere reputable that'll sell me one, something to hide it under/inside and hope it's not too hard to set up! That's awesome dude, I wasn't expecting anything quite so helpful just yet! TSB
I am on BE and use their ADSL modem (a rebranded Thomson) because I heard that to get their stellar line performance their service is very precious about modems, apparently anything with broadcom chip works best: http://www.beusergroup.co.uk/technotes/index.php/Routers I use my bebox as an adsl modem and turn off its crappy sigle antenna Wireless-g WLAN. I have connected a D-Link DSL-2740r, this also has an adsl modem (which is not used) and tripple antenna wireless N. These things can be found very cheaply as they are Talk Talk standard issue, mine is such a unit, reflashed the firmware to stock. It performs OK, I find wide band 270bps a little unstable for laptop gaming, so I using 130bps at the moment but if I wasn't gaming 270bps is generally good. The worst thing is the management interface, it is slow, clunky and there are few options. For gigabit ethernet I just use a cheap edimax gigabit switch, all the networking hardware get along with each other well. At work I have a Draytek Vigor 2820n, which to be honest probably does justify its price premium. These things are rock solid, it never goes down and the stack of options, including VPN are immense. The management interface is really nicely laid out, maybe a bit too techy for some, but otherwise really well laid out and really responsive. It also has a gigabit ehternet port so theoretically you could transfer 100bps+ via wi-fi to ethernet with a switch.
Actually face to face it is not bad, forget cheap modem plasticiness, it is really solid and sturdily built. It also has some weight to it, Imy switch actually gets lited off the table by the cables sometimes One feature which is an issue if the thing is in plain sight is that the ethernet connections are in the front so it is more difficult to rout cables behind if it is on a desk.
Yeah, this is what I was originally going to get and then I heard horrific stories about it not being able to hold an ADSL connection as the modem HW & FW were utter crap. All the reviews corroborated it, so I decided to stay well clear. It had all the features, but at that price maybe it was just a little too cheap to be true! TSB
the 2820 has 1 gigabit port internal facing which is all you need really in order to keep the wireless-n from being bottlenecked by a 100meg uplink from a switch, but I guess the 2830 means you wouldn't need a switch at all!
I don't know if you're familiar with it, but I've always used DD-WRT where possible, it's absolutely amazing at getting any network related hw to do anything it couldn't before! It's also really snappy, especially if you use it to overclock your router/switch! TSB
That looks like the shiznit. Looks like it should work fine on Be to according to Mikey @ DrayTek. To quote: *EDIT* In fact hate you and your stupid thread for making me want to get one too now
I have no experience with ADSL, but if you were willing to use two devices, that is a regular (provider-supplied even) ADSL router, and a wireless router with gigabit ethernet, I can't recommend custom firmwares enough. Usually most of the firmwares (doesn't really matter if you're buying Linksys, Asus, Belkin, Trendnet etc.) are made by poorly-payed programmers in certain asian countries, and they work correctly strictly by chance. <- just my personal opinion. don't start flaming me Personally I have used DD-WRT for years and have been very happy with it. The thing with DD-WRT is that it's mostly done 'in the dark' when it comes to manufacturer support/documentation, by reverse-engineering the devices, which may or may not be successful, so only some devices are supported. When it comes to choosing a device, I always look it up (down to the version number. <- very important!) on the DD-WRT router database to see if it's supported. There you'll find the files you need to download and also the model-specific instructions on how to flash it, if you decide to chance it (not doing it right might brick your router) Seeing as scan.co.uk is the preferred retailer on this forum, I had a quick look and found this device: D-Link DIR-825 that won't need upgrading for quite a while, and it's well within your budget. It has two antennas, wireless 802.11n with 2.4 and 5 GHz capabilities, gigabit ethernet. Pretty much all your requisites. The only downside is that it's white.
Lol, good man - only see the post two above yours. I'm already a convert! Agreed though, can't praise it enough- it's just a shame there is no DD WRT support for routers including ADSL. MM, the plan was, if I was recommended a lot of multi-device set-ups then that's what I would have done - but the all-in-one Draytek at that price was ideal - so I think I'm pretty committed to it unless someone comes up with something better or cheaper! TSB
if you still wanted to use dd-wrt you could get an ethernet adsl modem and a router thats compatible with dd-wrt i personaly use 2 netgear dm111p v2 modems, with an fvs336g and wndap350, oh and a switch umm gs108t i think, cant remember as its down in my office
TSB, you must have posted while I was writing. Am glad though that you are familiar with DD-WRT. The DrayTek 2820 can't operate on 5GHz and it only has one gigabit ethernet port, so you'd still need a second device. To get all of these you'd have to buy the 2830n-Plus, which might be quite expensive. I have no experience with DrayTek firmware, but it looks decently made. Certainly has a lot of features. I do fear it's going to be quite a lot more expensive than the D-Link + DD-WRT + regular ADSL router. But if you fancy the DrayTek, doesn't break your bank and it performs flawlessly, then by all means go for it. Let us know your impressions of it. Am quite curious if somebody can make decent hardware AND firmware without a Cisco price tag.
It works fine for a bunch of our small company clients, the biggest gripe I have is only being able to set 20 port forwarding rules via the web interface. As bungletron above said "these things are rock solid, it never goes down". In my experience that's pretty accurate. But yeah, it's not enterprise class hardware edit: we use the Vn version as well for voip, as well as the vpn features etc. I haven't used a 2830n-plus yet but the feature set looks good and it looks like they are £210-£235
