Router recommendations needed

[Harrison]

I'm looking to replace the free router I got from Be* with something a lot better.

What ADSL wireless routers would you all recommend? And do you know of any with Gbit ports on its network hub?

I will be connecting a Gbit 8 port switch to it, then all computers networked from that, plus an HP B9180 printer and a Qnap NAS networked directly from the router, with other devices such as an Epson wireless printer, 2 laptops and some smartphones connected via wi-fi.

The Netgear DGN1000 looked a good affordable router, but I've had mixed feelings over previous Netgear models. Anyone got one?

I also used to only buy Linksys hardware, but they seem to have been dropping in quality in recent years going by reviews, plus they seem to be concentrating more on their business Cisco products these days.

I do like Zyxel products. Anyone got a router by them?

 

[lostrego]

I do like Zyxel products. Anyone got a router by them?

I got one Zyxel , the 660HW-D1, well nothing espectacular as it was given also for free by a telco company from here (Telefonica, O2 in other countries).

Performed quite well but seldomly I've got random lockups with wifi and a conceptronic wireless access point, in this configuration the wifi connection get lost with no apparent reason, restarting the AP solves this so I suspect that it is more an AP's fault than a router one.

Otherwise is a correct product for being an el cheapo one, and it can be very configurable (even you can tweak via telnet with wifi's signal strenght and modify the max nº of admited conections, very usefull to avoid lockups with torrent clients and such).

Hope it helps.

 

[Gouldin]

Billion Bipac 7800n

Supports dual wan. All ports are gigabit. Best modem for boosting line sync speeds on poor adsl connections.

Check out the reviews for it mate, had mine for a year now and love it.

Sent from my ST17i using Tapatalk

 

[Harrison]

I was looking at the ZyXEL NBG5715.

 

[Harrison]

Billion Bipac 7800n

Supports dual wan. All ports are gigabit. Best modem for boosting line sync speeds on poor adsl connections.

Check out the reviews for it mate, had mine for a year now and love it.

That does sound good. I've been reading some good reviews of Billion routers recently. Are they a new company as their products only seem to have recently appeared. Will take a look.

 

[lostrego]

note: the 660HW-d1 was limited by factory defaults to a max of 1024 simultaneous connections but it can accept up to 6000.

 

[Gouldin]

They are an Australian company, got a great reputation over for fixing long adsl connections. People then started importing them to the UK. So billion decided to branch out and start selling in the UK to get in on the action

Billion Bipac 7800n

Supports dual wan. All ports are gigabit. Best modem for boosting line sync speeds on poor adsl connections.

Check out the reviews for it mate, had mine for a year now and love it.

That does sound good. I've been reading some good reviews of Billion routers recently. Are they a new company as their products only seem to have recently appeared. Will take a look.

Sent from my ST17i using Tapatalk

 

[Gouldin]

Oh yeah. You can also change your snr values that get reported to the exchange to increase your speed.

Sent from my ST17i using Tapatalk

 

[Harrison]

Sounding better and better, especially as I am on quite a long line. Getting very tempted to order one now, but want to check out all available options first just to make sure.

A couple of reviews were moaning the wi-fi strength wasn't as good as some other routers, but others say it is really good. I'm not too bothered by that as the router is in the room above the living room so distance isn't huge.

 

[AmiNeo]

Netgear arent bad. You can reflash some of their routers with a choice of custom firmwares too, for a more professional feel. The professional firmwares give you every option under the sun. I think there are even different firmwares for different applications around. I have a now ageing Netgear DG834G which used to be a SKY router until I reflashed its firmware but is identical to this model in every way...

Being a bit of a Cisco advocate, I'd also recommend anything by Linksys. They made some pretty solid, affordable and reliable routers even before Cisco bought them out.

 

[Harrison]

I used to be a huge Linksys/Cisco fan too... buying only their networking hardware, but they seemed to have reduced in quality for consumer products in recent years.

I do actually have an old DG834G somewhere. Might investigate the custom firmwares, but it was never 100% reliable and needed reboots.

 

[Harrison]

Took the plunge and bought a Billion 7800n today. Not had chance to set it up yet, but have just removed it from the box... and it is huge! Twice the size of most of my existing routers.

Will see if I can set it up in the morning.

 

[AmiNeo]

Nice! Never used any of their routers. Let us know how it performs!

 

[Harrison]

To give you an idea of its size, it measures 23(W)x16(D)x4.5(H)cms. I've seen some compact computers smaller than that. I'm wondering if they have done that for better cooling.

I couldn't wait until the morning, so set it up now and am now connected via it. So far so good. The routers admin panel seems really detailed with settings for pretty much anything you could think of. A lot of it is over my head at the moment, but I've found a couple of forums with some useful information for optimising the settings, so will have to do some tweaking later.

The initial setup was however very straight forward. The router has basic and advanced sections, with the basic one providing just enough to get everything working, making it easy to know what to enter or change. The advanced section expands on the same settings to give you a lot more control to customise and optimise/tweak settings.

Something else quite nice is that it actually comes with a printed "UK Quick Install Guide", whereas most other routers these days just have a CD containing PDFs, or a weblink. And to my surprise they even had setting details for O2 and Be stating what needed to be set to connect the router. Very nice. The settings worked first time and matched some settings I had already found online before I had purchased the router.

Tomorrow I'm going to see what the wi-fi coverage is like around the house. With its 3 antenna it should be better than the previous routers I've used, which either had just one antenna, or just internal ones.

 

[mfilos]

Nice thread! I was about to make one as well cause my ISP's Router is just lame.
Can't even setup NAT or some other services and it's slow as hell. Not to mention constant loss of WiFi packets after a 2 day usage, needing reboot every once and a while.

I have a nice Cisco router from my CCNA course days that works like a charm but it's only Ethernet without WiFi, so needing to put an extra WiFi access point isn't one of my options due to space/extra cabling/power needed.

Cheers

 

[Gouldin]

Lol, it is a huge modem, but in its defence, it has a very fast chip in it and plenty of ram.

For. Best WiFi from it, enable 20/40 MHz mode, WMM also.

Let me know how ya get on and if ya need a hand with anything, mine is fully QOS'd and vlan'd up with dual wan enabled

Sent from my ST17i using Tapatalk

 

[mfilos]

My Billion 7800N arrived today from Amazon.
Just finished setting it up @ home and I can say that it's just AWESOME!!!
MANY options, which most will be used accordingly and really outstanding signal reception everywhere in my house

It almost makes me cry not loosing not even a single packet after some hours. (I had huge issue with the OEM router that my ISP gave me).
Harrison mate you had time to setup yours yet?

Cheers

 

[woodycool]

Netgear every time for me. Never had any major problems with them, they are rock solid and reliable.

 

[Gouldin]

My Billion 7800N arrived today from Amazon.
Just finished setting it up @ home and I can say that it's just AWESOME!!!
MANY options, which most will be used accordingly and really outstanding signal reception everywhere in my house

It almost makes me cry not loosing not even a single packet after some hours. (I had huge issue with the OEM router that my ISP gave me).
Harrison mate you had time to setup yours yet?

Cheers

Nice to hear ya took the plunge

Let me know how ya get on with it, haven't had a single complaint from any of my clients about it yet (around 30 installed around the UK) other than the size

Sent from my ST17i using Tapatalk 2

 

[Harrison]

Still really happy with mine. It might be large, and more expensive compared to many other routers available, but it is well worth it. Its been really stable and reliable so far. Loads of options and settings to play around with too. Highly recommended.