On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 08:35:57AM -0500, Stewart Russell via talk wrote:
So my WRT-350N decided to stop being a router last night and to start being a brick instead. All ports and WiFi appear to be dead. People have discussed the latest and greatest here - so what's the best basic router for:
* enough wireless range for a smallish two storey house;
I have my router in the basement and it works fine on the main floor and upstairs.
* able to connect and configure about 15 wireless clients and 4 wired (one wired in a DMZ)
* probably going to stick with stock firmware, as the Linksys one on the WRT-350N was pretty much okay for the last 8 years; and
* would be nice if it wasn't unholy expensive, was available retail today, and was likely to last at least another 8 years.
My network setup is very simple: just internal IPs assigned by MAC address via DHCP, and locked in the router. Yes, I manually copy /etc/hosts files about: don't judge. It worked fine until the router went kablooie.
DNS is great and all, but if you only have a few machines, then hosts files do work fine. I setup local DNS at my parents place, but for some reason can't seem to get around to doing it at home. I just type the IP address. :(
I'm wondering if I even need a router, though. The Sagemcom box from Teksavvy (rented from Bell) has WiFi and four LAN ports. What does having my own router do for me?
Well potentially nothing, if the sagecom has all the features you want. I run with the wifi and router part of my modem disabled because I want dual band wifi and better performance. Also I want gigabit switched ports, not 100MBit (which is what the sagecom has, as does the awful Cellpipe I am still using).
Recommendations and advice welcomed. Assume I have no idea what I'm doing if you haven't already.
I am currently very happy with my WRT1900ACv2 (aka WRT1900ACS if buying it now). Lots of flash, ram, cpu power, good wifi, USB3 and eSataP ports, gigabit switch, etc. I must admit that I barely looked at the original firmware since I wanted to run LEDE on it (essentially openWRT). LEDE has worked great so far. Canada computers appears to sell it for $240 currently, or $170 for a refurbished one. Someone who really wants options might prefer the WRT3200ACM which has twice the flash, a slightly more advanced switch chip, and the CPU clocked about 20% higher as well as a second 5GHz radio for $300. -- Len Sorensen