Decided to try sort my wifi out with one of these Ubiquiti UniFi AP UAP just the base one at £60
OK as the title suggests I'm looking to find out what would be deemed as the avg lifespan of a vdsl2 modem router.
The reason I ask is I bought an Asus DSL-N66U a little under 3 years ago. However recently it has been dropping the WiFi signals in the house. I currently have 4 WiFi networks running from it, standard 1x 2.4 ghz 1x 5ghz and 2 guest networks at 2.4 ghz.
The reason for the 4 is 1 each for my kids which I can remove for bad behaviour and the standard and 5ghz ones for me and the Mrs to use.
When they do disconnect and it comes up network not in range all I have to do is log in to the router disable them and then 're enable them, but it's getting to the point I'm doing this every 3 to 4 days.
However I've never had a router fail but I tend to buy a new one every 3 years because of updates in technology
In some ways it is good not to let a router get too old in that respect - one of mine just had an update after 18+ months since the last one with 45 security fixes which is more than it had through its main operational life due to the tech being out so long people found more obscure ways to exploit it, etc.
Unfortunately the router I have hasn't had a firmware update since I bought it.
In a nutshell, ladies and gents, the reason why consumer all-in-one 'routers' are a spectacularly bad idea. A joke, in fact, and a complete waste of money. The one network edge device that stands between you and the entire Internet - script kiddies, professional Russian, Vietnamese, Chinese and similar hackers, botnet armies and all that fun stuff... Running in 99% of homes on woeful years-outdated base operating systems, with vulnerable shells, and either no security updates to speak of (thanks to OEM 'support' that doesn't mean the criteria for the definition of the word) or updates so patchy and late that they may as well not have been issued at all. All this on extremely meagre low power (often last-gen) hardware, that people rush out to spend a couple of hundred quid on because the box says 'Gaming' and its glossy cheap plastic case looks like an alien spacecraft or something. {Facepalm}
A nice site with some info.
There needs to be a serious re-education of the public about what network security involves, at least enough to cause them to moan a bit on Twitter and push OEMs to start taking security seriously lest it affect their bottom line. What's the old quote; "Friends don't let friends use consumer networking equipment.". If you really are wanting point and click, with support and a fairly set it and forget it MO, then grab a Mikrotik or Ubiquiti router and tick the box for automatic updates. If you know even a bit about computers etc build your own and get daily security updates from upstream, whether that be one of the BSDs, Linux or OPNsense/pfSense et al. Not to mention you can grab a very beefy, cheap setup for less than the cost of a commercial box, and it'll last you 10+ years of very hard usage and still be viable with up-to-the-minute OS updates and security patches. Having to replace expensive network hardware every year or two just to get another short round of (inadequate) security patches is a joke!
i buy bang for buck i'll spend around £75 on a router every say 3 years. which is £25 a year.
i have a spare pc with a spare network card i could run pfsense on but then you are talking 150W running costs i imagine 24/7. which is £200 a year in electricity. compared to a router which will use 23W which is £30 a year.
so running a residential router vs a pc as pf sense is a hell of a lot cheaper.
i might get a Mikrotik or Ubiquiti router in 2 years time when it's time to upgrade though. just for more power really. but i don't like the fact they are ethernet only and you need access points seperately
The only porblem i have there is finding a good VDSL Modem to plug into the USG to get net access
Well seeing how well this Unifi UAP works, all be it in 2.4ghz mode only 9 seems i bought one of the older versions) im convinced that i should get hol of the ?USG, a switch with POE ports as well as a Cloud key.
The only porblem i have there is finding a good VDSL Modem to plug into the USG to get net access. Im not sure if i can just use my N66u as the modem and then run rest of network from the Unifi setup
i buy bang for buck i'll spend around £75 on a router every say 3 years. which is £25 a year.
i have a spare pc with a spare network card i could run pfsense on but then you are talking 150W running costs i imagine 24/7. which is £200 a year in electricity. compared to a router which will use 23W which is £30 a year.
so running a residential router vs a pc as pf sense is a hell of a lot cheaper.
i might get a Mikrotik or Ubiquiti router in 2 years time when it's time to upgrade though. just for more power really. but i don't like the fact they are ethernet only and you need access points seperately
Ive had a look on the interwebs and unlocking this particular version seems to be a complete Pain in the Backside.
Is it worth looking for one of the HG612 versions that have already been unlocked. seen a few on the bay of e for around £20-£30 inc P&P
In a nutshell, ladies and gents, the reason why consumer all-in-one 'routers' are a spectacularly bad idea. A joke, in fact, and a complete waste of money. The one network edge device that stands between you and the entire Internet - script kiddies, professional Russian, Vietnamese, Chinese and similar hackers, botnet armies and all that fun stuff... Running in 99% of homes on woeful years-outdated base operating systems, with vulnerable shells, and either no security updates to speak of (thanks to OEM 'support' that doesn't mean the criteria for the definition of the word) or updates so patchy and late that they may as well not have been issued at all. All this on extremely meagre low power (often last-gen) hardware, that people rush out to spend a couple of hundred quid on because the box says 'Gaming' and its glossy cheap plastic case looks like an alien spacecraft or something. {Facepalm}
A nice site with some info.
There needs to be a serious re-education of the public about what network security involves, at least enough to cause them to moan a bit on Twitter and push OEMs to start taking security seriously lest it affect their bottom line. What's the old quote; "Friends don't let friends use consumer networking equipment.". If you really are wanting point and click, with support and a fairly set it and forget it MO, then grab a Mikrotik or Ubiquiti router and tick the box for automatic updates. If you know even a bit about computers etc build your own and get daily security updates from upstream, whether that be one of the BSDs, Linux or OPNsense/pfSense et al. Not to mention you can grab a very beefy, cheap setup for less than the cost of a commercial box, and it'll last you 10+ years of very hard usage and still be viable with up-to-the-minute OS updates and security patches. Having to replace expensive network hardware every year or two just to get another short round of (inadequate) security patches is a joke!