Replacement Router For BT Home Hub

BlackDragon

BlackDragon

BlackDragon

Soldato
Joined
9 Jun 2006
Posts
2,642
Hi, im looking to replace the BT Home Hub when i move into my new house in August. There will be 6 people and im unsure of how many people want wireless or wired connection. But i can always connect everyone to a little network hub and connect it to one port so that 5 of them can share on port as all they will do is really browsing the net which won't really slow things down. So probably a minimum of two Ethernet ports and wireless support. Main uses would be web browsing, and gaming.

Im not wanting anything thats gonna be expensive (as im a student) but im not looking for any cheap thing that is gonna break after a few months of use (like a D-Link i had). So can anyone recommend something that is cheapish while being reliable and offering good configurability (like the Linksys routers)?

Would be nice if someone could spec me more than one router too!

Thanks in advance!
 
I've always used DrayTek routers for my ADSL connections and have found them to be very reliable and robust, although you get what you pay for.

Netgear and Linksys both have a good reputation for making cheap routers that are pretty good, not sure what models to recomend although I would suggest you don't buy into somthing that is 802.11n WiFi as the standard is not ratified yet and you may find that it will be incompatible with the final draft specifications :)
 
Always had ZyXEL routers here, their home use stuff is great but if you want to spend £200 and get a small business one they are out of this world.
 
Only ever had problems with Linksys tbh, really wish cisco hadn't tarnished their brand by sticking their badges all over linksys stuff :(

My WAG300N would repeatedly drop the line, sometimes fail to actually open ports that the config pages said were open, and just generally act very strangely.

Never had issue with draytek stuff, we use them for all our stores and concessions at work, and I used to run a 2200 USB when I still had a USB ADSL modem, never let me down :)

Personally however I'm sticking withh Cisco stuff from now on, my 877 is fantastic :)
 
Andrew G said:
Is the Cisco stuff affordable ? Where you get it from ?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you mean by "affordable". I got my first Cisco Router (2611) for £95 off ebay, granted to use that with an ADSL line I'd have needed a wic1-adsl card (around £100 again on ebay), but it would have sufficed as a cable router on its own at £95. I never bothered running mine for my ADSL line, I just had it connected to a 2500 series and a 2900 series switch to do the CCNA labs with.

You could pick up a low end 800 series (837 or similar) for anywhere from £55 upwards (again used from ebay), or an 877/877w (w = wireless) for around £100-120.

You could possibly even go for a 1701 for around £150.

New however you are looking at LOTS of money.
 
paradigm said:
Only ever had problems with Linksys tbh, really wish cisco hadn't tarnished their brand by sticking their badges all over linksys stuff :(

My WAG300N would repeatedly drop the line, sometimes fail to actually open ports that the config pages said were open, and just generally act very strangely.

Never had issue with draytek stuff, we use them for all our stores and concessions at work, and I used to run a 2200 USB when I still had a USB ADSL modem, never let me down :)

Personally however I'm sticking withh Cisco stuff from now on, my 877 is fantastic :)
Click to expand...


you're assuming cisco had a reputation to tarnish, I've worked with cisco for a long time and I can safely say that I'd prefer almost any of their major competitors. Juniper and foundry make equipment thats a lot better in my opinion.

for home use though...I've always found linksys stuff to be quite reliable, zyxel aren't bad either...
 
I have recently came up against a problem of the router/firewall throughput is less than connection speed which limits the download rate. Although my ZyXEL is a 10/100 mbs on both WAN and LAN ports with the firewall enabled is maxes out at 10mbs throughput of that of my 20mbs Virgin Cable connection. Turning the firewall off allows me to get full rate. The problem I see when buying a new router now is from what I can see NO manufacture seem to publish a throughput speed, just a port speed. Also what connections will we have a say 3 years time when DOCIS 2.0 hits the exchanges etc?

Does the Cisco stuff have a better throughput than your average home router.

I was thinking of getting a ZyWALL 2WG (wireless max 25mbs thoughput) or a ZyWALL 5 UTM (max 80mbs throughput) although they come in at the £200-£250 range.
 
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