Wireless Router/ADSL Modem

zilog_jones

I'm planning on going wireless (no more 15m crossover cable running up the stairs for me ^_^), but I'm not sure whether to get a separate wireless router and use my existing ADSL modem (Zyxel Prestige 623R-T1), as a lot of people seem to be liking the Linksys WRT54GS - or just get a integrated modem/router alltogether. I'm a co-op student with too much money to know what to do with so the extra cost of that won't be a problem, and I'll benefit in the future as most the ones I've been looking at are ADSL2+ compatible - not to mention it'll be less cluttered only having the one box.

So should I just go for one of them integrated things, and if so which one? PC World are doing some deal on some Belkin ones right now (dunno which model exactly but it's ADSL2+ and alleged "108Mb/s" .11g IIRC) - are they any good? I'd need something that's games-friendly, i.e. NAT/port forwarding must be easy enough to do (unlike those crappy Netopia routers you get with Eircom!).

Also, I'll need to get a PCI and a PCMCIA wireless card *BUT* I'll be using both with Ubuntu, so I'd prefer something that's not a complete pain in the hole to get Linux drivers for. Any recommendations?

MunsterCycling

zilog_jones wrote:

I'm planning on going wireless (no more 15m crossover cable running up the stairs for me ^_^), but I'm not sure whether to get a separate wireless router and use my existing ADSL modem (Zyxel Prestige 623R-T1), as a lot of people seem to be liking the Linksys WRT54GS - or just get a integrated modem/router alltogether. I'm a co-op student with too much money to know what to do with so the extra cost of that won't be a problem, and I'll benefit in the future as most the ones I've been looking at are ADSL2+ compatible - not to mention it'll be less cluttered only having the one box.

So should I just go for one of them integrated things, and if so which one? PC World are doing some deal on some Belkin ones right now (dunno which model exactly but it's ADSL2+ and alleged "108Mb/s" .11g IIRC) - are they any good? I'd need something that's games-friendly, i.e. NAT/port forwarding must be easy enough to do (unlike those crappy Netopia routers you get with Eircom!).

Also, I'll need to get a PCI and a PCMCIA wireless card *BUT* I'll be using both with Ubuntu, so I'd prefer something that's not a complete pain in the hole to get Linux drivers for. Any recommendations?

Money no object... One word: Linksys don't waste your time with anything else. As for which model,take your pick

Linksys Wireless Products

Don't touch Belkin equipment, bad experience with Cardbus Wireless Cards, no range to speak of and I had 4 of them. That said I am using a Belkin router at the moment and they are very easy to setup so not all bad but if I was starting from scratch would use linksys

zilog_jones

Turns out the one on offer was actually a Netgear one - had a USB NIC too for €100. I got it anyway - I'll have to wait and see if I'll regret that decision...

MunsterCycling

Don't think you will, netgear stuff seems pretty good by accounts here. Good luck, hope it all goes smoothly.

zilog_jones

Setting up the router was a breeze - it autodetected the ADSL connection settings so all I had to do was put in my account name and password. The web config menu is well layed out and has a help section down the right side of every page giving a detailed explanation of every menu and option. I easily found the option to lock down wireless access by MAC addresses, and the Firewall settings are quite comprehensive - I can put in rules for specific services just like on our expensive SonicWall firewall at work! ^_^ Updating the firmware was easy enough, too. It's pretty small and very unobtrusive-looking (the same can't be said for those sham-tastic Linksys routers!)

It's a Netgear DG834GT if anyone's interested.

I haven't had as much success with the bundled USB adapter though - I have yet to get it working in Linux (if it wasn't USB it would have easily worked with the MadWiFi drivers, but instead I have to attempt to get it working with smelly Windows driver wrappers), and I can't get this mystical 108Mb/s speed even when it's right next to the router - then again the router's not in the best of places (on top of my desktop PC). I have yet to test out how far the signal will go, but besides that so far so good.

MunsterCycling

Very unlikely that you'll get 108mps, i have the 125mps Belkin router and when I used all 125 hispeed adaptors it says it connects at 125 but in reality the throughput is little over 34mps with all the overheads etc. FYI the throughput rate of 54g is somewhere in the region of 22mps, 5.5mps for 11b. Read that in online book about developing wireless networks in developing coutries that link to was posted up here a little while ago.

zilog_jones

Yeah I'm getting 36Mb/s upstairs, which is good enough. I'm mainly just using it for net access with my 2 meg ADSL anyway

MunsterCycling

zilog_jones wrote:

Yeah I'm getting 36Mb/s upstairs, which is good enough. I'm mainly just using it for net access with my 2 meg ADSL anyway

Don't forget to secure the link with encription, personnally I have WPA-PSK with AES and a 64 bit access key. AES give less of a overhead with the encription apparently.:rolleyes: