A Router/VOIP/Gaming question

bubonicus

Hi.

Not sure if this is in the right place. but here we go.


What I have:-
IBB wireless BB connection straight into PC.

What I've tried :-
Belkin w54 g wireless router. But causes connection problems while online gaming (selling it now)

What I want :-
I want to get rid of eircom. Use my BB for online gaming maybe with more than one PC aswell. And also use VOIP as my phone(not leaving my PC on all the time).

So I was looking at this :-
http://www.blueface.ie/products/nintynine.aspx


Any suggestions, will the above package live up to my dreams???

Blaster99

About the only issue that will cause grief is VoIP:

Before you commit to Blueface, be sure that you're happy with the voice quality by using a soft phone for a while. Using IBB is not going to do you any favours with general VoIP quality. VoIP is sensitive to latency and packet loss, which are fairly common on IBB's network. I'm not entirely sold on Blueface either as I'm experiencing intermittent problems that I'm 99% sure are caused by them but a lot of other people are happy with them. Also note that Broadtalk offers a geographical number with no monthly commitment, unlike Blueface. I haven't used them. I've used Smart076 a bit (no geo number), and I find them to be excellent. If you're not worried about incoming calls, there are a bunch of VoIP providers like voipstunt, voipcheap, voipbuster that offers free landline calls to a lot of countries including Ireland and decent enough mobile rates.

bubonicus

I live in drogheda and I am on IBB wireless. I don't seem to have any problems with them(lucky me(touch wood)). Pings to boards are good with no packet loss. Also play BF2 online with no issues.

Only after plugging in the belkin one night to share my connection with my brother that BF2 went to pieces. Tried the Belkin plugged into only one PC and still got the same connection issues.

So I'm looking for a router that will share my BB connection for games and a voip phone at some stage.

Tazz T

Excuse my ignorance, but does this router allow you to make/recieve calls while your PC is switched off?

bubonicus

it uses the ATA connection to plug into your normal phone. So its BB-> router -> ATA-> phone. I think, I'm new to this.

Hence you can turn your PC off, but just leave your router turned on. you have BB phone line. Trick is to find the right provider

Blaster99

If you want to get some idea of your line performance, download hrping (google for it) and fire off these commands:

> hrping -n 1000 -l 160 -s 20 sip.blueface.ie
> hrping -n 1000 -l 160 -s 20 smart076.ie
> hrping -n 1000 -l 160 -s 20 sip.voipcheap.com

etc

If you get more than 5% packet loss and a lot of spikes over 200ms, I would worry. This sends 1,000 160 byte packets every 20 ms, which does a reasonable job of simulating a voice call.

There's more to it than this, but at least you'll get an idea of what your connection is like.

As for general router stuff, Linksys, Netgear, and D-Link are good for home use. I would avoid anything else.

bubonicus

cheers Blaster,

I'll do that tonight when I get home.

so the router Blueface are giving is a Netgear. So that should be good enough for games? want to buy a belkin...

Blaster99

What specifically is the problem with the Belkin router? Have you tried a firmware upgrade? I wouldn't think gaming is a likely candidate to kill a router generally speaking.

bubonicus

No the Belkin is not dead, it works perfectly(I think).

I bought the Belkin to link my brother and I up to my BB connection to play a few games of Battlefield 2. we started to get Connection problems, which I thought was because there was 2 Pc's on the one BB line.

But I plugged his computer out and just played on my own thorugh the router and then without the router. On my own with router I still got connection problems. Without, the problems are gone.

So I tried the latest Firmware update - no joy. Tired opening all the ports for BF2 - no joy. So I lost hope and figured it's just a cheap router.

Or is there a fix????

bubonicus

Blaster,

I ran that HRPING programme a few times on each. I only got 1-2% packet loss sometimes, it was usually 0% on all three commands.

Average ping on all three where about 60-120, Only when I had zonealarm on did it have a max ping of over 200. After I turned zonealarm of the max ping was no more than 120-160 for all three commands.

Do you think I'm good to go??

Blaster99

Looks promising. I would sign up for a pre-pay account and use the X-Ten Lite softphone for a bit to see what it sounds like before committing to anything. Assuming you have a headset, of course.

bubonicus

Ok,

So I bought a LinkSys router over the weekend and played BF2 all weekend with 2 PC's with no issues. Not one connection error with BF2.


But this was only after I decided to try the Belkin one time.

Now I only bought this Belkin three weeks ago. I plugged it in and updated firmware. It worked and let me share my connection with other PC's no problem. The only problem was connection errors with BF2.

So I put this Belkin router back in it's box and left it there for 3 weeks. During the weekend my brother starts to hassle me about playing BF2 online again. So I decide to take the belkin out and try it again with BF2.

So now I can't even access the router. I type in the ip address in to explorer and it tells me it can not connect to that page.

I konw it's plugged in correctly. I did not type http/etc... just the IP address.

So you maybe right Blaster99, maybe it is dead(now)

Any ideas why this happened. I was going to sell it?

Blaster99

Is there is reset button on it to put it back to factory defaults?

bubonicus

I looked for one, but I don't think it has one.

Going to check there troubleshooting page during the week

It's a bit silly. Nothing changed in the last 3 weeks. I just set my TCP/IP settings to detect auto. but it did not recognize the connection.

Weird

MOH

I share your pain. I've had loads of problems with my wireless Netgear.

Just a suggestion - have you tried posting on your wireless problem here:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=86

bubonicus

Cheers MOH,

But I should have said that it's a wireless router but I don't use the wireless side of it. I connect by cable only. No need for wireless.

Still can't get into the web browser interface. Looks like I'll just bin it and learn a lesson to stay away from Belkin products.

Linksys is working great...