OT: any good routers on the market?

[clare]

I've had very good luck with AirLink. Formerly sold under the Phoebe name.

[The Daring Dufas]

On 1/29/2011 7:18 AM, Nate Nagel wrote:

I wind up working on a lot of business systems and there is a lot of high end wireless gear you don't see on the consumer market. It can be very expensive because much of it will be installed up in the hot ceilings of stores so it has to withstand a great deal of abuse. You can pick up a four or five hundred dollar router for a hundred and fifty bucks that's a few years old and you can do things with it you never thought about. You will see a lot of equipment like the Airlink stuff coming from the professional suppliers and it's good reliable gear. I buy a lot of white box, no fancy packaging, wireless equipment from the electronic supply houses that will have features not normally seen in consumer equipment, like the ability to interface with medical wireless and retail inventory scanning products. The commercial grade stuff usually has antenna jacks so different antennas can be installed for many diverse applications. Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL have a Linux based operating system and I grab up every one of them I find in a dusty corner somewhere (with permission) because all sorts of things can be done with them through the use of community developed Linux software that's readily available. I like the external antennas because I can install all sorts of directional and high gain antennas to get through walls and connect over long distances. You can modify old satellite dish antennas for use with WiFi and get some breathtaking results for long distance communication. Some guy got 125 miles using an old 12 foot satellite dish and consumer WiFi gear. :-)

TDD

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

DD-WRT and other alternate firmware (I use Tomato).

There's also "client mode" where the wireless provides a WAN connection to the router. Also "WDS" that lets you connect several of these boxes to increase wireless coverage.

I've used all these modes except WDS.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Two things come to mind. Bad craftsman always complain about their tool. One gotta know what s/he is upto. Know the limit and capability of what you have. Over the years I had some Linksys and D-link routers. Now using Netgear WNDR3700. All of them did what I wanted.

[The Daring Dufas]

I often find pilot error when there is a complaint about The Internet connection. The problem is often "Battling Routers" where a customer has connected two routers together in DHCP mode and both routers are trying to take over. :-)

TDD

[Nate Nagel]

yeah, I have a Netgear WNR3500. It did what I wanted, too. For about six months. Now it doesn't. It's a shitty tool.

nate

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, That box is known for running too hot. Think power supply in the box is cooked or going. Heat is electronics enemy no. 1/

[Han]

The Daring Dufas wrote in news:ii2nc9$u6a$1 @news.eternal-september.org:

I'm solidly ground-based (most of the time), but DAMHIKT !!!!

[HeyBub]

Yep. BTDT.

My solution was to use one router and a passel of switches.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I suppose that's 2 DHCP servers on the network set to assign addresses in the same range. Looks like I knew enough about networks (by the time I could have 2 DHCP servers) to not do that.

BTW, why did the customer have 2 routers? Was this some kind of backup internet connection? I have done that, but I would use just one router and change the WAN connection manually.

[clare]

I have 3 routers on one network. Each one serves a different dedicated IP address (one for each of 2 domains for EDI and one for the e-mail server. NONE of the routers are running DHCP as the main primary domain server looks after that for systems that are not hard coded to a particular IP address.

[The Daring Dufas]

It's more like "Hey, we need to hook up some more computers, oh look, I've got this here doohickey we can plug in and it has those little square holes we can plug our machines into." I run a lot of calls in retail stores (women's clothing) where I find a lot of things simply unplugged. As much as I adore human females, they're very cruel to computers. I have a high end work station I'm trying to resuscitate for my friend's wife who stuffed papers and file folders all around the computer in the compartment under her desk thereby shutting off all cooling air to the computer. It killed it. :-(

TDD

[Tony Hwang]

Hmm, That qualifies as intentional sabotage. She did'nt want to work maybe?

>

[The Daring Dufas]

No, she didn't know any better. I get computers from a company that services medical offices and when a customer updates, the few year old expensive work stations are taken back to their shop, wiped clean and sold. The stuff isn't sold in the consumer distribution channel and the motherboards are priced at several hundred dollars or more when they're new. I got several of the used machines at a good price and set up computers for my friend's wife and his older daughter. I have one that I use. It's a P4 3ghz CPU with two hyper-threads and will take up to 4gb memory. It has an Intel mother board with SATA CD?DVD and 7200rpm Barracuda hard drive. The motherboard is an Intel D865PERL, Google it and be amazed at what the damn things cost. I told them I can get an expensive machine that's a few years old and it will run anything they want and run it fast. :-)

TDD

[HeyBub]

They've got six computers and each router has only four ports.

They daisy-chained the routers.

[The Daring Dufas]

Exactly, you've probably run into it before with someone thinking it's just a switch. :-)

TDD

[Mark Lloyd]

It's possible to use just the switch - with nothing in the WAN port.

If wireless is built in that can be used too, Someone might have a use for 2 different wireless access points.

[The Daring Dufas]

I set them up like that all the time but you have to configure the box. Those folks just plug it up out of ignorance. :-)

TDD

[clare]

Only SOME can be used in AP mode without being used also as a router.

[The Daring Dufas]

Got a customer with a restaurant setup like that. A free wireless connection for the customers and an encrypted wireless for the management.

TDD