Recomend me a decent Wireless N Router that'll take DDWRT or similar.

B

BigBadAl

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 16, 2010
Messages
349
Hi all,

OK the time has come for me to at least start to think about wireless N.

The number or N capable devices is starting to increase and so with more wireless clients the whole 54G thing is becoming painful.

My requirements are:

to be able to have a MAC filter
to be able to use this device as an access point only
must support 54G devices as well

If you know of any wireless N access points that I can implement MAC filters on then they're an option too.

I've also very briefly skimmed on WLAN controllers and some decent acces points but the prices of these are too prohibitive at present, besides, if I can find a wireless N device with good enough coverage, I'll only need the one device.

Many thanks

Al
 
I recently picked up a Linksys/Cisco e3000 from Newegg..they have a batch of factory reconditioned units for 69 bucks. Can take it. It's dual radio...quite fast.
 
E3000 is a decent router, runs well with dd-wrt. Also the Asus RT-N16 is a good bet for 2.4GHz N.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
I recently picked up a Linksys/Cisco e3000 from Newegg..they have a batch of factory reconditioned units for 69 bucks. Can take it. It's dual radio...quite fast.
Click to expand...

They run hot (mine does), so make sure it has ventilation. Other than that, it does work very excellent!
 
ASUS RT-N series. They were specifically designed for DD-WRT and ASUS fully supports it.

Also why are you bothering with MAC filtering. It is very easily circumvented.
 
Ur_Mom said:
They run hot (mine does), so make sure it has ventilation. Other than that, it does work very excellent!
Click to expand...

My network gear is always in a decent area (read....not having crap piled on top of it, or stuffed in a closet or desk drawer). But I can't say that I've found the e3000 to run hotter than any other of the dozen or more home grade routers that have been through my home.

It's sitting on top of my 12U cabinet with other network gear.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
My network gear is always in a decent area (read....not having crap piled on top of it, or stuffed in a closet or desk drawer). But I can't say that I've found the e3000 to run hotter than any other of the dozen or more home grade routers that have been through my home.

It's sitting on top of my 12U cabinet with other network gear.
Click to expand...

Mine sits on top of my cabinet, too. Lots of open space around it. Not sure why mine runs warmer than yours. I'm contemplating adding a fan to it, maybe an upgraded heatsink inside. It's nothing major, but it does get a lot warmer than others I've used.
 
C7J0yc3 said:
.....Also why are you bothering with MAC filtering. It is very easily circumvented.
Click to expand...

True, it is, but, you'd have to be VERY lucky to spoof a MAC that is in my filter and with SSID broadcast off and a good long passphrase it keeps it nice and secure for when I`m not around. Especially when my son brings his mates over or family friends with laptops riddled with crap and "just pop on our WiFi"

The way I look at it every little helps...

Also, is it a safe assumption to make that routers generally have more memory than access points? and if I had a router running as an access point would i get better performance with it having extra RAM over an access point that has considerably less RAM?


Thanks
 
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BigBadAl said:
True, it is, but, you'd have to be VERY lucky to spoof a MAC that is in my filter and with SSID broadcast off and a good long passphrase it keeps it nice and secure for when I`m not around. Especially when my son brings his mates over or family friends with laptops riddled with crap and "just pop on our WiFi"

The way I look at it every little helps...

Also, is it a safe assumption to make that routers generally have more memory than access points? and if I had a router running as an access point would i get better performance with it having extra RAM over an access point that has considerably less RAM?


Thanks
Click to expand...


It totally depends on the piece of equipment.

A ubiquity Unfi has 256 megs of on board ram and is designed to be used for 20-25 clients per accesspoint. They (Ubiquity) are currently load testing a single access point with 100 clients to verify stability. The unfi will support any security configuration you could imagine on an AP.

For you..... Just set up a guest portal in the interface for your children's friends (with bandwidth restrictions if you want : ) Segregate it into its own Vlan or give it its own DHCP in the Unfi itself. Apply PSK2 AES with radius authentication, add a capture portal, hide the SSID, add a MAC access list. Add as much security as you want.

The Unfi does not have the fastest wireless throughput , but it is extremely stable.
 
Mackintire said:
.....The Unfi does not have the fastest wireless throughput , but it is extremely stable.
Click to expand...

Gotta have higher throughput than my WRT54G though!?

Do I need one of those WLAN Controllers for those ubiquiti AP`s?

how can they say the AP`s can support 300mbps N speeds with only a 10/100 network port?

Oh, and are EnGenius EAP-9550 AP`s any good?

Thanks again
 
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BigBadAl said:
Gotta have higher throughput than my WRT54G though!?

Do I need one of those WLAN Controllers for those ubiquiti AP`s?

how can they say the AP`s can support 300mbps N speeds with only a 10/100 network port?

Thanks again
Click to expand...

Yes it is quite a bit faster than your WRT54G.

The WLAN Controller is a software Java App you can run on any desktop.

The wireless datalink connection can be up to 300 Mbps using 40mhz 2.4Ghz. a 300mbps data link, minus protocol overhead, with no interference and no encryption, since wireless run half duplex will get you a throughput very close to maxing out a 100 Mbps ethernet line. Adding encryption it will drop into the 80-90 Mbps range (That's Max) Drop to 20Mhz you get 144 Mbps max data link. Take away protocol overhead and add encryption and your only transferring 60mbps (again max)....which is just over twice the throughput you will ever see on the WRT54G.

In short, in most deployments its about twice as fast as your WRT54G. In rare cases it can be 3.5 times as fast as your current unit.

I measure 58 Mbps throughput on mine connecting at 144 Mbps, but I'm only going through 1 wall and I am only 20' away from the access point.
 
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I picked up some Cisco N10 the other day for $21 and it runs DD-WRT.

Only thing is 4MB flash and doesn't have 5gz.
 
diizzy said:
Netgear WNDR3700v1 (at least) works fine with OpenWRT in AP-mode
//Danne
Click to expand...

I have this router, and I bought it with DDWRT in mind. Once I had the router and started really reading about it (versions and procedures), it became clear that it was not a good idea if you intend to use the 5GHz band.

There is a lot of issues where wireless performance is much worse (still acceptable) than the stock firmware. So I finally decided no to jump through hoops and stayed wit hthe stock firmware.

That was last year, now I run PFSense and the WNDR3700 is an AP.

On topic, I bought several refurbished WRT320N (Flashed to E2000 + DDWRT) and they are rock stable up to date, even deployed it to some customers.
 
Ctek said:
I have this router, and I bought it with DDWRT in mind. Once I had the router and started really reading about it (versions and procedures), it became clear that it was not a good idea if you intend to use the 5GHz band.

There is a lot of issues where wireless performance is much worse (still acceptable) than the stock firmware. So I finally decided no to jump through hoops and stayed wit hthe stock firmware.

That was last year, now I run PFSense and the WNDR3700 is an AP.

On topic, I bought several refurbished WRT320N (Flashed to E2000 + DDWRT) and they are rock stable up to date, even deployed it to some customers.
Click to expand...

OpenWRT pretty much always works way better than DDWRT so this isn't much of a surprise especially when OpenWRT is frequently updated.
Haven't had any issues running OpenWRT on the ar71xx-platform either...

//Danne
 
ok, I think i'm pretty much sold on a ubiquiti unifi, but looking at their wesite, there's a little piccie at the bottom showing the difference in coverage in various models.

There's an "lr" option for long range which seemingly only has like 200ft over the standard non-lr version. Now the way I see it is, those are estimates and only really apply in ideal world, clear line of sight, open spaces, so with that in mind, for a relatively small 2 storey house, is there any sense in dropping the extra cash for the lr version??

I've eventually found a UK supplier with what I think is a reasonable price (equivalent to around $110 US) so the answer to my last question will determine which one I go for.

For reference, the LR version is around $145 US.

As you will probably know, pretty much everything becomes more expensive once it lands in the uk, can't say I'm impressed but what can I do?:(

Thanks
 
diizzy said:
OpenWRT pretty much always works way better than DDWRT so this isn't much of a surprise especially when OpenWRT is frequently updated.
Haven't had any issues running OpenWRT on the ar71xx-platform either...

//Danne
Click to expand...

Do you have the WNDR3700 (or comparable Atheros router)? Is Wireless performance still good with OpenWRT?
 
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