router recommendation plz!

THRESHIN

2[H]4U
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Sep 29, 2002
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so i am finally able to upgrade my internet in a big way. still have to confirm but its looking like i'm going from a 6mb DSL connection to a 28mb cable....HOT DAMN! couldn't get anything else before due to crappy availability in my area.

to go with this i'm getting VOIP so i can ditch my landline and then i pay less in the end. here's where i might need a new router...i have no idea what to look for since i'm looking for some specific features. currently have a d-link DIR-655 rev1. its not bad but not perfect. i notice with torrents i just bogs down sometimes. does not prioritize bandwidth very well when theres a lot of traffic. this could be a problem with VOIP.

to further complicate things i will be having another family living in my home with me, they will be on my network. control and proper network prioritizing is essential.

so to sum it up i need a router that:
- has good QoS support
- able to prioritize my VOIP traffic before anything else. will not sacrifice my phone.
- able to handle some fairly high network traffic, torrents, etc.
- ability to assign priority or even bandwidth limits to each wired port and hopefully wireless as well.

its a bit of a tall order...at least i can't find much info to this extent. i don't care how the above is achieved, i'll happily load DD-WRT or other modified firmware onto a new router and not care about my warranty.

thanks for any help guys.
 
Any decently supported OpenWRT router should be able to do this fine
//Danne
 
I would wait and test out your dir655 before jumping the gun and ordering a new router, unless your on a money spending frenzy. What is your budget?
 
thanks for the opinions guys.

my budget is whatever it takes to get a good controlled network where i can choose how priority is set up. the DIR-655 doesn't do that so well nor can i put DD-WRT on it. sure a $50 router would be nice, but i don't really care if it takes even $200 or more to get the kind of control that i'm after.

the problems i'm finding with the DIR-655 is that it cannot take DD-WRT, does not prioritize traffic well at all, and i really don't have much user control on what the priorities are. in short, the QoS is garbage.
 
I have had pretty good luck with my Linksys E1500 with DD-WRT v24, QoS seems to work for our AT&T microcell, roku boxes streaming plex etc all continue without skipping a best whilst serving large files over ftp and retrieving files through torrent, skydrive, dropbox etc.

Oh and after running inSSIDer and setting appropriate freq for my area the wireless throughput is fantastic even through 3-4 walls! I'm able to connect to it from outside in my garage with a cheapy usb nic adapter for a cheap nettop I have to look up car manuals and crap.

I picked up the router at a local microcenter but they can be had from amazon relatively cheap i'm sure they are on newegg as well.

I was able to find a beta rom to flash on my e1500 (i'm always stepping towards the abyss), I can send you a link should you choose to pick one up.
 
What about this with this put on it?

This, +1

Do you know, by any chance how much it can output ? I am curious on how much users it could handle. I normally buy Supermicro barebones, and put this in 20-25 users environnements and its overkill.
 
What about this with this put on it?


Hear hear! Normally I'd say give the router a good flashing, but having tested QoS out with DD-WRT on my Linksys WRT56G (yeah kinda old, but still) it didn't work nearly as great as I thought it would be. I've heard Tomato and OpenWRT work a little better and some say much better, but it's worth a try if you can to at least test it before buying to save some dough.

You sound more content on a more serious solution then and I see no better reason than to build your own router. Sure you can buy a solution from the big boys but that's no fun :D.
 
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