Which ADSL Modem Router? Wireless or no?

[Samaya]

I had an unfortunate lightning incident at home this weekend and my ADSL router took the brunt of the incident. It was an el cheapo ISP supplied variant of some sorts and well it needs replacement.

I am not one who knows much about networking and would like someone's input on the subject. I play SC2 online only at the moment (not to big on online games) but I do download a lot.

Which ADSL modem router (Expensive = evil)? The wireless ones which will require wireless cards in 2 - 3 PC's? Or stay with plain Jane wired and then later add the wireless switch/router to the household?

Thanks,

S

[ghondar]

Hi

I would say a netgear dg834g, i have one and they verry stable. it's about R1,300

[Ron2K]

I'm a bit of a self-confessed D-Link fanboy.

I'm running the DSL-2740U at the moment, which provides me with an 802.11n wireless network (for my flatmate's laptop) and four 10/100 ports (one of which is in use by my own PC). I definitely can't complain about it; it's an awesome little piece of equipment that's rock solid stable and does exactly what it's supposed to do. Little Annoying Sister (who's just across the railway line from me) runs the DSL-2640U, which is the 802.11g version of essentially the same thing, and she and her flatmates are just as happy. (There's a wired-only version as well if that's your poison.) One slight caveat: the interface assumes you know what you're doing, which is fine for me but probably not fine for the mom and pops crowd.

I haven't had any experience with any other brands (Netgear, etc.), so I can't comment on how good they are.

[Monty]

i would recommend getting one that supports wireless and wired - makes life a hell of a lot easier when you have friends or family around with their laptops, also gives you roaming ability around the house. (and it makes life easier for your devices that support wifi, kindles, phones, etc). You don't need to get the current pc's wireless cards, just use the existing wires.

I would suggest you go wireless n, netgear and belkin make some really nice modem router combo's.

The dg834g is really nice, it's currently what i'm using (although only as a wifi ap), but the wireless g gets to me at points, especially when i'm trying to push large files over the network.



What works well is a modem-router combo combined with a gigabit switch - this works really well if you often push large files over the network to a central server or other pc's, and if your modem happens to bork, your home network is still up (something that is ultra important in my family - we do lots of backing to a central drive)

[Samaya]

Thanks guys.

I am not to keen on setting up any ADSL router (except for username and password). I was just looking at the Billion BiPAC 7300G RA (HERE). Which seems to be easy to setup (as its already done) and is wireless. Your opinions?

[Prime]

Never used Billion Products but I can go with what Monty says about Netgear.

Running a WRN2000 attached to our Iburst Modem. Was a piece of cake to set up and their software is fantastic.

Unfortunately the agents are morons and getting wireless N adaptors is a mission.

[Stuart]

I've had equal headaches with Billion and D-Link products. I have two dead D-Link routers sitting in a cupboard at home, and I've had at least two Billion routers that have had manufacturing faults on them. Linksys would get my vote for a stable, easy-to-use solution.

That said, I am using a Billion at home right now that hasn't given me any issues yet, but it was an emergency weekend purchase which I otherwise would not have paid for. But it's been stable enough to warrant me not having to splash out on anything else yet. Billion typically has the easiest interface of all the routers I've worked with, which could be a plus.

As Ron says, you sometimes have to fiddle around with D-Link products to find what you want. And the D-Link user manuals I've worked with are pretty much word-for-word dictionary translations from Japanese or something. Makes for fun reading.

[ghondar]

billion routers are good speaking from experience i had never had one break as we run qiute a few on customer sites.

[ryanrich]

Also looking for a wireless ADSL router. Currently checking the Netgear DG834GT. Anybody have experience with them?