Hi,
cjl@??? wrote:
>Quoting Chris Dennis <cgdennis@???>:
>
>
>
>But for something as central to the reliability of the network (and a
>network used by a few very non-technical people), I was hoping to
>avoid non-standard firmware.
>
My experience has been totally the opposite. The firmware supplied with my DLink 615 crashed multiple times a week and because they weren't making any more of that model and it was therefore a cost to them that wasn't being recovered in new sales, they showed no inclination to fix the problem.
I upgraded to DD-WRT and it became a totally different unit. It became supremely reliable and gained features like 802.1x security and VLAN support that we had previously been spending over £1000 on Cisco access points to get. The project is still in development so is benefiting from the continued effort, despite the hardware having been long-discontinued.
My other router is a NetGear WNDR 5700. I bought it because wireless it's congresses in my street and it is dual band (2.4 & 5 GHz). The 5 GHz band is empty and I can also use wide channels for the higher bit rates. It's running stock firmware and is reasonably reliable but does occasionally lose connection to the modem when it tries to renew its DHCP lease. I think NetGear have updated the firmware 3 times in 2 years.
Another advantage of open source firmware is that it it's easier to support. It can be installed on different pieces of hardware and they all end up with the same user interface, allowing you too select the most appropriate hardware for each point without complicating your job as a support engineer.
Cheers,
Paul.
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