Now that I've got going in my new job I'm going to be doing some work from home, and I could do with a wireless router.

I have BT Broadband down the phoneline, so I believe I need an ADSL wireless router with built in modem.

My laptop already has a wireless PCMCIA card/adaptor thing to receive wireless, so that end is sorted.

So....any recommendations for a cheap wireless router. Don't need anything above basic speeds - will be used for surfing and fairly small emails only.

Or anyone got anything surplus to requirements going for a good price?

Just upgrade for free like I did.

Anything will do really, D-Link DSLG604 is what I use at home, if you don't want to have to reset the power every couple of months get a Draytek Vigor. Linksys, netgear, BT off Ebay. Even the cheapest will do for what you need.

3Com here. No problems, much cheapness.

Andy...........I have a Linksys Wireless G 2.4 GHz...54Mbps broadband router sat at home collecting dust..Anygood !!!!!..Used it for NTL broadband but as I am now on Orange it's redundent...

Andy - noticed this cracking bargain on Misco earlier in the week, I've ordered a couple more for upcoming installations. I have one of these same models at SWMBO's place and it works very well. And at the price, you can't complain

LINK

Go buy

Steve

Andy...........I have a Linksys Wireless G 2.4 GHz...54Mbps broadband router sat at home collecting dust..Anygood !!!!!..Used it for NTL broadband but as I am now on Orange it's redundent...

Thanks Andy - but I think the NTL (cable) ones are different and won't work with a phone connection.

Cheers anyway,

Andy

Andy - noticed this cracking bargain on Misco earlier in the week, I've ordered a couple more for upcoming installations. I have one of these same models at SWMBO's place and it works very well. And at the price, you can't complain

LINK

Go buy

Steve

Cheers mate - that looks a cracking bargain but I've just bought a router on Ebay.

Luckily I already have a card in my laptop, and I got the router (a Belkin Wireless G one) for

No problem, you should be fine with that Belkin - and yes, luckily you look to have got a decent deal there too!

Yeah, Misco are pretty good, we use them for all our IT ordering at work. They have pretty big buying power, so you'll see those sorts of deals coming along now and again. Prices on some basic stuff can be a bit more expensive though (DVD drives, hard drives etc)

As ever, it pays to shop around

Steve

If the belkin isn't what you want, and you intend to do a lot of working from home I would recommend a 'ZyXel 662HW security router' or DrayTek 2800VG.

Both are SOHO solutions and provide a very good level of security features and VPN etc configuration, but obviously this is reflected in their prices.

We've got a Netgear - have to say the wireless portion of it regularly hangs on, ironically, Briskoda and also the BBC websites, keep needing to reboot it. It seems to have the latest firmware on it so I think it's either flawed or a little faulty.

So, personally my next router won't be a Netgear. Or an Origo, have one of those in front of me at the moment, and in its previous life I think it's been fried...

Got a belkin and it seems fine.....2 netgear ones I had before were useless and just stopped working after a while

I want a Draytek for the VPN endpointing.... I have a cisco router currently for my work ADSL, and Speedtouch for my own 8Mbit connection - which is stable - last reboot was months and months ago!

DrayTek 2800VG.

We use these for our VoIP Home worker solutions.

I have a Draytek and My family have just moved up from an older ZyXel to the new version with wireless. IIRC both do VPN termination

Both are excellent pieces of kit

I maybe a seperate vpn termination box, rather than having to get my w2k3 server to do it....

I have a BT home hub (BT broadband wireless thingy) sat here boxed, you can have it for free andy

I have a netgear for mine, works well only flaw is the security level - it only seems to work reliably on wep 128 bit, psk seems to lock me out after about a minute needing a reboot to cure .

Just make sure you use a good password, hide the SSID and lock down the mac address of your wireless card if possible (anyone see that episode of the real hussle :eek: )

Other than that any of the makes should server your purpose.

I've tried belkin and 3-com with dropping problems prior to the netgear but know plenty of people who use these with no problems - I'm in a concrete house which may have an effect on signals though!

Matt

I have a netgear for mine, works well only flaw is the security level - it only seems to work reliably on wep 128 bit, psk seems to lock me out after about a minute needing a reboot to cure .

Just make sure you use a good password, hide the SSID and lock down the mac address of your wireless card if possible (anyone see that episode of the real hussle :eek: )

Other than that any of the makes should server your purpose.

I've tried belkin and 3-com with dropping problems prior to the netgear but know plenty of people who use these with no problems - I'm in a concrete house which may have an effect on signals though!

Matt

To get the best protection for yourself you need the following in any router.:

- A Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall in the router not just a NAT one and you will need to set the rules up properly.

- WPA2 wireless security and MAC locking can't hurt.

However what Mat says abouve about hiding your SSID and using MAC locking with 128bit WEP is I am affraid incorrect.

Any old programme like netstumbler can give me the channel number and MAC address of connecting clients. SSID isn't hard to find either. Then i can spoof my MAC address and easily connect to and use your network

Add to that that I could probably crack a 128bit WEP key in under a minute if you are sending enough packet on the wireless network and you can see that it isn't secure at all.

Obviously better than no encryption, but not by much.

I've just upgraded my family from a 5year old ZyXel to the new 662HW and i have to say I am impressed. Detachable arial so you can move it in your house should ther ebe signal issues and also it can do AV scanning of certain traffic, eg WWW ,FTP & Mail.

Obviously you do pay for this functionality, and you can get cheaper models from netgear etc that do support WPA2 and SPI.

To get the best protection for yourself you need the following in any router.:

- A Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall in the router not just a NAT one and you will need to set the rules up properly.

- WPA2 wireless security and MAC locking can't hurt.

However what Mat says abouve about hiding your SSID and using MAC locking with 128bit WEP is I am affraid incorrect.

Any old programme like netstumbler can give me the channel number and MAC address of connecting clients. SSID isn't hard to find either. Then i can spoof my MAC address and easily connect to and use your network

Add to that that I could probably crack a 128bit WEP key in under a minute if you are sending enough packet on the wireless network and you can see that it isn't secure at all.

Obviously better than no encryption, but not by much.

I've just upgraded my family from a 5year old ZyXel to the new 662HW and i have to say I am impressed. Detachable arial so you can move it in your house should ther ebe signal issues and also it can do AV scanning of certain traffic, eg WWW ,FTP & Mail.

Obviously you do pay for this functionality, and you can get cheaper models from netgear etc that do support WPA2 and SPI.

I have no idea what you are on about......so....

Can you point me in the right direction to get a suitable/up-to-date product?

And what do you mean by... "you pay for this type of functionality"

- WPA2 wireless security and MAC locking can't hurt.

However what Mat says abouve about hiding your SSID and using MAC locking with 128bit WEP is I am affraid incorrect.

Any old programme like netstumbler can give me the channel number and MAC address of connecting clients. SSID isn't hard to find either. Then i can spoof my MAC address and easily connect to and use your network

Add to that that I could probably crack a 128bit WEP key in under a minute if you are sending enough packet on the wireless network and you can see that it isn't secure at all.

.

I may just have to PM you sometime then when I feel like testing my security .

Had a look a while back when I first read how easy it is to crack wep but couldn't find anything to explain how to do it (and believe me I know enough shady websites so it wasn't as if I wasn;t looking in the right places :P )

I wish netgear would release a fix for the wpa cos it just doesn;t seem to work for me :( .

Matt

I may just have to PM you sometime then when I feel like testing my security .

It was my job to break in to these at one point

I would also chance it that if netgear have replaced your product with a new one they won't bother fixing WPA/WPA2 on your router :(

For routers:

Basic but has WPA2 & SPI firewall, it doesn't have any of the advanced features such as VPN termination but I doubt you would use there. They come with a suitable USB or PCMCIA wireless card too. They are about It is about £50-£70.

ZyXEL P660HW T1 With Free USB Adapter Bundle

ZyXEL ZyXEL P660HW-61 Wireless ADSL Security Gateway & ZyXEL ZyAir G-162

This is probably the best overall package from the range as it has features most of the features of the advanced mosels at a much lower price point (eg sub £100)

ZyXEL P661HW-61 Advanced Wireless Telecommunter Security Router

Expensive routers with ever feature I can think you would ever use:

DrayTek VIGOR2800VG ADSL/VoIP Router with WLAN (approx £180)

ZyXEL P662HW Wireless ADSL Router (approx £150)

HTH

Thanks for the information.

The other thing that I do not understand is the speed thing.:confused:

If I have 8 Gb broadband at home (it actually works at 4 Gb), what is the correlation between that and a 54Mbps wireless router??

lol you might have 8Mb

Mb = Mega bits which means 1024 * 1024 bits of data every second.

8 bits = a byte so dividing you 8Mb by 8 gives you 1 MegaByte per second.

The 54Mbps is the maximum theoretical speed between a wireless device under optimal conditions, while uncontened and the router.

This is massively faster than your ADSL, as it the 100Mbit port on the router and as such you should have nothing to worry about.

If you want to connect multiple computers to the router look for one that has a 4 port switch, eg 4 10/100 ethernet ports or similar built in.

HTH