TIPS What's a good router for PIAF?

magna.vis

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Asus RT-N10P, on sale, $9.99 after MIR (free shipping). I've used Asus MIRs before, and I had a good experience. This is one of the cheapest routers that supports Tomato/DD-WRT, and it comes highly recommended for home installations looking for something full featured on the cheep.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...13-Index-_-WirelessNetworking-_-33320158-L03B

I traditionally recommend the RT-N12 D1 (because it's usually only a few dollars more, and I think it's worth it) but at $10, this deal is hard to beat. Also posting this in the For Sale section. For $10, I'll be picking one up just to keep on hand. You never know when someone will need something.
 

simonmason

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I have had pfsense up and running for about 6 months now. It is far too complicated for my home network setup! It is fun to play with - but I don't like the fact that I currently have it running on a regular PC (not low power). I know I can convert it over to a low power model but it seems like the money I would pay to build that would be better invested (in my specific case) in an Edgemax Lite or something similar. All I really want is to prioritize the traffic to my PIAF server over all other traffic on my LAN. I don't need wifi (I use the open-mesh WAPs which work fantastically) and I have to plug this into the Verizon Actiontech FIOS router (with no intention of replacing this due to the VOD services that we use). Is the Edgemax a leading contender in this situation? Thanks?
 

magna.vis

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Is the Edgemax a leading contender in this situation?

Sounds like it to me. Low power consumption, low price point, does what you want, and you already have all the wireless stuff you need.

As a point of interest, if you don't put your Actiontech into bridge mode, you'll have 2 firewalls to maintain, and you're relying on the FiOS router to do more than it's designed, especially if you're going to make QoS rules. When I had FiOS, I was able to put my router into bridge mode and still have the VOD features work. I found some links that outline pretty much what I did to get this working:

http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=7791.0
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20006536-Make-your-actiontec-a-bridge-with-VOD-working-with-REV-D

If you're upgrading, this would be perfect for the EdgeRouter Light, 3 ports would allow you to keep your VZ provided gear on a seperate network. You'd then use one port as the WAN, and the remaining as the LAN port. I've always segmented carrier provided gear because I don't trust it.
 

miguel

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Do you happen to know how many connections can rt-n66u can handle ?
 

magna.vis

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Do you happen to know how many connections can rt-n66u can handle ?

I've heard of people with several HD streams (read 5) with a number in excess of 20 wireless clients in total without noticeable impact to network performance. If you're talking about the number of open connections out to the cloud that the router maintains (TCP/UDP Connections), I'd have to ask a few people to look at their routers during high activity times. I assume you're asking about wireless though.

The RT-N66U is dual radio as well. If you wanted to segment to attach more devices, you'd be able to do that as well. Usually this happens by virtue of the limited number of devices that sport a 5 GHz radio, but a little planning can go a long way toward ensuring consistent throughput with a large number of wireless subscribers.
 

ViktorNova

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My deployments have not been enterprise-huge, but I can at least report that with Vicidial making ~250 simultaneous calls with 50 agents on real calls, it did not bat an eyelash. I'm sure it can handle much more

This is probably a given, but figured I'd mention that the 4 LAN ports are gigabit and with DD-WRT it supports VLANs

Not bad for $125! :thumbsup:
 

Rrrr

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Thanks for the tip. I have ordered the RT-N66U after reading up on it. Any reason, apart from vlan, I should not use Merlin's firmware?

I am asking because I see so several threads where people complain about lack of documentation and even some quirks when using dd-wrt or tomato.
http://www.lostrealm.ca/tower/node/79
 

magna.vis

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Thanks for the tip. I have ordered the RT-N66U after reading up on it. Any reason, apart from vlan, I should not use Merlin's firmware?

I am asking because I see so several threads where people complain about lack of documentation and even some quirks when using dd-wrt or tomato.

Main reason not to use Merlin's is because of how small the community is. I don't like DD-WRT any more, but that's a more personal opinion. I used to work with the dev team over there, and don't any more for personal reasons. If you use some google foo, you'll see a lot of the controversy surrounding DD-WRT. It's not a pack of lies, like some people maintain. It may have got better since then, but I won't ever go back. I support Tomato now, and recommend it using Toastman or Shibby builds. I know of MANY people that use the N66U with Tomato without issue, and I know the community of support is very large (you may see me over there). Most of the support is provided through linksysinfo.org: http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?forums/tomato-firmware.33/

lt;dr: Tomato is better from a pure support and user community aspect, with a wide and diverse range of build options to suit every need or technical level.
 

miguel

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I think you should use merlin in build I have it on 3 routers
 

bobkoure

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From my IAX reading: if you are using IAX2 on an external device, you will have problems with Sonicwall. Dunno how other firewalls do with this except snapgear routers seem to "work perfectly" (and that's where I stopped searching as I run those).
 

magna.vis

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SonicWall devices work fine with some considerations. Most SonicWall admins know of these. Consistent NAT and UDP Timeout are the two things that need to be changed. These are both easy to change in a SonicWall, and not unique to IAX. SIP and other UDP/NAT based VoIP things require these tweaks as well. Additionally, if setting up a SonicWall at a residence, the same things need to be done because Xbox and Playstation both complain about NAT if you don't.

I did Google around a bit to see if I could find the article that you were referring to. If I found the right one, the guy was testing on a TZ170, a device that's very old and hasn't been supported for a while. I think the latest FW Revision for the 170 was in the SonicOS 3.x range. They are now on 5.8/5.9, a long way away from those days.

We run several clients with VoIP behind SonicWalls without issue. That being said, I don't recommend them, and we don't deploy them anymore. Each component you want to use is individually licensed- a price model worked well in the days of yore. Additionally, features that used to be free are now paid features, and ones that have to be re-licensed each year. Finally, support must be purchased if you plan on getting FW updates. This all adds up to an enormous equivalent of nickel and diming to a small business. There are new and better options for small businesses that are much more cost effective and aren't neutered if you don't pay for support. We deploy Meraki devices these days, and really like them, if you're looking for something equivalent at that device tier.
 
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A lot has to do with whether you are using the router in a testing, learning, tweaking, experimentation environment or whether its a vanilla commercial install. In my opinion if you want to learn you need something more than a traditional black box router that has rather rudimentary capabilities. To that end I suggest PfSense or something like it. You will have MUCH greater visibility of what is going on and you'll be able to try and or implement many advanced configurations. You need to know the routing function as well as you know PIAF.
 

jeff.h

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I am using an ASUS RT-N66U in two different locations on the most recent version of the OEM firmware and they are both working excellently. Tried tomato and dd-wrt, but both seemed to have issues with the wifi. I never really had a problem with the OEM firmware and PIAF, just thought I would try the others. I went back to the ASUS firmware and they have been working just fine.
 

nightstryke

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Just to inform you today in Germany tech news: thousands of D-Link Routers are hacked via Internet. D-link did anounce a firmware update what they did not offer for download until jet. This firmware was approx 9 months not offered for update the routers. See in my movie what was from last summer and announced to D-Link that they are to much slow with updates. I did a short review and they still have a open door.
I suggest here inside the forum to give a security warning not to use such routers with original firmware in production systems.

Yet again, this is why I use my own system (Untangle.)
 

quintont

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My ISP just gave me a new modem - http://smartrg.com/products/products/sr350n/ - all phones connect to the pbx but can't make/receive calls. No dial tone. Putting one of the extensions on the DMZ does nothing. Yet, I have my Samsung S3 with zoiper app make and receive calls fine over wifi fine via the same modem.
Running Travellin Man 3 / PIAF Green / RentPBX.com
Any ideas?
 

atsak

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I wonder if it's polycom? I have had trouble with multiple polycom's behind routers other than Tomato . . .
 

quintont

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Hi - thanks for the response. - yes, I'm running polycom 320 phones. Going to try to plug in my old grandstream 2000 now. The Polycom's were running fine on the old modem. (took it back to the isp so I don't know the model).
 
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