Router Reccos

[jdhore]

I figured...Well...Why not make a thread on this so that there can be discussions...Instead of email where there can't really be discussions :(

My router recommendation:
Asus WL-500G Deluxe or
Asus WL-500G Premium

The Premium is nice cuz it has a 65MhZ faster CPU than any of the WRT54G* routers, 2 USB ports (yay for quick & dirty NAS) and a TON of RAM/ROM compared to the WRT's (32MB RAM, 8MB ROM/Flash), you can flash DD-WRT (or your favourite alternative router firmware) to it via the web interface without any hacks and it supports every 3rd-party firmware i know of (Tomato, DD-WRT, OpenWRT and Sveasoft).

The Deluxe is more expensive than the premium (who would've guessed?) and it has the same CPU as the WRT's and only 4MB of ROM, but it's great for all you adventurous hardware hackers out there because it adds headers on the board for 2 more USB ports, 2 serial ports and 3 GPIO ports. The 4MB of ROM will firmware-limit you a bit unless you expand it via SD card via GPIO.

Prices:
WL-500G Premium: $60-80 USD
WL-500G Deluxe: $90-100 USD

[computoman]

Personally I would wait to see what the feds are going to do with white space before getting another wifi router. Things may change dramatically.

[jdhore]

Personally I would wait to see what the feds are going to do with white space before getting another wifi router. Things may change dramatically.

I would say no...That's still about a minimum of 5 years off. Look how long it's taken to standardize 802.11n. n the same IEEE spec (basically) as 802.11g and 802.11b and 802.11a, just on a different band and it's taken 5 years to implement. I guarantee that it would be a minimum of 5 years before the government decides what to do with the white space, the IEEE decides what to do from there and it all gets ratified and stuff since it's a different band. and it will probably be a different IEEE spec entirely (not in the 802.xx spec).

[shortie]

wireless networking uses 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz The proposed white space is in the 700MHz. Way below where wireless network resides.

[jdhore]

wireless networking uses 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz The proposed white space is in the 700MHz. Way below where wireless network resides.

true, but if i recall (damn forgetting what friends with their radio licenses tell me) lower frequency = shorter antennas and longer wavelength so longer range...

[davmoo]

lower frequency = shorter antennas and longer wavelength so longer range...

You've got it partially backwards...lower frequency = longer antenna, not shorter. But it is a longer wavelength and (usually) a longer range for the same wattage.