Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
 ·Colbanet
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| Linksys announces the WRT54GL's successor: WRT160NL
As many of you are aware, there is extremely limited support for custom firmware on 802.11n routers. There are a handful that sort-of work, like DD-WRT will run on *SOME* versions of certain routers, but not all.
Linksys just announced the successor to the venerable WRT54GL: the WRT160NL. Sells for $110 USD:
»www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/pro···WRT160NL
There have been rumours for a long time that Linksys discontinued production of the WRT54GL, and we had no reasonable reason to believe that a replacement was in order. As far as we knew, Linksys making the source available was just to meet the GPL's requirements. Now they've given a strong statement; they support the router modding community. After all, they sell routers, and get a good rep with the community. |
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HiVolt
Premium
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON
clubs:
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
| Good to hear. I wonder what the CPU/RAM/ROM specs are. I hope Tomato will be updated to support it, and subsequently Tomato/MLPPP.
Too bad its only 100mbit switch ports. For $110, they could have given gigabit.
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GOLF LEAFS GOLF! |
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
·Colbanet
·TekSavvy Solutions..
1 edit | reply to Guspaz
More news:
This is *completely* different from the existing three WRT160N routers. It has a completely different processor. Here are the specs:
CPU: Atheros 9130 @ 400 MHz
RAM: 32MB
Flash: 8MB
The v1.x of the WRT160N used 264MHz Broadcom processors similar to the WRT54GL (but faster). The v2.x used a Ralink chip of unknown speed.
IMO gigabit is not crucial in a router. It only truly needs to communicate with the internet (sub-100mbit) and wireless (sub-100mbit). If gigabit communications are required, a cheap gigabit switch would fit the bill.
Tomato/MLPPP support would hinge on Tomato supporting this new router. But I'd imagine that this will be perfect for when Bell finally allows wholesalers to get faster sync rates. The faster processor will probably help quite a bit with bonding throughput. |
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HiVolt
Premium
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON
clubs: | Spec looks pretty good. I realize the gigabit issue, i currently have a 8-port gig-e switch uplinked to my WRT54GS. But for some who have only one or two gig-e capable computers, it would have been nice.
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GOLF LEAFS GOLF! |
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Cyborg994
join:2005-04-18
Montreal, QC
| reply to Guspaz
The 100 mbit ports are somewhat of a letdown, as the (theorical) speed of wireless N is much higher then 100 mbit (600 if I remember).
But anything better then 802.11g is definately an improvement. Now I can go buy a netbook with a wireless N card...
- Cyb |
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
·Colbanet
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| The 600mbit figure is sort of poorly sourced. It references an article which states that a dual-radio Cisco router can achieve 200mbit, and then probably makes the assumption that you would use the three non-overlapping channels to get 600mbit. Since 802.11n works on both 2.4 and 5.8GHz, this is technically correct. You can theoretically get 600mbit of bandwidth out of 802.11n in any given *deployment*, but by the same logic, don't expect more than 100mbit of throughput in any given *radio*.
And that's 100mbit half-duplex too, keep in mind. So a 100mbit port is sufficient. |
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Cyborg994
join:2005-04-18
Montreal, QC
| Thanks for the info, I'm really not a wireless specialist, but any accurate information is always appreciated...
It's already available : »www.ncix.com/products/?sku=38829···=Linksys |
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51019512
join:2009-05-19
151 Front St
| reply to Guspaz
ON the topic of wifi routers.
»www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/···-router&
which one of these would you choose and why?
I need one for work and I think I will put dd-wrt on it. |
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tenchsan
join:2004-05-04
H0H0H0 | I'd say buy the one from ncix; they won't charge you both taxes! 
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I have nothing against God, but I hate his fan club. |
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recneps
join:2006-06-24
Whitby, ON
| reply to Guspaz
and free shipping with gift card.
»ncix.com/products/?sku=26890&vpn···ure=NCIX
I probably won't buy one. If it had gigabit, I would've considered it, but no reason to right now. If my 54GL dies and there are none left, I guess I might. But there are also other brands compatible with custom firmware I could go with. |
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Jazdi
@acanac.com
| reply to Guspaz
To anyone serious about buying this, I would suggest using NCIX's price match function to get the newegg price of $95.99, and then use the gift card above to get free shipping.
»www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as···33124343 |
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
·Colbanet
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to Guspaz
FYI: »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n
As far as I can tell, 600mbit needs 4 spatial streams and 40MHz channels. You'll note that "54mbit" 802.11g only does 19mbit/s in practice. |
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sjvnvna1com
@bellsouth.net
| reply to Guspaz
Here's what I was able to dig up on it.
»practical-tech.com/operating-sys···-server/
While I wish it had gigabit too, I like the sounds of the rest of it.
Steven |
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MATA7
join:2005-05-29
Mississauga, ON
1 edit | reply to Guspaz
does anyone know where can i buy this router in canada
nvm found it »www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=38829
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I HATE ROGERS AND BELL |
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DabberDan
join:2004-11-15
Gatineau, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
| reply to Guspaz
I wonder about the performance of the storage link and the lack of gigabit ports on the unit?
Having a few gigabit capable machines on my network, there is a 3 to 4 times increase in throughput (ie. 10MBps vs. 4x MBps over FTP).
Copying a lot of files over to the storage link could be a pain no? |
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51019512
join:2009-05-19
151 Front St | reply to tenchsan
It's for work and we have an account with TD. |
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Gokuu
join:2001-08-27 | reply to Guspaz
Now what about Tomato?
Thanks for the update Guspaz.
Will you guys be porting/modding the Tomato/MLPPP project to this new router? What's involved in getting it going with MLPPP? |
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gord27
join:2005-05-01
Mississauga, ON | reply to Guspaz
Re: Linksys announces the WRT54GL's successor: WRT160NL
don't really care about the wireless n or the gigabit. a faster tomato router is what i'm excited about. once my 3 lines get upgraded to more than 6mbit each my wrt54gl will be limiting me completely. |
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gord27
join:2005-05-01
Mississauga, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to Guspaz
soo.... where does it say this is the successor to the wrt54gl? perhaps the L just stands for storage link. i can't find anywhere on their site that this router supports tomato. only looked for a couple minutes but i expected it to be obvious.
i actually saw this on their site a few days ago and got all excited when i saw the model number but looked around and couldn't find anything regarding aftermarket firmware support. |
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Cyborg994
join:2005-04-18
Montreal, QC
| You can download the source of the firmware, it's GPL-covered (as the WRT54GL was). That makes it easy to develop custom firmware, or to port an existing one...
»www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/sup···WRT160NL |
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