Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
 ·Colbanet
| 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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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
·Colbanet
1 edit | 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
30
Premium
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON
clubs: | Re: Linksys announces the WRT54GL's successor: WRT160NL 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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RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY
| said by Guspaz  :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. I disagree with you on the lack of need for Gigabit Ports. Right now the availability of 100+Mbs Internet Connectivity is minimal but having it will Future Proof your network for when it is more available and you want it. It also allows the computers on your LAN to talk to each other using 1000Base-T speeds in lieu of the current 100Base-T speeds. If you live in the Cablevision (NYC Metro Area) footprint, you need Gigabit Ports on your Router to take advantage of their ULTRA (101 Down) tier. | |
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Cyborg994
join:2005-04-18
Montreal, QC
| 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
| Re: Linksys announces the WRT54GL's successor: WRT160NL 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
| Re: Linksys announces the WRT54GL's successor: WRT160NL 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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| tenchsan
join:2004-05-04
H0H0H0 | Re: Linksys announces the WRT54GL's successor: WRT160NL 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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51019512
join:2009-05-19
151 Front St | Re: Linksys announces the WRT54GL's successor: WRT160NL It's for work and we have an account with TD. | |
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recneps
join:2006-06-24
Whitby, ON
| 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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Inssomniak
Premium
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON
1 edit | said by Guspaz :FYI: » en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11nAs 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. Finding a clean enough 40mhz of bandwidth in pretty much any environment in 2.4ghz to reach these speeds is what I call virtually impossible.
On a side note, its really easy to reach 32 megs a second in 20mhz of spectrum using mikrotik proprietary polling with CSMA disabled
That atheros processor will own for sure. They are well supported in linux. | |
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DabberDan
join:2004-11-15
Gatineau, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| 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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Gokuu
join:2001-08-27 | 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 | 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..
| 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
| Re: Linksys announces the WRT54GL's successor: WRT160NL 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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gord27
join:2005-05-01
Mississauga, ON | cool thanks. i found a few places with a google search that backed up that this is linux based. | |
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gord27
join:2005-05-01
Mississauga, ON | both canada computers and ncix have these in stock. 114.99 from cc and 129.99 from ncix.
infonec can get them. not sure on price.
how soon before these work with tomato/mlppp? | |
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
·Colbanet
1 edit | The L stands for Linux. How do we know? The blurb from Cisco's site:
Do More, Faster
Enjoy fast wireless connectivity for your home or home office. The Linux-based Wireless-N Broadband Router with Storage Link is designed to deliver plenty of speed and coverage, so multiple users can go online, transfer large files, print, and stream stored media – all at once, all without wires. Great for bigger homes. Easy to use, and easy to install on Windows or Mac. (emphasis mine)
Tomato/MLPPP won't be ported over until Tomato is. | |
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| gord27
join:2005-05-01
Mississauga, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| Re: Linksys announces the WRT54GL's successor: WRT160NL said by Kareeser :Great to hear! quote:
infonec can get them. not sure on price.
I've been quoted $116. They can get them in immediately, but there doesn't seem to be a need, since the Tomato firmware isn't ported over yet. I'll notify my contact at Infonec once Tomato has been modified to work with it  hehe, my contact price matched cc at 114.99.
oh well, no rush anyway since we're not on adsl 2 yet. my wrt54gl appears to be handling 3x6meg no problems yet. | |
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Kareeser
hm?
Premium
join:2006-07-18
Hamilton, ON | Re: Linksys announces the WRT54GL's successor: WRT160NL :O
I want your contact. | |
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insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN
1 edit | said by Guspaz :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: Utterly ridiculous.
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···33162026
$50 dollar buffalo router that works perfectly fine with dd-wrt. The 802.11n also works fine.
They need to do much much better on their price. | |
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