[TriLUG] Wireless Router Recommendations

[Randy Barlow]

On 12/12/2011 10:00 AM, Bill Farrow wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 9:30 PM, Randy Barlow wrote:
>> Thank you TriLUG! I decided to go for the Buffalo WZR-HP-AG300H. Though
> 
> Once you have set this up and had a couple of weeks run time, would
> you be able to give TriLUG a follow up ?  Either a quick post back to
> this mailing list to say what you did and any problems encountered, or
> you could do it as a TriLUG talk.

I've had the Buffalo device for about a month now, and so far it's been
a good device to have. I haven't experienced any problems with
stability, which is something that was often reported in reviews on Newegg.

I am not using the device as anything more than a switch and a wireless
access point, as I use a Gentoo machine as my router and firewall, so I
cannot comment on its routing abilities.

I performed local bandwidth tests on the 2.4 GHz channel using iperf on
my laptop. I tend to measure 40-44 Mbps. I was hoping to get higher
speeds than that, but as it turns out some client devices are able to do
channel bonding, and some are not. It seems that my laptop doesn't do
that, but the Buffalo has it enabled. I'm curious as to what kinds of
speeds can be measured with a client that is able to use more than one band.

My work laptop cannot use the 5 GHz channel, so I haven't been able to
perform a local bandwidth test there. My phone is able to connect to the
5 GHz channel, and I have noted that the range in that band is pretty
short. I live in a 2 story ~1700 sq. ft. house, and the phone stuggles
to connect in the house downstairs, and cannot connect in the back yard
(Buffalo is upstairs in the front of the house). I believe that it is
simply because 5 GHz signals don't penetrate materials very well and not
a fault of the device itself.

So yeah, I'd say it's a good buy for $90. It's got 128 MB of RAM and 32
MB of flash RAM. I didn't see another device with those stats for that
price range.

I'm looking forward to the OpenWRT hack day. I'm going to bring my old
device (WRT-54G), but I might decide to switch this one to OpenWRT as
well. My primary question is whether OpenWRT is able to replace
everything I'm doing with the Gentoo system.

-- 
R