Inspired by Geekzone - What I want to see out of a router

[Chilling_Silence]

So I personally think the whole Telecom / Geekzone wireless router is going to flop pretty damn hard. I posted this on G+ but I'll post it here coz I know this interested some members and I've seen some other PF1'ers also on Geekzone.

Imagine: Your ISP gave you a router, that's not only reliable, but it's real easy to use, and you don't need a PHD to work out what you're doing with it. In fact, your grandma can even use it.

When you first plug your router in, it asks you for for a new password for it, and then it goes and shows you some basic things about your connection that you can tell your ISP if you're having troubles. Just the essentials, and they're labelled nice and clearly in a really easy to understand manner.

Then, you log in and there's no "extra" options at all. It'll use the most secure settings by default for your Wireless, there's no extra confusing options on setting up your Internet connection (Besides, nobody cares what Encapsulation or VCI / VPI are anyways right?) and it just shows you the options in the second screen.

There's also an "Advanced" page (I've not finished working on) but in there you can give nicknames to the devices on your network (Such as "Dads laptop"), see how much internet they're using as-it-happens, set a data allowance, or add other restrictions... But these are all hidden away nicely in the "Advanced" section.

How does that sound, does that seem like an awesome idea for a router?
I dunno why nobody has thought of doing this before :-/

Here it is: http://imgur.com/a/pSvJb

[Nomad]

The Snap router I think is the best I have encountered that was free from the ISP. I read it's a better quality. It's preconfigured by Snap prior to delivery and the password is written on the unit beside the serial no. It's also allows Snap people to gain access for troubleshooting. For us it was just plugging it in, pressing the WLAN button and it was ready after I inputted the 16 digit password key. The ISP settings were all pre-set.

[dugimodo]

Funny, I just finished reading through the geekzone topic and posted my opinion at the bottom and here you are with this one (interesting "discussion" between you and your mate Freitism, I can feel the love).

I like your thinking, good, solid, dependable, and simple - how a router for the masses should be. My Idea on the hardware side is they should make the DSL and possibly Wi-Fi components modular so they can be replaced when new standards are introduced. For example on the input side Modules available for ADSL, VDSL, Fibre and on the output side Wi-Fi N now and whatever future standards later. Same router, same simple config, swap out one module and carry on using it when standards change.

Added bonus, a router with a faulty ADSL module would be easily fixed by anyone.

[Chilling_Silence]

@Nomad,
That's cool, but what if you wanna change the WiFi password, how easy / difficult is that based on their WebUI? That's the one thing most customers wanna do, easily.
Or if you change ISP's and wanna keep the router, how hard is changing the user / pass?

Yeah you could feel the love there, you should see the PMs between us where he had a *real* go at me. I was like "Mate I'm on your side, why all the animosity?" but he got more and more pissy and asked me to stop posting so I said "Look if you're gonna make a router and throw all that crap in it, it's gonna fail, and I'll be here ready to say 'I told you so' when it all falls to pieces".

NOW they come out of the woodwork (Sunday at least according to the NBR interview) and say "Heeeey we're actually thinking of making 2+ devices". Who'd have thought, I'm *actually* right about something... Seriously tempted to go back there and rub it in, but that wouldn't be very nice of me

I actually kind of like that idea, though that would increase the cost a bit. The DrayTek DV2760 works with both ADSL2+ and VDSL2 which is pretty cool, all in the same port. I've also used a NetGear UTM devie in the past which allowed you to chop and change things like that. It ended up being *incredibly* expensive... Like the WiFi module cost more than most WiFi routers would
That said with 802.11ac just around the corner it could be a good idea. I've not come across enough routers with faulty WiFi / DSL modules to really comment on that to be honest.

[dugimodo]

Imagine a world where one cheap standardised adsl module or vdsl module could be mass produced and used with any standards compliant router. Itll never happen but its totally possible.

Ill settle for a device that quietly does its primary intended function for 2+ years without incident or setup hassles though.

[Chilling_Silence]

Ill settle for a device that quietly does its primary intended function for 2+ years without incident or setup hassles though.

Indeed, and I *know* it's possible coz I've got that kind of a setup and it's working brilliantly, and it also works brilliantly for all the others on this forum and who've seen my blog and tried it!

But I look at the likes of the Genius router, it falls over for my parents all the time. Same for my in-laws on the TG582n, dies lots :-/

[plod]

You have pretty much described the apple routers to a point

[CYaBro]

The Asus ADSL routers seem to be pretty good.
You plug it in and then just open your browser, it automatically redirects you to the router config and walks you through the setup. No need to enter in the router's IP address.
It automatically detects what connection settings it should use (VCI, VPI etc) and all it asks for is your ISP username & password.
It will tell you if you don't have the phone cable connected etc.
Once that's done you get the option to setup the wireless.

I also found out the other day that these Asus ADSL routers can also be converted to work with UFB as you can set one of the LAN ports as a WAN port.
This would make the ADSL / phone socket redundant and you also lose one of the four LAN ports for your network but it also means you don't have to purchase a new router if you change to UFB in the future.

[pcuser42]

You have pretty much described the apple routers to a point

What is he copying then claiming as his own?

[Agent_24]

I want a router that has good quality hardware, first and foremost, so I know it's going to run for years and run well.


I want one that has a web interface which functions, something that actually got beta tested, (unlike the Thomson web interface)
One that doesn't look like ****, and doesn't take several seconds to load... (Cough, Dynalink, Huawei)

No dumbed down Vista-style crap. (OK Sure, a Wizard for people who don't know or automatic setup is fine. Just don't force people to use it if they don't want to.)

I want everything available for perusal and modification (Put it under an advanced menu if you must) but I want it there.


I would also like to be able to tweak the hardware settings for DSL and WiFi as much as possible, and have the ability to read out detailed statistics about the connection like bit loading, bitswap statistics, etc you name it, I want it.
If it can get any extra information and statistics from the DSLAM and output those as well, so much the better.

All such data should also be loggable and downloadable to your PC.