VPN Firewall router for Virgin Broadband

[analogueaddict]

Hello,

This is my first post here at Hexus, so if I'm in the wrong forum then please let me know.

I am hoping you can assist in my choice of a new VPN / Firewall / Router. I have recently upgraded to Virgin's 10 Mb service, and my old Netgear FVS318 V1 VPN Firewall Router is not capable of sufficient throughput, it throttles the service to 4.6 Mb, a direct connection to the Surfboard SB4100 gives over 12 Mb consistently, so the problem is definitely the router. As I see it, if I go to the new V3 FVS318, which has a faster processor, better firmware and can sustain over 10 Mb then I'll be OK for now, but with an imminent upgrade to 20Mb in the next 8 - 10 weeks, I really want a unit which can definitely give me a full 20 Mb throughput. I also use 54 Mbps Wifi, currently on a separate 3Com access point, so I would like to integrate everything into the one unit if I'm not going to suffer performance loss with the Wifi system. So my shoppin list is :-

Cable ready upto 20Mb
VPN
Firewall
preferably integrated 802.11g
4 10/100 Ethernet ports or more

Any ideas or experiences with this speed of cable using this kind of hardware would be most greatly appreciated.

Thanks and best wishes,

Dave

[Weetabix]

Linksys WRT54GS shout fit the bill nicely. If you're lucky enough to grab yourself a version 4 (not really a good idea on later versions), then check out the part on 3rd party firmware, namely DD-WRT.

[analogueaddict]

Hi Weetabix,

Thanks for the tip, I've heard about this routers hackability but never really investigated it, I always thoguht it would be a little flaky, but a quick read of the Wiki suggests this is not the case at all. I'll have to sit down later today with a double espresso and start reading up on this, it may well give me what I'm looking for in terms of the throughput I'm going to need.

As for further research I've been doing since the original post, I have managed to find an incredibly useful chart at smallnetbuilder.com (sorry I can't currently post URL's) which gives you a breakdown of router performance.

This gives you graphs and comparisons of many of the latest routers, and as you can see my current unit is dire, and that performance was measured with the V3 hardware, the V1 is less than half the speed, so I can see why I'm in so much trouble.

I know that 10 Mb plus is not that common in the UK right now, so I'm in uncharted waters to a degree, so thanks for your help with this.

Best wishes,

Dave

[Apex]

I can recomend either

Buffalo WHR-HP-G54

or the

Buffalo WHR-G54S Router

both use the broadcom chipset and thus can use 3rd party firmware just like the linksys ones

[Apex]

If you want to know moer about DD-WRT the have a look here

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php...D-WRT_Docu_(EN)

[Apex]

One other thing i might be looking to kinda build my own router.

No it's not as daft as it seems

Look up Avila Gateworks GW2348-4, DD-WRT has a shop with all the bits in that i would need, namely the enclosure, the wifi cards, the antennas and so on and from what i head read up on this it looks like it would be a better if not more expensive solution.

[analogueaddict]

Hello,

I'd like to thank you all for your comments and assistance with this.

I found a site called www.smallnetbuilder.com which had a great set of charts comparing the performance of various routers and their throughput.

I eventually decided on a Netgear WNR 854T which is a RangeMax 802.11n router with a 4 port Gigabit switch and firewall.

I received this unit today and had it up and running in under 30 minutes. So far I've found it to be excellent, performance is some 3X what I was getting previously on downloads, network performance is dramatically improved between the machines on my home network which are Gigabit equipped, and a quick test of the firewall capabilities suggest this is a very secure firewall.

Overall I'm very happy, and the Linksys I was tipped off to has helped another friend of mine who has just migrated to a faster ADSL service and has run into exactly the same problem as me, but needs improved WiFi range, so the Linksys running the DD-WRT firmware with it's TX power taken up a little should fit the bill very nicely.

Once again thank you all for your advice and assistance, it is much appreciated.

Best wishes,

Dave

[Zak33]

glad they all helped.

Welcome to Hexus...now stick around and help some other people.

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