This is my biggest gripe right now. The more internet you provide to them, the worse this problem is.
I think my contractors are selling mid-range $100 linksys routers. I'm not sure that's the best thing. I too need to find a handful of routers that really get the job done right. I've noticed the Apple routers tend to be pretty good, especially if they have Apple Ecosystem/devices. And apple extenders seem to work better with their apple environment and are way easy for the customer to set up. Other than Apple, I usually recommend a router with external antennas. And TRY to get our people to NOT install the routers in the basement under all the metal ducting, lol! Ideally they are installed on the main floor in a somewhat central location. What I am considering is selling a NON-wireless router for our end point inside the house near the clustered wiring. Then programming any router they get in BRIDGE mode. I still don't like doing that because the router features are something most of these people want anyways. But with my speeds I would almost just rather make sure they have a wired Gigabit Ethernet router that I can manage and I know is capable, then let them buy however many wireless routers they need to fill in gaps all over their house (or, preferably, ONE powerful wireless router). I just don't want to be stuck changing port forwarding crap etc. What I really wish was that a separate company would do this for a one time, or monthly charge and handle all their router woes. From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Glen Waldrop Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2015 11:39 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Consumer routers? Thanks for the input guys. I was mostly looking at what to recommend. I'd rather help on occasion, but my responsibility ends at the CAT5 coming out of the POE. I've been bouncing around the idea of a $5 a month managed RB951 2HnD or something. ----- Original Message ----- From: Justin Wilson - MTIN<mailto:[email protected]> To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2015 11:51 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Consumer routers? My take on this is you have to look at what supporting a customer router costs you in support and service calls. We have several clients who are doing one of a couple things. Some are selling a managed router service for $X a month. This is typically a Mikrotik the ISP has access to. The ISP sets up the wireless, manages the router, and other such functions. This allows for a reference point on the customer side for testing, etc. The other way to approach this is if you don't want mess with router configuration some folks are including a "modem" that is essentially a hAP or 750. This is just in bridge mode or is the PPPOE client. The customer then is free to plug in their own router if they so desire, but you still have a reference point from the customer side. If you need a customer to bypass their router you simply ask them to plug into port5 or whatever on your "modem". That port can be setup to do DHCP or whatever. You have to look at how much support consumer routers is costing you. Many folks look at the cost of the routers and the cost to install them or replace them. But if it cuts your support calls by 30% that might mean the difference between hiring another person, or other "soft" costs. Justin Wilson [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> --- http://www.mtin.net Owner/CEO xISP Solutions- Consulting - Data Centers - Bandwidth http://www.midwest-ix.com COO/Chairman Internet Exchange - Peering - Distributed Fabric On Oct 7, 2015, at 11:58 AM, Glen Waldrop <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Are there any consumer routers that don't suck these days? I used to recommend Linksys/Cisco, but since the Belkin buyout quality seems to be going down. They jink with teh firewall and I can't block specific outgoing traffic, can't remote admin anymore, etc...
