Open Wireless (EFF) Router?

[dylane]

I'd like to get a new router to replace my 8 year old Buffalo G router. I'm interested in the EFFs Open Wireless Movement and have been trying to follow the developments of their router firmware (which is based on CeroWRT). I'm not a developer (or even a power user) and I'm not interested in installing pre-alpha firmware, so it seems that it would be awhile before they will have anything that is at a level for users like me to try. But when they have a stable beta release I'd probably like to give it a whirl, and in the meantime I'd like to be able to setup an open and secure guest network.

Currently the firmware is only being developed for the Netgear wndr3700/3800 line, but they are hoping to offer builds for other hardware in the future. So my question is, for someone who is interested in this and wants to buy a router soon, does it still make sense to buy the Netgear, which is a couple of years old at this point already, or are there other popular and development friendly platforms out there that you can make a reasonable assumption will be supported at some time in the future that would be a better buy today? Ideally I'd like to keep this to $100 or less.

Amazon has the 3700 refurbed for around $50, and I was ready to just go with that, but then I saw a lot of reports about problems with that model and OpenVPN. Ideally I'd like to have the option to connect to a VPN via the router, which is really my only other wishlist item besides the guest networking.

 

[azazel1024]

If you are looking at VPN through the router, possibly TP-Link Archer C7 + OpenWRT might be one of your better bets.

In general I have zero love for the Netgear WNDR3700. Its never been an especially good router and now it is not an especially good router that is several years old.

I wouldn't bank on any "possible future" firmware for anything from anyone. I would only look at what exists today.

 

[dylane]

So I'm guessing any router with OpenWRT should be able to create an open guest network and allow for secure management of it (i.e. keeping it isolated from the secured network, limiting bandwidth, etc...)?

I don't know very much about alternative firmwares. I do have an old version of Tomato installed on my Buffalo, but don't have any experience with any of the WRT variants. Is OpenWRT preferred for some reason for VPN through the router?

 

[azazel1024]

The little I have used alt firmwares, I personally prefer OpenWRT.

I wouldn't say it is necessarily better for VPN, I am simply calling out the Archer C7 as it is under that $99 price cap of yours and is probably one of the faster/newer routers you'd be able to buy for $99 or under, which is a good thing for VPN, as it is heavily CPU constrained.

I have no idea what the C7 can run for VPN, but figure you are probably looking at between 20-50Mbps for a newer router doing VPN depending on the exact encryption you are using. An older router is probably going to be more like in the 5-15Mbps range.

If you aren't running every connection through VPN, that might not be an issue at all. I personally like to be able to use what I pay for, so if I were doing VPN through the router I'd want it to be able to handle my entire WAN connection.

I'd check the OpenWRT forums, but as far as I know, yes OpenWRT on the C7 will allow a guest network as well as network isolation for it.

 

[htismaqe]

In general I have zero love for the Netgear WNDR3700. Its never been an especially good router and now it is not an especially good router that is several years old.

It depends on which version of the router you're talking about.

Your statement certainly isn't true of the WNDR3700v1, which I used for almost 4 years. It was (and is) more powerful in terms of range and throughput than anything else in it's zip code, including the RT-N66U I ran it up against for a while...

 

[azazel1024]

It depends on which version of the router you're talking about.

Your statement certainly isn't true of the WNDR3700v1, which I used for almost 4 years. It was (and is) more powerful in terms of range and throughput than anything else in it's zip code, including the RT-N66U I ran it up against for a while...

Dunno what to tell you. My brother has a couple of WNDR3700v1 and I loaned him one of my WDR3600 for a few days to try out. It had much better range and throughput. He ended up getting a WDR4300 to replace the WNDR3700v1 (granted N900 versus N600 here) and it is much better (granted, he has an Intel 6300 in his laptop, so he can take advantage of the extra spatial stream, but WDR3600 versus WNDR3700, the 3600 was better).

 

[htismaqe]

(granted, he has an Intel 6300 in his laptop, so he can take advantage of the extra spatial stream

Well, duh!

 

[azazel1024]

Well, duh!

My point though is that the N600 WDR3600 was better than the N600 WNDR3700v1 that he had...and he went with the WDR4300 for the extra spatial stream over top of what the WDR3600 has.

 

[dylane]

The little I have used alt firmwares, I personally prefer OpenWRT.

I wouldn't say it is necessarily better for VPN, I am simply calling out the Archer C7 as it is under that $99 price cap of yours and is probably one of the faster/newer routers you'd be able to buy for $99 or under, which is a good thing for VPN, as it is heavily CPU constrained.

I have no idea what the C7 can run for VPN, but figure you are probably looking at between 20-50Mbps for a newer router doing VPN depending on the exact encryption you are using. An older router is probably going to be more like in the 5-15Mbps range.

If you aren't running every connection through VPN, that might not be an issue at all. I personally like to be able to use what I pay for, so if I were doing VPN through the router I'd want it to be able to handle my entire WAN connection.

I'd check the OpenWRT forums, but as far as I know, yes OpenWRT on the C7 will allow a guest network as well as network isolation for it.

I hadn't realized I'd take that kind of performance hit running a VPN through a router, I might want to reconsider and continue to run it locally on the PC. I thought doing it via the router would be good, because I've read many people that claim to get better Netflix performance when connecting to a VPN. For the record I've just recently been upgraded to a 200/20mbps connection, my modem can only handle half of that, and then the router cuts it down some more. I still manage to get close to 30mbps when connecting wirelessly, and that goes up to around 40mbps on the wired connection. Connecting to my VPN on the PC doesn't seem to take much of anything off of those numbers (maybe 1-2mbps, but I haven't run enough tests to know for sure). I was hoping that getting an N or AC router with gigabit ports would up those numbers a bit, although my Buffalo mostly is fast enough for my needs.

I live in a smallish studio apartment, and don't do much in the way of large file transfers, so range and throughput aren't my top concerns though. More interested in having a router that will be able to everything featurewise that I want, even the things that I won't know that I want for a couple of years.

 

[sfx2000]

I'd like to get a new router to replace my 8 year old Buffalo G router. I'm interested in the EFFs Open Wireless Movement and have been trying to follow the developments of their router firmware (which is based on CeroWRT). I'm not a developer (or even a power user) and I'm not interested in installing pre-alpha firmware, so it seems that it would be awhile before they will have anything that is at a level for users like me to try. But when they have a stable beta release I'd probably like to give it a whirl, and in the meantime I'd like to be able to setup an open and secure guest network.

just saying - if you don't have the technical skills, you probably also don't understand the how/why of that EFF is doing...

Do your homework, don't ask us to do it for you...

 

[dylane]

just saying - if you don't have the technical skills, you probably also don't understand the how/why of that EFF is doing...

Do your homework, don't ask us to do it for you...

It is absolutely true that I don't fully understand the how, but I think I understand and support the why. I remember when I moved to NYC a number of years back it took weeks before I could get Verizon out for an internet install, and at the time I was desperately looking for a job and trying to coordinate a bunch of other move in stuff, and the fact that I had a neighbor with an open wireless connection made my life so much easier. I'd just like to be able to pay it forward and extend the same courtesy to others who might need it from time to time.

I didn't mean to ask you to do my homework for me. I was basically just trying to see if there was a particular model or platform that has a lot of developer support, something that I haven't been able to figure out by searching through these forums, but I thought it might be common knowledge and I just sucked at searching. Back when I last bought a router it seemed there was a pretty clear consensus that the WRT54 and models based on the same chipset was the way to go, because that was the line you could easily put custom firmware on, and at the time that seemed to open up a bunch of new features that weren't available on stock firmware. It seems that stock firmware has gotten a lot better, so maybe the custom firmware isn't needed...although the reviews for routers I've looked at seem to have a lot of people with complaints on setting up a VPN on the stock firmware and saying they needed to install OpenVPN to get things to work.

 

[azazel1024]

Me thinks you need a new modem and a new router. I assume you are using an old DOCSIS 2.0 modem and need a 3/3.1 modem. Then get a new router. Most stuff that is 11n and has gigabit ports should handle at least 120-150Mbps routing. Most of the stuff is probably capable of handling a 200Mbps connection, I just don't want to claim it can when probably some of the lower end gigabit "capable" might not hit 200Mbps.

Of course if you are doing ANYTHING over the top (such as VPN), it'll slow down how much it is capable of routing. Most of the higher end 11n and most AC1200 and 1750 routers can easily push >500Mbps routing.

As for Netflix, yes, that is true in some cases. It depends on the VPN services and what the interconnects look like. That said, in the last couple of months Verizon, Comcast, et al. have significantly improved their speed with Netflix (even in NYC far as I have heard) due to direct peering with Netflix (and the money they forced from Netflix to do this).

So likely you wouldn't see much Netflix improvement. That said, if you want, you can generally setup most VPN to run with only certain IP/MAC from your internal network. Not sure how flexible OpenWRT, DD-WRT, etc are with this. I know most dedicated VPN routers are extremely flexible. That way if you JUST wanted your Apple TV (for example) to go through VPN, you can set just it up to do that and everything else will just go through regular NAT routing.

My 2 cents is get a newer modem and get something like a TP-Link WDR3600 if you want to keep things "cheap". If you feel the need to later you can run OpenWRT on it. Not sure on modem cost, but the router is only around $50 and you should see massively better wireless and routing performance compared to what you currently have.

If you feel like you don't need the extra speed, my 2 cents is, downgrade your internet package for something cheaper. No point in paying anything extra for performance you can't or don't need.

I personally have a 75/75 connection and I wouldn't mind if it were faster, but I am not willing to pay for a faster connection, because I don't really need it. If I couldn't utilize what I have now, I'd go down a tier to something cheaper. Now if Verizon upped my speed and the new tiers had something around 75/75 at a cheaper price, I might not downgrade (IE I'd keep the faster speed if it was the same cost)...because I CAN use the extra speed.

I guess part of the morale of the story is, either do what you need to to take advantage of your internet performance, or else cut back your package so that you are only being provided what you can actually use.

 

[dylane]

I did just get a new modem, which according to the manufacturer is capable of 300mbps+ speeds, but Time Warner has only approved it for 100mbps. They only have one dedicated modem that is approved for the 300mbps plan, and it's not widely available to purchase (amazon says it will ship in 1-2 months) and costs twice as much as modems approved for 100mbps. I was tired of paying the modem rental fee so I just went ahead with the cheaper slower modem.

I'm only on the 200mbps plan because of a free temp upgrade they gave to try and make up for all the internet outages I was getting. That will expire in a few months and I'll probably go to the 50 or 100 plan (both of which are faster than the 15 I had just a couple of months ago before they rolled out the upgrades to my neighborhood).

The TP-Link seems like a good inexpensive router, but I've hesitated because of so many reviews that mention that the software on it is difficult to configure and unintuitive, and multiple people who seem to know what they are doing (at least more than me) who've had trouble setting up a VPN on it. I guess none of that should matter if I put OpenWRT or the like on it, it's just that as a non-technical person ease of use is fairly important to me, especially since I probably would like to wait until the warranty period is over before I try to flash any alternatives.

 

[azazel1024]

Stock firmware on it doesn't support VPN, you'd have to load OpenWRT. As for how confusing the stock firmware is...dunno, only took me 10 minutes to set up my first WDR3600 when I got it originally and it was my first TP-Link router at the time (I had a TP-Link switch, but the GUI on that is vastly different). Second WDR3600 I got took me 5 minutes to setup. In both cases that is including the 30-40s killed each time it had to reboot for some setting change or another.

Performance is excellent, especially for something so cheap. Runs cool, uses little power. There are better 11n routers out there and certainly more feature rich ones. For $50 though, absolutely nothing can touch it. I am 100% confident of that. Even at $100, based on a couple of sites testing the WDR3600/4300 N600 routers, seem to roughly fall in 2nd place for wireless and routing performance pretty much only behind the Asus N66...and both are a lot cheaper.

Only my 2 cents. Part of the way I look at it is, if you are going to spend much more than $50, you might as well get one of the cheaper AC1750 routers like the Archer C7, or even Asus AC68u depending on price/performance/feature set requirements.

 

[dylane]

Stock firmware on it doesn't support VPN, you'd have to load OpenWRT. As for how confusing the stock firmware is...dunno, only took me 10 minutes to set up my first WDR3600 when I got it originally and it was my first TP-Link router at the time (I had a TP-Link switch, but the GUI on that is vastly different). Second WDR3600 I got took me 5 minutes to setup. In both cases that is including the 30-40s killed each time it had to reboot for some setting change or another.

Performance is excellent, especially for something so cheap. Runs cool, uses little power. There are better 11n routers out there and certainly more feature rich ones. For $50 though, absolutely nothing can touch it. I am 100% confident of that. Even at $100, based on a couple of sites testing the WDR3600/4300 N600 routers, seem to roughly fall in 2nd place for wireless and routing performance pretty much only behind the Asus N66...and both are a lot cheaper.

Only my 2 cents. Part of the way I look at it is, if you are going to spend much more than $50, you might as well get one of the cheaper AC1750 routers like the Archer C7, or even Asus AC68u depending on price/performance/feature set requirements.

I appreciate the input. It is good to know that it doesn't support VPN out of the box. I've been looking at so many different routers with different features that I've begun to lose track. Guess I need to create a matrix in Excel.

The hard to use came from a wire cutter article, and I thought also from either a review, or some other article on this site...but again I might be misremembering.

Anyway the WDR3600 and C7 are now both on my shortlist, and maybe the Netgear 3600 (which is ~$90 refurbed) as well as the Asus AC56u and maybe a couple of others once I make that matrix. Since I've got no immediate need I figure it won't hurt to wait a couple more weeks, continue to do research and see if there are any great Black Friday deals. Will give me time to make sure there are no problems with the new modem without adding in another variable. Internet connection dropped this morning for about 10 minutes, probably just a regular outage, but hoping it wasn't modem related.

 

[azazel1024]

One other option, you could look for a used/open box WDR3600. That is how I got both of mine (one of each). I think I paid $32-35 for each one including shipping. That is getting in to "throw away" price. Don't happen to like it too much, only out a tank of gas.