Best Router Providers

redbiro

Is there any of the Providers ,that do a decent or better Router than there competion ? ;anyone worth swittching to based on the one they provide ?

GetRealBabe

Hi

I'm with Be and have been with them 5 years. I've had 4 Thomson routers and have problems every couple of months. Apart from that the service is very good.

I don't think you can judge a Broadband Provider by the router they provide. Try: http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/

Krojan

Nope, pretty much all the "free" routers are very cheap and nasty doorstop worthy devices, I'm afraid if you want a decent router you'll have to put your hand in your pocket

Jemma-T

redbiro wrote: »

Is there any of the Providers ,that do a decent or better Router than there competion ? ;anyone worth swittching to based on the one they provide ?

Don't be silly. That would be like buying something because it has more advertising on TV. Oh, wait a minute

Seriously, all the routers I've ever had (10+ easy and now sitting in a drawer) have all been 'free' and have been very good or excellent. There's not much point in suppliers giving out routers that are going to break every few weeks.

And if it's fibre it matters even less as they all seem to use 1 or 2 modem types with a new router.

You might find one with extra SBL (sexy blue lights) technology but it'll be no better. It's just a router.

Only time I'd buy one is if I need more ethernet outputs and even then you can buy a cheap switch (ie output multiplier).

Nilrem

Jemma, I have to disagree with you there.

Depending on what you're using the router for, different models vary wildly in performance.

For example I've got a 6-8 year old Linksys router here that still works well - if I only want to use it with a connection of under 40mb, and I'm not worried about wireless.
It cannot cope with internet speeds above about 40mb, as it's CPU and memory are too low. It also has old B/G wireless.
It also has issues depending on the number of "connections" (IE how many things you're asking it to deal with at once - for example if you play a game, whilst you've got a webpage open in the background, your mail client running, IM, and voice each of those will require a "connection", and some programs several)).

I've got a D-link router that VM supplied me with 50mb, it worked ok at 50mb, but the wireless range was poor, and it has issues with slowdown after a while (basically a firmware issue).
Again it's limited by the CPU/memory on it, and from memory the same basic internals are still used in a lot of current ISP provided routers, because it's cost effective.

The VM Superhub again has issues with performance, especially with it's wireless, and again it's down in part to the specification - IIRC it's got a single CPU and ram for all it's main modem/routing functions, and a single radio chip with small internal aerials.
Which is one of the reasons turning off wireless, or putting in modem only mode tends to make it more reliable, you're asking it to do a lot less work (a bit like shutting down your email client, and browser can make games run faster on your PC).

I've also got a modern, fairly expensive Asus router which in tests by one of the review sites managed something silly like 400mb throughput, and thousands of connections - it's pretty much future proof for at least 3-5 years.
It's a great router , but that comes at a price the ISP's would not be willing to pay, as it does more than they think is necessary (and indeed probably more than 80% of their customers would need at the moment).
For example it lets me have devices connected at both G and N speeds on different frequencies at the same time, set up different wireless networks (and set them to only allow access at set times, with or without access to my home network), it also lets me hook a USB hard drive up to it for networked storage (and even access that drive from the web if I take the time to set it up).
The wireless network thing is very handy, as it means if my nephew wants to play with his DS or whatever on the wifi, I can let him do so without reducing the security of my own network (as the different wireless networks can work with different security settings).

ISP's do provide the cheapest modem/router they can get away with, they don't make a profit by giving you a great one.
They will spec a model that meets what they deem the average requirements, and which meets their budget*, or even the "look" which is one of the reasons free routers often don't have the "ugly" external antenna which can be adjusted by hand, but the (usually quite) inferior internal ones.
The reason I mentioned the models I have, is because there are a relatively few main chips used in routers, and quite often the ones ISP's supply are based on cheaper, older chipsets, sometimes paired with the latest radio chip. It's also one of the reasons you'll often see one model that is slightly more expensive than another for what at first glance looks to be the same spec, except one might be able to do 5 and 2.4ghz at the same time, handy if you've got a mix of devices, whilst another might only be able to do one or the other.
That isn't to say that they are bad, but the ISP provided routers are a one size fits all approach, and often run into problems in the real world that weren't expected, or were not allowed for, as it goes above the basic or average customer requirements.

If anything I'd say that with fibre you need to be even more careful with your choice of router, as you will be stressing it a lot more than on ADSL, so making sure you've got one that can cope well with the WAN throughput at the same time as doing wireless is reasonably important.


Redbiro:
What ISP are you going with, and do you know the model of the router you'll be given?
If you'll need/want to use a different one will depend on how you get on your free one, and what you want to do with it.

*One of the reasons so many people dump their ISP provided modem/router for ADSL, is because the ISP's "suggested" one often isn't that great (and is often very poor for some customers because it may not cope with line conditions) - and that's ignoring some which were completely useless, such as the original BT frogsplat USB modem which had the wonderful feature of being right on the edge of compliance with the USB spec (and would frequently trip the over-current protection on motherboard USB sockets).