a bit OT: which soho nat router

[Andrew Hodgson]

Chris Whitehouse wrote:

> Hi
>
> I wonder if anyone can recommend a hardware modem/router/switch with 
> wireless to share a 2Mb/s ADSL line. Most of them do NAT DHCP basic 
> firewall etc but I am looking for one which will allow me to allocate 
> bandwidth by giving anything on the ethernet ports priority and 
> allowing the wireless connection full bandwidth when the ethernet 
> ports are not using it. 4 ports is plenty,


"The problem (in the one-IP-address-shared-with-NAT case) is that the ISP sending you the 2Mbps data can't differentiate your wireless connected clients from your wired, and so can't do bandwidth allocation."

I think what he means is some kind of mechanism at the router, the ISP would be unaware of any prioritisation.

"For a router I'd recommend a Cisco 857W at around £260 as the Linksys/D-link/Netgear cheapo units are a bit crap."

Also at the higher-end of the market, the Juniper Netscreen 5GT-ADSL-WIRELESS is recommended, can perform bandwidth prioritisation and shaping among many other features, and also....runs on FreeBSD! (Albeit a dramatically hacked up version of it. It still retains the shell and filesystem though.) They're about £450 for 10 users, £800-odd for unlimited.

As far as I know, the only way to get the kind of functionality you require without paying up some serious cash is to build a box to do it. Highly recommended as a learning exercise, and you can pick up micro-ATX boxes now that are fanless.

Rgds,

Andrew