What is up with Linksys/Cisco?
 

I've been buying the blue boxes for a long time, and they have been very reliable, until recently. I started upgrading out network about 2 years ago to "Business Class" equipment, and moving to 10/100/1GB LAN equipment.

1st, the Business class router starts acting funny. I can't connect wirelessly all of the time. At first, I thought it was the Wireless-N PCMCIA card I was using. Then it started happening even with the internal G card. I dumped it for a "Home Class" unit and it has been working fine.

Now my "Business Class" 10/100/1G switch has died. And the Wireless-N PCMCIA card? Yeah, it doesn't work either.

What is going on? I've replaced the switch with a super cheap Trendnet 10/100 unit and everything is now fine.

What kills me is I really liked the capabilities of the Business Class router. It had VPN and DynDNS capability that my "home" unit does not.

Any recommendations for alternative equipment?

Cisco sucks a$$ anymore. Everything they make is a POS from a blue box to the 12k GSR switches.

I have noticed that we have a bunch of (brand new) 2821 routers that have fans going bad. Other than the crapped out fans (1 out of 3, so far not temp or service affecting) everything works great. If you know how to caress them you can get them to do just about anything.

We looked at Juniper earlier this year. Some of their stuff is pretty slick, but everything that we looked at was a 90% fit for what we needed, but there was always 1 thing that we needed the devices to do or support, that they wouldn't do/support.

You are not alone. Had a Linksys unit go tits up a couple of years ago. It was one or two months out of the warranty period and they would not even talk with me. Promptly went out and bought a Netgear which has worked great.

Couple of weeks ago the Tivo unit would not update itself off of the wifi. Now throwing a error message that "no DHCP server available" and its not showing up on the network, so guessing that the WiFi is going tits up again. Funny thing is that it works fine on the computer and other wifi stuff around the house.

Its not like we are leaving these critters out in the rain. They sit in a nice well ventilated area on the desk and would hope that they would last longer.

I've been disappointed in linksys products for a bit now. They are way over priced for one and the quality seems lower. I have some older products that are still going strong.

It's a nice idea for the low end business class setup but the execution I think it done poorly almost on purpose. If they make these linksys products TOO good then it will cut into Cisco's own SOHO product line which is significant.

For example; the linksys 24 Port 10/100 switch retails for about $150, Cisco's competing 24 port Express 500 switch LISTS for $749, with a good vendor you could get nearly 40% off that to bring it down to aroudn $450. If Linksys make their product better the price goes up - say to $250 and you're still stuck with Linksys support. If you go with the lower end Cisco gear which has the Cisco brand on it completely - a business buy I think would be willing to spend an extra few bucks on that. Now support is still another option, Cisco support is notoriously expensive. So much so that a lot of companies are starting to look to other vendors which are supposed to cost less. Juniper is one of those vendors having just recently started making switches to compete with Cisco. Early reports are good.

We had Juniper out here several times to talk about and demo their switches. We also had a couple on site for a while.

Pretty cool, but still, they always seemed to be lacking 1 feature out of 10 that we needed.

One thing that really got me about the Juniper guys. So they have a "virtual chassis" feature that they support with their switches. You connect a bunch of switches and manage them from a single point (like stacked Cisco 3750s). You can connect 8 or 10 to a virtual chassis IIRC. They kept promoting their special cable that connected the separate switches and saying "see, these don't have any pins to bend or break like those high density Cisco cables." Funny thing is that the 3750 stack cables were almost identical to the Juniper cables (also, not any pins to break bend). It seemed like they were comparing their cable to the old Cisco 60pin serial connectors that were on the 2500s. It didn't make me think "hey, your stuff rocks." It made me think "hey, you don't know your competition. What else don't you know?"

It's really just a small thing, but still, it turned me off a bit.

I just went out to lunch with our Juniper sales team last week. The question I asked was 'Do their switches support 802.1x authentication.'

'Not yet.'

WHAT?! 802.1x authentication was WRITTEN for port based security on switches and then ported to Wireless...for them not to support that out of the box? Lame.

I don't need anything exactly complicated.

I want VPN
I want DynDNS
I have a wired house (with several dead wires :( )
I have 2 offices, plus 2 other places in the house which use the internet (DVR and a "slingbox")
One office has the internet DSL line, a wireless router, 2 computers, 1 network printer and a Network Storage box. A wired connection runs to the central box, so I have 5 connections for a 4 port router, making me need a 4 port switch as well.

The upstairs central location has up to 16 connections from all of the wiring in the house. Only 5 connections are presently being used. So, I have an 8 port switch here.

The other office has a laptop and a network printer. This requires a switch since I'd prefer a wired connection for both.

1 DSL modem (AT&T)
1 Wireless Router with 4 wired ports, all connections used (Linksys SOHO N), 10/100 wired
1 8 port switch presently using 5 connections (10/100 D-Link)
2 5 port switches (Trendnet 10/100)

So, I could dump one switch if I get a Wireless router with 8 ports. But it must have VPN. I would also like it to be 802.11.N

Is there an Animal like this? And for my home office, where my DSL line is only 5Mb down, is there any real need for 10/100/1G?

I use a Netgear FVS318 with VPN at my office. 8 ports. Not wireless but is rock solid. You could piggyback a wireless router if needed.

That is so funny. We have Juniper equipment for almost all of our infrastructure, except switches. Why? Nothing gets on our network unless it is authenticated. We use 802.1x extensively including the Juniper UAC client. No 802.1x support on their switches is a big shortcoming in their offering. I've heard the argument that their switches are intended for the core, and they leave the edge to other vendors.

What router do you guys recommend for home use? Only need it for one Apple laptop.
We have a Time Warner cable modem. Should I invest in an apple airport or is there a cheaper alternative. I really know nothing about wireless routers.

Thanks.

I have a Belkin N+ plus that I scored at wally mart for 50 bucks. I really like it after having a linksys crap out.

Any of the off the shelf brands like Belkin, Dlink, Linksys or Netgear should be good. Or more precisely they all have the same chance to suck. Personally, I've used them all and had about the same luck with all of them.

I like them all just fine.

At home myself I have an old Cisco 1605R for my own home stuff and a NetGear 8 port 10/100 switch. 8 ports is not quite enough but I manage.

My Soho stuff for the office work has provisioned me a Cisco 871 router which includes wireless (802.11b/g) and that works fairly well.

If you don't need more than 10/100 on your wired connection - why do you need more than 54mb from your wireless connection? N is nice but G is fine for me. Just make sure all your clients are 'g' and you'll maintain your higher speeds.

I just set up a Cisco MDS 9506 SAN switch last week. If I query the SCSI bus on LUN 0 on a Linux box, all of the ports for that HBA will reset. Support said "Don't do that, dumbass!"