First the positive:
- Looks good. After unpacking keeping a streamlined black case in the hands of the same does not impose itself negatively in the picture.
- Clear well labeled LEDs, decisive "DSL" and "Internet", which facilitates remote diagnostics. Color green. Is certainly worth mentioning, nothing is more annoying than blinding blue LEDs.
- Connections marked behind colored and labeled. Besides still 4 LAN ports available, but these are only geswitched with 100 MBit.
- Simple and easy configuration. NIC into the 192.168.1.0/24 network, via a Web browser to the 192.168.1.1 and after about 5 minutes, the router comes fully configured and ready for use. Bundled CD I did not use and manual not needed therefore no statement to. All important settings for the home or small office area are available.
- Noteworthy definitely still the Port Forwarding: subnet is already defined, only the last segment of the IP address must be adapted and the source / destination port. Fast can hardly set up in any router. Supports TCP / UDP ports, other protocol forwarding is not possible. Restriction here is the lack of option "both" when required in a port both TCP and UDP, you have the individually configure.
- Good modem: a previous Siemens synchronized only with 14500 Mbps, this one yielded the same 2 Mbit more.
- Dyndns is supported, but also only one other supplier (whose name I've forgotten). But is likely in most cases sufficient.
- After a configuration change, the router must be restarted not equal. Nothing is more corrosive than this D-Link / Netgear router restart with every dinky change first. Alone passes by waiting for the reboot because more time than the device itself. Here all changes "on the fly" to be applied immediately.
- Interestingly Access filters for the local network: IP Groups / IPs can be defined with protocols and time. Up to 10 rules are available here.
- QOS can be set up, how it works but I have not tried.
- Configuration via WLAN can be disabled.
- As a diagnostic ping the router is possible packet size, interval and number adaptable.
- For the functions delivered the device is extremely low.
- DSL supports ADSL2 all variants, both ANNEX A and B by appropriate firmware.
Now the negatives:
- WLAN can not be disabled. Have this router only bought because it was the newer model, wireless is not needed. Now this device is useless one channel.
- CPU is apparently quite schwachbrünstig: In the first configuration no connection lies build the IRC-Net and access to websites was extremely delayed and slow. Sometime I have a running in the background even uTorrent completed, after which suddenly "normal" Internet access was not a problem again. Torrent itself only ran extremely slow in a few KB area and local access to the configuration pages of the router was extremely delayed. Had the maximum number of concurrent connections on 200 limit. Was yet with no router problem. Firmware is the way the very latest, for the first operation during the installation was upgraded from 1:00:10 to 1:00:16.
When limiting the maximum connections into perspective again the better synchronization rate of DSL modems. After all, are built up TCP and UDP connections and without constant interruptions.
- E-mail notification when DOS is indeed a great feature ... but unfortunately you can not specify a username & password for the SMTP server. Let the TLS. For this feature is practically useless, because anonymous access to SMTP server is allowed in principle, not even locally.
- VPN via PPTP is not working. The router does have the option for pass-through, even individually definable for PPTP, L2TP, IPSEC & PPOE, but apparently is protocol 47 (GRE) is not properly routed though the corresponding TCP port 1723 is the VPN server forgewarded. After all L2TP / IPSec NAT passes, what is now, however, also not rocket science is at simplem UDP port forwarding. In this case, the PPTP server has been intended as a backup and work with any otherwise cheap router
Conclusion:
Rock-solid useful router for small office area if you can do without PPTP. Also recommended for the average Joe user of a device searches for surfing and for HTTP / FTP downloads. Who wants to run file sharing should look for another device.
PS: OpenWRT is not yet the time. If the connection problem actually lies on the CPU (and not at the firewall), which is expected to bring little joy.
