Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router

• Linux-based Internet-sharing Router with built-in 4-port Switch and Wireless-G Access Point
• Shares a single Internet connection and other resources with Ethernet wired and Wireless-G and -B devices
• Includes four Fast Ethernet ports for your wired computers and devices
• Wireless signals are protected by industrial-strength WPA2 encryption, and your network is protected from most known Internet attacks by a powerful SPI firewall

This wireless router, besides supporting Linux firmware, is a tested and true wireless router with 802.11 b and g support. It supports WPA, WPA2 and the older WEP encryption schemes. In addition, it has a built-in firewall, MAC address filtering, and supports access policies (such as "don't allow FTP connections to this computer on Sundays").

When I installed this wireless router, setup was very straightforward (I did not use the Setup Wizard because it didn't work for me). I changed the IP address range (because the DSL modem uses the 192.168.1 address space), set the administrator password, chose a name for the Wireless network, enabled WPA2 encryption and picked a passphrase.

After that, I connected my laptop to the router right away, and received an excellent signal and throughput of 100 KB/sec (for comparison, my DSL connection maintains a throughput of 300 KB/sec when I connect straight to the DSL modem).

I've been using the router for several months now, and have not had any dropped connections (my older Netgear router dropped connections fairly frequently and did not support the newer WPA encryption scheme) and have consistent throughput. The router has been running constantly for these past few months.

For the real tech-heads, this router has customized Linux firmware available from third parties. I haven't tried this firmware, since the base Linksys firmware more than meets my needs.

Finally, good security practices are to: Change the administrator password, disable Universal Plug and Play, disable Remote administrative access, use a unique name for the access point, and if the network is only for a small number of personal devices (i.e. a laptop you own), enable MAC address filtering. A MAC address uniquely identifies a network card, so this only allows certain computers to access the network.

Buy Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router Now

I bought this router about 3 weeks ago to upgrade my Linksys BEFW11S4 802.11b router. The main thing I was looking for is the stability. So far, this router has been perfect, it hasn't dropped the connection yet. It also appears this router has much better range than my previous router. The product comes with a CD which has the installation guide on it. As usual, it's not well written.

Update:

It has been more than 3 months since I set up this router and I haven't had any problem. 8/16/06

Update:

This router has been in operation for 7 months and hasn't had any problem at all. Not even a single reboot. 1/16/07

Read Best Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router Here

I've bought close to a dozen of the earlier versions of these routers (WRT54G v2-v4) over the past few years as well as recommended them to my friends, and the ability to update and upgrade the flash memory with modified open source software is the reason why these routers deserve a wonderful reputation.

The modified software versions, such as HyperWRT and OpenWRT, Sveasoft, etc. have over the years provided capabilities that Linksys themselves didn't put in the box on their own, such as having routers that link up over the wireless connection, or routers that can work well in P2P applications with hundreds of active connections. Some of these features made it back into Linksys's official codebase over the years, helping to make this a Truly Great Product.

Linksys has chosen to eviscerate the memory of the latest version (v5) of the WRT54G to make it cheaper. This latest version doesn't have Linux inside and as others have reported isn't nearly as stable as earlier versions, nor is it in any condition to have the open source community help Linksys fix the problems. If you want The Little Blue Box That Could, you now have to buy the WRT54GL.

Want Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router Discount?

This new "L" model has the same Flash and RAM capacities as the older WRT54G models that ran Linux, and thus will support freely and commercially available third-party Linux-based firmware upgrades (voiding the warranty, of course).

Some background and history can be found here:

LinkSys courts Linux hackers with WRT54G"L"

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4729641740.html

LinkSys also offers a WRT54GS "speedboaster" model that uses channel bonding with I believe both A and G signals, to realize faster throughput in some use cases. Some older WRT54GS models were available with 8MB of Flash and 32MB of RAM, while current models have 4/16, and thus will also support fancy firmware upgrades, such as those from http://www.dd-wrt.com/, http://www.sveasoft.com/, http://sputnik.com, and so on. These firmwares offer things like optimization for VoWiFi (voice-over-wifi), integration with Radius authentication, bridging, etc, etc, etc.

Techie knitty-gritty on all the various permutations, serial number sequences, and so forth can be found at James Depew's unofficial LinkSysInfo.org site.

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I purchased the WRT54G at our local bestbuy store and had nothing but trouble, family would complain of very slow speeds and occasionally the unit would need a reboot to get it working again. Very frustrated, I took it back and the person at the store told us to buy the WRT54GL same parts but different software inside? Plugged it into our network and have never had a problem since, why would linksys keep selling the WRT54G with this much trouble? Oh well 5 stars for the WRT54GL.