Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router

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.

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

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.

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.

The WRT54GL is essentially a reissue of the original and classic WRT54G router that LinkSys started selling in 2003. It is bullet-proof reliable and simply the most upgradeable router you can buy. You can not only purchase high gain antennas to increase its range, but it has the widest number of open source firmware options of any wireless router. I purchased mine and then replaced the factory LinkSys firmware with open source DD-WRT, which allowed me to increase the power output on the antenna and offered other advanced features. My wireless router is now used by my iPhone, a wireless printer and wireless laptop, and is wire-connected to a PC and a Sony PS3. It works perfectly and its throughput is excellent. I never have to reboot this router, as I have had to do with newer LinkSys 802.11n models. And I personally like the classic and timeless industrial design of this router over the newer “Darth Vader” designs that LinkSys has put out.

Obviously the big downside of this router is that it predates the newer 802.11n or “N-wireless” protocol. I’m a fairly tech-savvy user who always likes to get the latest and greatest in terms of equipment, but I’ve owned 802.11n routers and I always come back to this router because of its rock-solid reliability. What most people don’t understand is that for most users, the true “bottleneck” of their wireless network is their connection to the Internet and not the speed of their wireless router. I use Comcast cable for my Internet connection, which is pretty fast (averaging about 8.5 mbps), but the LinkSys WRT54GL router can send and receive data at several times the speed of my Internet connection. That means that even if I had a newer 802.11n wireless router, or even plugged my devices into the network through a wired connection, they would not connect to the Internet any faster then they do through the WRT54GL because the WRT54GL’s speed still exceeds the speed of my Internet connection. For me, the illusory benefits of 802.11n simply do not outweigh the proven reliability and expandability of the WRT54GL.

** UPDATE 05/22/2010 **

I have to add one caveat to my review above; having the newer 802.11n may have an additional benefit that I did not mention earlier. I recently moved to a crowded metropolitan area in a building with a lot of tenants. The result is that there are now 25 wireless points/routers within close range of my unit (operated by neighbors) that are sharing the frequency bands of my WRT54GL. The result is substantial interference and moderate to significant performance degradation. A lot of these are DSL customers who have wireless routers. I am seriously considering switching to 802.11n simply because it runs at a different frequency (5 GHZ) than 802.11g and is far less prevalent (at least today), which may result in a lot less interference and less performance degradation.

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.

I recently purchased this wireless router for my home network and have been very pleased with its performance. The router was easy to set – it was up and running within an hour, with secure admin login, WPA-PSK security and AES encryption out of the box. The signal range is also great. I was at least 50 yards away and had a strong signal through trees and apartments without the slightest hint of degradation.

Also if you like to mess with things, the third-party firmware updates are great. They will increase the performance of this router to a level greater than its competitors.

Do yourself a favor and buy this router, and you won’t be sorry.

I had lots of problems trying to get this router working with my computers, but it is working really well now. The internet connection would hang somewhere between 10 minutes and 1 hour of establishing a connection. The only way to restore the connection was to power off both the cable modem and the router. After alot of troubleshooting, experimenting, and internet research, I discovered the cause of this. My cable modem does not like this router being close to it. When I moved the router several feet away from the cable modem all the connection problems went away. It has been working beautifully ever since.

Pros:

- Compatible with third-party, open source firmware that gives you extra features.

- Fast transfer speeds over wireless.

- Easy to set up.

Cons:

- A bit expensive, considering that this router is pretty much the same as older WRT54G routers.