Home CPE choice

Thu Apr 1 00:01:15 UTC 2010

What good off the shelf solutions are out there? Should one buy the high end
> d-link/linksys/netgear products? I've had bad experiences with those
> (netgear in particular).
>
> Should one get a "real" cisco router?

IMHO, you should look to Japan, Korea and China for suppliers. Even if you
are small, you may be pleasantly surprised at the response from a Chinese
manufacturer. If you specify a box with Linux-based firmware, then the
manufacturer has low design costs, and can ammortise them across many
customers because that Linux build can be used again and again.

The easiest way to spec it is to find an existing DSL CPE that is based
around Linux and ask them how much to make noname boxes for you
so that you can put your own sticker on.

Better yet, form a buying club with folks that you meet at  the next NANOG
BOF and you are certain to get decent responses.

> Is there a market for a new breed of CPE running OpenWRT or pfsense on
> hardware with enough CPU/RAM to not fall over?

Such CPE has been available for years which is why OpenWRT was created
in the first place. I believe OpenWRT has limited DSL drivers?

> Granted that won't cost $79.00 at best buy. However it seems to me that
> decent CPE is going to run a couple hundred dollars in order to have
> sufficient ram/cpu.

Ignore BestBuy  prices. You don't know their margin and it WILL vary product
to product. With a bit of web searching I found a 5 yr old device, Netcomm
NB5 ADSL modem/router that runs Linux and retails for $99 Australian.

> What are folks here running in SOHO environments that doesn't require too
> frequent oil changes :)

Ignore what people tell you. Go talk to Chinese manufacturers and explain what
you need. You are doing them a favor by providing free market data to them so
that they begin to understand that there is an ISP market that wants DSL
routers that are Linux based, flexible, support IPv6, and can be
branded by the ISP.

Fact is, that all those name brand boxes at BestBuy also come from Chinese
manufacturers anyway. The brand name companies are middlemen that provide
specs, some design work, and checking manufacturing quality. The only tricky
part of the equation is manufacturing quality, but why not copy the ISP pioneers
of the 1990s. They did not do extensive trials and evaluations of
routers and switches.
Instead, they found out what the early entrants were using and bought
the same stuff.
So do some digging to find out what Chinese factories are building kit
for Billionton,
Netgear and all the rest.

--Michael Dillon