Broadband Router Comparisons

Thu Dec 24 19:01:45 UTC 2015

+1.

Here's one managed option that non-Calix customers, such as WISPs, have found interesting: https://www.calix.com/systems/gigafamily-overview/GigaCenters.html

Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces at nanog.org] On Behalf Of Justin Wilson
Sent: Thursday, December 24, 2015 9:40 AM
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Broadband Router Comparisons

The trend is a managed router service.  This way the ISP can control the customer experience a little better.  It also gives the ISP a DMARC point to test from, which is not as reliant on getting the customer involved. 

Mikrotik makes the hAP lite, which has a retail of $21.95.  http://www.balticnetworks.com/mikrotik-hap-lite-tc-2-4ghz-indoor-access-point-tower-case-built-in-1-5dbi-antenna.html <http://www.balticnetworks.com/mikrotik-hap-lite-tc-2-4ghz-indoor-access-point-tower-case-built-in-1-5dbi-antenna.html>  .  This is *nix based router you can cheaply deploy even if a customer doesn’t want a managed router.  I have clients who deploy this as a “modem” if the customer chooses their own router.  By doing this the ISP can run pings, traceroutes, see usage, and other useful tools from the customer side.

Once you figure on your average support call on troubleshooting a customer router $21.95 is a drop in the bucket. Having a place to test from the customer side is invaluable.  Tons of tricks you can do too.  Turn on the wireless and have the customer connect to it.  Block out all traffic except what the customer is using for tests (i.e. wireless) so you can see if there are devices hogging the pipe.   You can do frequency scans to see how bad 2.4 is.    You can get a dual band hAP router with AC.  It is more expensive so deploying one of those at every customer might not be feasible. 

Justin Wilson
j2sw at mtin.net

---
http://www.mtin.net Owner/CEO
xISP Solutions- Consulting – Data Centers - Bandwidth

http://www.midwest-ix.com  COO/Chairman

> On Dec 24, 2015, at 10:05 AM, Baldur Norddahl <baldur.norddahl at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I have reasonable success with simply lending the customer a router. In
> most cases they will then buy it afterwards, because it turns out that
> their old router was indeed bad.
> 
> But you can not win them all. Sometimes it is the other equipment that is
> bad, or the customer is clueless. They might even be lying because everyone
> knows you have to pretend it is worse than it actually is to get the doctor
> to take you seriously. Also who here can honestly say you never pretended
> to power cycle your Windows 95 when asked by the support bot on the phone,
> while actually running Linux, because that is the only way to get passed on
> to second tier support?
> 
> Just last week I had a customer complaining his router was bad. I went out
> there and found it in the basement, on the floor, under a bed with a ton of
> crap on top. He said it was so much worse than his old internet, where he
> had the router in the center of the house in his living room. Not too
> surprisingly? He claimed the routers were located the same place until I
> turned up at his house and asked to see it...
> 
> I do not think you will have much success at pointing to a list of
> supposedly bad routers. The world is just too complex. A bad experience can
> be due to anything really. Most likely they are on 2,4 GHz and the spectrum
> is crowded. Combine with an old computer (or even brand new!) that has crap
> 2,4 GHz wifi - nothing a router can do about that. I demonstrate that it
> can work with my own computer and then advise the customer on what to buy.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Baldur
> 