Replaced router

Last night, I replaced our Netgear FR114P with a Linksys WRT54GS. I wanted to get this new router for a couple of reasons:

1. Better QoS. The QoS in our Vonage ATA only handles upstream bandwidth. The QoS in the Linksys does QoS on both upstream and downstream. (previous post)


2. Better reliability. I was never sure about how reliable the Motorola VT1000v is. Since the Motorola VT1000v was connected directly to the broadband connection, and the Netgear was connected to the Motorola, if the Vonage ATA crashed, my whole network would be in accessible.

The other reason that I picked the Linksys router is because they have released the firmware as Open Source. Since they have done that, other people have come out with firmware for the hardware. I decided to use the software from Sveasoft. In addition to the features from Linksys, the Sveasoft firmware has these other features that I was interested in:

• Stateful Firewall


• WDS mode


• Multi-level bandwidth management


• Hardware based QoS

There are a ton of other features, that this software includes that I haven't listed here. The one really cool think is that you can install new software on it.

1. I installed the Sveasoft software on the Linksys WRT54GS and then copied all of the settings from the Netgear. When I did this, I set up the wireless to have a different SSID.


2. Then I set the wireless settings to have the same SSID and password as my Airport Extreme. This way, I am able to roam between the two base stations and have signal throughout my house.


3. Then I configured the Motorola VT1000v ATA to have a static ip address within the local network, and then connected the ATA to a LAN port of the Linksys.


4. Then I enabled port forwarding UDP ports 5060-5061 & 10000-20000 to the Motorola VT1000v ATA. (From Vonage)


5. Then I enabled "Premium MAC Priority" for the MAC address and the ip address of the Motorola VT1000v (For QoS for Vonage calls)


6. Set the premium service priority for SIP service

Everything is working well, and I haven't had any problems with sound quality with the Vonage phone calls. I did notice some interesting things:

• When I try to connect the the public ip address of the Linksys (for viewing web pages), the router rewrites the packets to have a source of the LAN address of the router. (The Netgear rewrites the packets to use the WAN address as the source)


• The Port forwarding interface of the Linksys with the Sveasoft allows you to enter an ip address. This would allow me to port forward to a different local subnet.


• There doesn't seem to be a way for me to see the current throughput.

I am pretty pleased with the setup now.