Cisco to sell Linksys

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lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
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The newer Netgear routers are pretty good.

mine has been going like a rock since setting it up 4 months ago. only thing that took any effort was reconfiguring an older router used as a VOIP source as that router had been my main but started showing problems under heavy load.
 

RGN

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2000
6,623
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Actually the AirPort Extreme is a very solid router. It's basically enterprise class hardware packaged for the consumer. They are feature rich and reliable. More reliable than anything Linksys has put out.
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
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ostif.org
What are you talking about? As soon as they bought it they redesigned the chassis and put Cisco on it. And linksys WAS good for what it was prior to the acquisition - something inexpensive for the home use market.

I meant dropping the Linksys brand entirely and using Cisco on the low-end stuff.

Linksys was okay if you happened to get one of their four good produced products, ever. And those even had to have modded firmware to shine...

If you got one of their products that constantly dropped LAN clients for no particular reason, or needed a reset on a daily basis to get full throughput, you'd have an entirely different opinion.
 
Feb 25, 2011
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Actually the AirPort Extreme is a very solid router. It's basically enterprise class hardware packaged for the consumer. They are feature rich and reliable. More reliable than anything Linksys has put out.

If it were really enterprise class, it would have a fan.
 

CraigRT

Lifer
Jun 16, 2000
31,440
5
0
In my experience, Linksys was the worst name in the business. Had problems with almost every class of products they make, at one point or another. I never had the most popular WRT54 router but I did have the original BEFSR41 cabled router and it failed after a few months. I have had nothing but D-Link and Buffalo since and they've all been great. I especially love my DIR-655.
 

dabuddha

Lifer
Apr 10, 2000
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NOO!!! d link?!?! really? ?!?! no. not even close.

and does asus make all of their networking components? i thought some of their stuff was re-badged.

D-link rocks. My dir-655 has been rock solid since I bought it.
 

OlafSicky

Platinum Member
Feb 25, 2011
2,364
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Actually the AirPort Extreme is a very solid router. It's basically enterprise class hardware packaged for the consumer. They are feature rich and reliable. More reliable than anything Linksys has put out.

Where did you hear that?
 

spidey07

No Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
65,469
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I wouldn't say Cisco is abandoning the home market. They want it all including your cable set top box. They bought Linksys because they simply didn't cater to the SOHO (small office, home office) area. Not enough profits and low margins there already.

Hang on, I'm going to go reboot the Internet.
20080420_linksys_on_southpark.jpg
 

smitbret

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2006
3,382
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D-link rocks. My dir-655 has been rock solid since I bought it.

D-Link here, too. DIR-825. A little short on coverage for the 5Ghz band, but otherwise, rock solid and stable. Months ---> years between having to reboot. I've had it so long that I am starting to wonder if it's just going to up and die one of these days. Just hoping it holds out till ac is standardized and they become common enough that the price drops.
 

kt

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2000
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I am still using my 10 year old WRT54Gv2. It's still working after all these years.
 

Ichinisan

Lifer
Oct 9, 2002
28,298
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Actually the AirPort Extreme is a very solid router. It's basically enterprise class hardware packaged for the consumer. They are feature rich and reliable. More reliable than anything Linksys has put out.

I got a great deal on a refurbished one on Black Friday. Latest generation.
 

Ichinisan

Lifer
Oct 9, 2002
28,298
1,235
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I wouldn't say Cisco is abandoning the home market. They want it all including your cable set top box. They bought Linksys because they simply didn't cater to the SOHO (small office, home office) area. Not enough profits and low margins there already.

I'm pretty sure they bought Linksys for another reason: To ensure that the reliability and features of the most popular consumer grade routers would not impact the sale of professional-grade network equipment costing hundreds or thousands of dollars more. I saw countless local businesses with Linksys wired routers in the early 2000s. Cisco was afraid.

I'm convinced that Linksys products with their default firmware are made to be unreliable and lack important features...or have features that just don't work.
 
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adairusmc

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2006
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:thumbsup: Of which I own now for 6 years. I have it flashed with DD-WRT.

One of the best routers ever. We still sell and install them where I work, but we have been moving towards the Asus N10+ routers more and more. Cheaper, rock solid, and our cost is a bit cheaper than the GL models.

I still have my GL as a backup router, but when I bought my house last summer I installed an Asus RT-AC66U and I really really like it.
 

Ichinisan

Lifer
Oct 9, 2002
28,298
1,235
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One of the best routers ever. We still sell and install them where I work, but we have been moving towards the Asus N10+ routers more and more. Cheaper, rock solid, and our cost is a bit cheaper than the GL models.

I still have my GL as a backup router, but when I bought my house last summer I installed an Asus RT-AC66U and I really really like it.

I rocked a GL with DD-WRT until a power disruption corrupted it somehow (damn Walking Dead film crew nearby always causes these disruptions). Fixed it after I had already mounted a Netgear N router that was given to me. It also ran DD-WRT.
 
Feb 25, 2011
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Are you serious? :hmm:

Half-serious. Lacking active cooling is the least of an APEXBS's disadvantages compared with a proper router.

I have an APEXBS at home. Works good. Once upon a time it had some crashing issues which seemed to be caused by overheating. (I had it stacked with some external HDDs. I placed it on a shelf by itself and everything was fine.) Since then, I've been a little miffed that Apple didn't spend the extra $1 per unit for a laptop style temp-sensitive fan in there. It' a $180 router, for chrissakes. My apartment never qualified as extreme operating conditions.

The higher grade routers'n'stuff I deal with at work are rack mounted and actively cooled. And noisy as hell. That stuff is, imo, "enterprise class." Or at least "business class."
 
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Texashiker

Lifer
Dec 18, 2010
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Cisco wanted to get into the small office market, but they failed to produce a line of easy to use, good quality products.

I bought a Cisco SRP547W for the office. The setup is confusing, and the wireless signal is rather weak.

Through the second floor, crawl space, first floor, 40 feet away and the signal is almost unusable.

Cisco wanted to tap into the small business market, but where are their low cost options?
 

dawp

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
11,347
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I have a wusb600n dongle that has been working flawlessly since I bought it a couple of years ago. never used their router tho, always had good luck with netgear in that department, currently using a wndr3700 I've had longer than the wusb600n.

I did think it was an odd fit for cisco to own linksys.