08-01-2009, 11:17 PM
I've got two old Buffalo WBR2-G54s that have been connecting my house to my office (across the street, about 120' line of sight) for almost 5 years.
On the house side, the router sits in a window facing the office, using its internal antenna. The office router is in a concrete block building without a window facing the house, so it has an external antenna (about 5' square, bought off eBay).
Stock hardware, stock firmware. Five years without an issue. The routers only get rebooted when I occasionally have to move a power plug or replace a UPS battery (less than once a year). Wish I had the same level of reliability from my cable Internet provider.
I'd recommend a pair of routers that can do wireless bridging and external antennas as needed. I don't get the concept of wanting to buy router hardware and immediately install DD-WRT or Tomato and crank the power level up to 99, but that's just me.
On the house side, the router sits in a window facing the office, using its internal antenna. The office router is in a concrete block building without a window facing the house, so it has an external antenna (about 5' square, bought off eBay).
Stock hardware, stock firmware. Five years without an issue. The routers only get rebooted when I occasionally have to move a power plug or replace a UPS battery (less than once a year). Wish I had the same level of reliability from my cable Internet provider.
I'd recommend a pair of routers that can do wireless bridging and external antennas as needed. I don't get the concept of wanting to buy router hardware and immediately install DD-WRT or Tomato and crank the power level up to 99, but that's just me.