UPDATE: After installing it, I also found that Linksys has finally started putting DynDNS into their routers. That was the last thing keeping me on Netgear.
A lady at work is fed up with dial-up and getting a cable modem. They have an older computer with no NIC, so when she called Comcast, they told her she couldn’t have it. That was a poor choice on her part. For one thing, she has a laptop through the uni, with excelent network capabilities. So I told her to call them again and assure them that it would be fine, and get it. I also talked her into getting a wireless router. Router for the firewall and multi-computer online, wireless for the current laptop as well as the one they hope to buy next spring.
I also extolled the virtues of Vonage, and she was quite excited about it, and mentioned she planned to get it. She gave me $100 and sent me off to the store to get a NIC and router.
When I got there, I found that Linksys sells both a straight Vonage box, as well as a 802.11g wireless router with the Vonage stuff built in. It was $130, but there was a $20 instant rebate (why do they do that?) and a $50 Vonage rebate, which is something I got from Vonage when I bought their box. So it ended up being $59, which isn’t far off from a normal Linksys router.
I normally don’t go for integrated stuff all that much, since if one part goes, the other perfectly good part needs to be replaced as well, but this was the same price AND most likely has bandwidth shaping built in, something the box I got from Vonage does not have. That’s pretty significant.
At my house I have the cable modem going into my vonage box, which goes into a wired router, which goes into a wireless router. This thing would make 3 of those devices be in one. Of course, I have a system that works perfectly fine, so it would be silly of me to spend the money. But it sure is cool for her.
