wrt54g firmware/qos

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 05, 2007 Posts: 2

I'm getting ready to try configuring qos on my linksys router due to horrible call quality on my Vonage phone. i've read recommendations on keeping newest linksys firmware, sveasoft alchemy, and hyperwrt. all the posts i've read are over a year old. can anyone give me some updated information on what would work best?

justin

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 17, 2005 Posts: 9

I had the same router and tried everything, port forwarding, MTU timing, Qos, etc. Nothing worked. If you have an extremely busy home network or several computers and use a P2P or online gaming this is what worked for me.

This is an Email I sent to Vonage customer svc to advise them of the fix I found.

http://www.amazon.com/Hawking-Technology-HBB1-Broadband-Booster/dp/B0009PLO0Q/sr=8-1/qid=1168037647/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-6694753-6421248?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

I like a lot of folks have been working with bad quality issues for a while with my router. I talked with a couple of folks at work that were also having issues and this item listed above seems to have solved all of our quality issues. No more messing with Qos, port forwarding and MTU settings. This thing is litterally plug and play.

On my network I have 360kbps of uplink speed but with multiple computers, online gaming and P2P programs the choppy audio was present especially with P2P such as Bittorrent, Azerus. This little $70 gadget works. As a stockholder in your company I would highly recommend that you list this for anyone having audio problems with outgoing voice.

The above item solved all of my audio quality items and seems to have also worked for my friends at work having issues with both Vonage and Skype.

Here is some of the comments concerning Voip and this broadband booster on the Amazon reviewer rating.

I've had the HBB1 for about a month now and it did more than just solve my problem! My Voip quality improved significantly even with all 3 computers simultaneously connected to the internet. It may not have "boosted" my uplink speed by 400% as advertised but it did what I needed it to do. It's cool when callers comment how clear we sound, especially for a free Voip service like Skype. I also noticed that my other internet applications run smoother. Set up was fool proof and literally took no more than 5 min to get it up and running. The bright blue LED confirms that the unit is connected correctly and packet management is working. Although no adjustment is necessary right out of the box, the GUI was a nice option to have as it shows your up/down stream speed, modem and router IP addresses and it gives you access to a few other manual adjustments. An average user wouldn't have to mess with it though.

For What its worth

Pete

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:52 pm Post subject:

I have a WRT54G V4, and it works great. The trick is to tune the QoS, which is explained on my self-help article here:

http://vonage.nmhoy.net/qos.html

currently, I am using "Tomato" firmware which you can read up on here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Tomato_Firmware

HyperWRT Thibor, which many of my articles make reference to, is also excellent firmware.

Posts: 29 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Aug 18, 2005 Posts: 29

I've been using Vonage since Aug '05 at 2 different residential installations w/ Linksys WRT54G routers (V3 and V5) and have had perhaps 1 service outage in the past year.

I've been using the DD-WRT firmwares for the Linksys WRT54? routers with cable Internet service and set up QoS so that the Vonage adapters have priority over everything else w/ MAC filtering.

However, I don't play any net games but I do like to download music/vidoes/files from time to time and notice no audio quality drops at all. Service has been solid.

By trade I'm a network/audio conferencing engineer and have been willing to experiment with hardware and software in order to get the best results.

Other than bad firmware for my RTP300, everything works like a charm. I definitely would recommend the Linksys WRT54G? routers with the DD-WRT firmware.

Posts: 1123 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 1123

I'll third the motion for the WRT w/DDWRT. Followed NateHoy's guide, and have never had a problem surfing, talking, and gaming at the same time. The WRT is actually a pretty good router, and I think Nate can elaborate on which serial numbered ones are good, and which newer ones are less than adequate. There have been several releases of that box, some good, some bad.

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 7:58 am Post subject:

I certainly couldn't say it any better than this:

http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47124

However, to summarize:

WRT54GL = Good. L = Linux.

ANY WRT54G or WRT54GS you buy in a store today = almost certainly bad.

If you have an old WRT54G or WRT54GS, look at the serial number. If the serial number starts in CDFA or below (WRT54G) or CGN6 or below (WRT54GS) you are in luck.

Newer WRT54G/GS models have had most of their memory removed, so they simply don't have enough room to run Linux any more - they use a proprietary closed-source OS called VXWORKS, and since the source code is not available, there is no opportunity to improve it in the community.

Newer WRT54G/GS can still take aftermarket firmware, but only one version fits - DD-WRT (and that only in a feature-poor "micro" edition). Still better than the native firmware, according to many, but it is a severe restriction of aftermarket firmware choices.

If you are in the market, you can also look at some of the Linux-based Buffalo routers, which can take some (but not all) aftermarket firmwares. Tomato, for example, fits on two Buffalo models, both cheaper than the WRT54GL.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Tomato_Firmware

Or, for the higher end, the WRTSL54GS is a faster version of the WRT54GL, and also sports a USB port for network attached storage right on your router.

Posts: 1327 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1327

I changed my firmware over to the tomato firmware, so far so good. My router hasn't disconnected....yet.

I tried out a phone call, sounded great, but wasn't downloading anything at the time.

should I enable the QOS, and if so do I need to do anything else? I had a look at the site you made, but didn't really get the jist of it.