setup compatable with existing router and switch?

Posts: 17 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Mar 16, 2005 Posts: 17

Hi, I thinking of getting Vonage and I think that I will be fine, but I just want to double check.

The setup I want to do is the following:

cable modem>Linksys BEFSR81 router>Netgear 24 port switch>RT31P2

My existing setup works fine, and I think that I should be able to plug the RT31P2 right into my switch and it should work.

Is there any reason it would not?????

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Mar 16, 2005 Posts: 12

I *Think* you get better quality phone calls if you do CableModem>WRT54GP2 then the Router and Switch

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Mar 16, 2005 Posts: 12

But it should work your way too Very Happy

Posts: 17 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Mar 16, 2005 Posts: 17

2027 wrote:

I *Think* you get better quality phone calls if you do CableModem>WRT54GP2 then the Router and Switch

Your too quick. Smile

I was editting my post from WRT54GP2 to RT31P2 as you answered. I grabbed the wrong model number from Amazon.com

I am not planning on getting the wireless version.

Posts: 17 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Mar 16, 2005 Posts: 17

2027 wrote:

But it should work your way too Very Happy

That's what I was thinking. It should work. but I guess I would have to test it both before and after the switch to see if the quality changes. In theory it should not. But I've run into 'in theory' too many times before with other things. Sometimes 'theory' is not reallity.

Posts: 482 · Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 2:32 am Post subject:

There is a feature in the RT31P2 called QoS (Quality of Service) which can manage the bandwidth in use to give first priority to your voice data, so that (in theory) your phone calls always take precendence over web surfing, newsgroups, P2P, etc. But to take advantage of that feature, the RT31P2 has to be in front of your entire network so that all data in and out of the cable modem passes through the RT31P2...otherwise, the QoS is virtually meaningless since the router can't account for or control the load on your broadband connection.

However...the QoS implementation in the RT31P2 is the subject of great debate. No one knows exactly how it works, and there is some speculation that it is not a dynamic throttling but rather a cap limit which restricts your bandwidth at all times, regardless of whether or not there is any voice data traffic being sent and received.

So do some research if you're interested to know about the QoS feature. There are plenty of threads here about that.

If you're wanting the best possible configuration, get a WRT54G wireless router, install the latest Sveasoft firmware and then put the RT31P2 behind it. The QoS in the WRT54G with Sveasoft is much more powerful than anything else in the same price range and it has some really robust prioritization features. When I switched to that configuration, not only did QoS work flawlessly, but I immediately noticed a general performance increase for my entire LAN network compared to using the RT31P2 as my router. With the RT31P2 in front of my network, everything got slower.

Now all of that assumes that you want to use QoS. But if you don't care about that, then you can put the RT31P2 behind the BEFSR81 and it will work just fine. Just bear in mind that without QoS, Vonage will have to compete with everything else on your network for bandwidth. But there are plenty of people running the RT31P2 that way, or using PAP2s or Motorola devices for that matter, without any complaints.

Posts: 110 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Mar 06, 2004 Posts: 110

It depends largely on your available bandwidth. With my cable service, I get 1Mb up/ 10Mb down. So I have my ATA (V1005) behind my BEFSR81 (without any ports forwarded, mind you) and never have any issues.

It's very difficult to saturate a 1Mb upstream link.;

Posts: 482 · Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:37 am Post subject:

Oh yeah, with that much bandwidth you can probably hook up however you want and still be just fine. Some people may need QoS and some people won't.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 17, 2005 Posts: 1

ToddlerTN wrote:

If you're wanting the best possible configuration, get a WRT54G wireless router, install the latest Sveasoft firmware and then put the RT31P2 behind it.

Great!

I'm a new Vonage user, have a WRT54GS, the latest release of Sveasoft's alchemy firmware on it, and a RT31P2 behind it.

However, I'm having some problems, would appreciate any assistance folks can give.

I'd like the RT31P2 to act as a switch, let the WRT54GS/Sveasoft handle DHCP, QOS, firewall, etc. So far I've not been able to find the proper settings to turn off all of the RT31P2 features so it looks like just another device on the LAN, albeit with 2 or 3 slow devices hanging off of it (printer & TiVo).

Any suggestions?

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 31, 2005 Posts: 1

What process did you do to reset your hardware ?