[asterisk-users] Best inexpensive home office router for VoIP (QoS with maybe PoE)

[Kenneth Padgett]

> I'm looking for opinions on the "best value" router to use for home offices.
>  It should work for a scenario in which there are 3 computers and 2 SIP
> phones, handling QoS so that the phones always have higher priority traffic
> than the PCs. (and not rely on the phones to do the QoS because some PCs may
> not be connected to the phones).

I'm using a Linksys WRTSL54GS and 3rd party firmware with great
results! You won't find QoS features in the default Linksys firmware
though, so if you want something out of the box, this isn't much help.

My main reasons for picking it over the older WRT54G's where:

1) It was (still is?) available in retail stores, whereas the WRT54G's
that run Linux are generally only on ebay these days, they have to be
older versions.

2) it has 32mb of ram, and 8mb of flash.

3) it has USB which is nice to connect storage or network printer too.

If you go with it, make sure it's version 1, the K0 serial number
though. Version 2 has less flash and hasn't been tested. See:

http://wiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs/Hardware/Linksys/WRTSL54GS
http://wiki.openwrt.org/TableOfHardware

I started with Thibor's firmware (which is based on stock Linksys
code), so no special shell / command line knowledge needed:
http://www.thibor.co.uk/

Eventually moved on to OpenWRT for support of advanced stuff I'm
doing, such as dial on demand PPTP client VPNs to clients, multi-site
VPN with my friends, DNSmasq, QoS, etc.

-Kenneth