[GTALUG] Router advice sought

[Stewart Russell]

So my WRT-350N decided to stop being a router last night and to start being
a brick instead. All ports and WiFi appear to be dead. People have
discussed the latest and greatest here - so what's the best basic router
for:

* enough wireless range for a smallish two storey house;

* able to connect and configure about 15 wireless clients and 4 wired (one
wired in a DMZ)

* probably going to stick with stock firmware, as the Linksys one on the
WRT-350N was pretty much okay for the last 8 years; and

* would be nice if it wasn't unholy expensive, was available retail today,
and was likely to last at least another 8 years.

My network setup is very simple: just internal IPs assigned by MAC address
via DHCP, and locked in the router. Yes, I manually copy /etc/hosts files
about: don't judge. It worked fine until the router went kablooie.

I'm wondering if I even need a router, though. The Sagemcom box from
Teksavvy (rented from Bell) has WiFi and four LAN ports. What does having
my own router do for me?

Recommendations and advice welcomed. Assume I have no idea what I'm doing
if you haven't already.

Thanks in advance
 Stewart
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gtalug.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20170130/fb2a5bf0/attachment.html>