Router with Serial Backup

[RoadClosed]

Inexpensive home/soho DSL and Cable routers - with a serial port for backup - are here. Or so it seems. I lost my DSL and Cable modem for now so I am sucking it up and getting a normal telephone line to the new house. So I have been looking for a nice little router that has the features of a normal DSL/Cable router that I can use later when they insall the cable system into the new neighborhood. I thought I would look to the talents of AO as both far reaching and in some cases cheap like me.

I looked at all the majors and so far SMC has the cheapest unit. Here is a link ...

It seems to float around the 60 -100 dollar range. Since I paid 30 for my current DSL router I thought maybe there is better, price wise out there... but since others may be very interested I thought I would post and perhaps get some feedback on other successful ventures. I can hook this thing up now and use dialup with external routing and firewall capabilities outside of windows. Note that I looked at others in the $400 range such as Netopia and Cisco. Then lower like Hawkings, and Netgear, D-Link, Siemens etc. Not everyone has the option but there is a lot out there and many even load balance now. Very cool for the price.

Linux and especially freebsd have good PPP implementations on serial connections but I like these little routers.

Who's got one and how do they work? SMC is my choice so far.... all implement the serial interface as a back-up option when the DSL fails. Who wouldn't like that once in a while in a pinch??

[cheyenne1212]

What I use is a Linksys BEFSX41.

Now it doesn't have any serial backup, or support ACL's but it has a firewall, supports NAT, PPOE PPTP, VPN, and a bunch of other protocols.

Probably not what your looking for but for around $70 it gets the job done for me.

Now what your looking for is what? something that you can hook a phone line up to as well so that will dial out if the DSL or cable goes down?

[RoadClosed]

Hey Cheyenne thanks for the input. I am looking for a router to connect my network to a dial up circuit. I moved to a brand new neighborhood that does not have DSL or Cable but they are building it out in the coming months although I can't get a damn time line out of them. Using a router to connect the house is much better than building a server or using Windows ICS. It provides firewall capabilities outside of Windows and handles DHCP much better than ICS, in my opinion ICS sucks ass. Many now have built in SPI and a host of VPN options.

So I am looking around because I saw a thread (not here) about a kid who wants to hook his x-box up to dial up when the x-box has no serial port and some dude posts the SMC router with a DB9 dial out port for a router. So my head goes ding ding ding, I'll get one of those! And when the cable system comes up I'll just hook the modem in and then I'll have redundant internet connections! Mean time I just pop the box in and have instant network wide internet access.

So I am looking at all these things on the internet and thought that maybe someone here at AO has one they think is the greatest. Opinions definitely count. Also I thought there would be interest to those who have DSL at work and want to build in some backup. DSL does go down periodically and if there was a dialup backup through the already configured router on a different ISP, that would be cake. Here is the latest, some or wireless becayse I started
looking at those as well since 80211.g support WPA and more secure implementaiton of WEP...

check out all the models that support dialup in this matrix - the fun is, serial ports used to cost a lot Cisco router always had them but now they are dirt cheap.
http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?sec=Pro...-Matrix&site=c

http://www.netgear.com/products/deta...114P.asp?view=

http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...F9FA801B83E17F

I was looking at those sites just now....