Routers

Hardware and technical stuff
1

I have an old Netgear RT314 (which I just fixed) but it doesn’t have any security but NAT and doesn’t support UDP. Is it worth it to get a new router that has more features?

I bought this thing three years ago for $150 but now you can get routers with 3x the features for 1/3 the cost?

Anybody have any thoughts?

2

Doesnt’ support UDP? That seems like it ought to be part of the baseline feature set to be considered a router.

3

Some of the new don’t as well and mine is old. So old, apparently, that the bastards at Netgear said it’s at product ‘end of life’ and no longer qualifies for telephone tech support. Their tech booted me lickity split and told me to email tech support.

So maybe they different routers supported UDP back then but my dumbass bought one that didn’t.

edit - well, it doesn’t say it has it in the tech specs. And ones that apparently do have it mention it in the tech specs. Dunno. I could be wrong but I don’t think so.

4

Netgear makes new routers all the time. Its old, but who cares. Does it work? Are you having problems with it? Do you want new features like a wireless access port?

I think it routes UDP just fine – because if I didn’t, I think you’d have problems playing games or stuff online, as they all use UDP. Its a basic feature of IP networking.

So I say keep it, unless it doesn’t work or you want an obvious new feature.

5

What do you mean about not supporting UDP? I have an RT314 and several people can play counter strike behind it without explicitly changing their client ports.

6

Cool. Works fine. I was going to keep it but was unsure of the UDP. Looks like maybe I’m wrong.

7

What do you mean about not supporting UDP? I have an RT314 and several people can play counter strike behind it without explicitly changing their client ports.[/quote]

Don’t know a thing about counterstrike. Never played it. Played UT though with the RT314. Anyway, the whole reason I ask is UDP is not mentioned anywhere in my tech specs for the RT314. In the manual all that is mentioned is TCP/IP and RIP.

But here with two new Netgear products UDP is specifically mentioned in the first but not in the second.

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/RP614.asp?view=hm

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/RP334.asp?view=hm

I admit I’m no expert on networking but i know even less about UDP. I just wanted to make sure I’m not missing something that would help with certain connections.

Why would it be mentioned in one and not the other if it was just assumed it was there?

8

I don’t think the brochures for cars say they come with steering wheels, but most of them do. UDP is an integral part of TCP/IP.

9

Yeah, what XPav said. It’s a transport protocol like TCP. You use UDP when speed matters but it’s not critical to get all the packets, like for games or movie clips. You use TCP when you need reliability and you factor in the performance hit.