Dual-WAN Router Showdown (Page 2)
router2
Package Contents
As advertised on the box and as shown in the middle picture, Xincom has
included two 10' Cat-5 patch cords. While the "$20.00 value"
statement is a bit inflated, this is a nice
addition to the package. Because the switch ports on the DPG402 are
Auto MDI/MDI-X, there is no need to worry about uplink ports or
crossover cables. Xincom has also chosen to save a few trees and place
their 67 page manual in pdf on a CD-ROM. The CD also includes a
tftp client for upgrading the firmware.
The design of the BR-6524 is a bit
sleaker than the Xincom.
However, the casing of the unit is plastic as opposed to the sturdier
metal construction of the DPG402. Included in the package is a
complete manual in paper form. You will also notice two small
adapters in the center picture. These adapters are crossover
devices. Unlike the switch ports of the Xincom router, the Edimax
will require a crossover cable to connect to another switch. Or,
you can use one of the supplied adapters.
The Guts
After popping the top on the two
routers,
we examined the inner workings. That's the Xincom on the left and
Edimax on the right. If you enlarge the Xincom router, you will
see that there appears to be an unused spot for a serial port.
You will also notice that the Xincom router has four dip
switches. These are used for flashing the router, resetting to
defaults, etc. This gives added security against a hacker trying
to write to the firmware. It is a definite plus for the Xincom
unit.
The Setup
 As
stated
earlier, two 4Mb/s connections
were ordered through our cable/internet provider. You will
notice in the picture (click for full view) that the cable modems are
different. One is a Scientific Atlanta and one is a HiTron.
Wide Open West has recently switched to the latter of the modems.
There is no noticeable difference in performance between the two.
One of the first things I did when my wife an I moved into our house
was run multiple Cat-5e and RG-6 drops to each room. The network
rack pictured to the right is a seven foot open frame rack that is
housed in a technology closet in my basement (click to enlarge).
The switches are
10/100 3Com Superstack II's uplinked through FX fiber modules. I
got a really good deal for these on eBay. :) The patch panel is
an
Ortronics Cat-6 48-Port...also purchased on eBay. Below the cable
management is my Linux server. The server is used for file
serving through Samba, email filtering through Spamassassin, SNMP
management and Trap receiving via JFFNMS, remote access via SSH, and
printer management via HP Web Jetadmin. It's running a
console-only installation of Redhat 8 with a 2.4.18 kernel. The
multiple services and applications gave a good testing environment for
the routers' abilities.
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