Recommend Me a Wireless Router

[Stromgarde]

In terms of the kind of router, yes as a general rule draft-N isn't worth the money, however the D Link DIR-655 is the exception to the rule. Has fantastic backwards-compatibility with G devices and better range and reliability than most. I live in a house with a ~1600 sqft footprint, and I can have the router on one side of the house and my computer a floor down and on the opposite side and still get upwards of 80% signal reliability. Now if I can just figure out why my computer is refusing to connect to it sometimes, I'll be golden.

In terms of WEP vs. WPA, WPA is strictly superior, however isn't always necessary. Most routers come with WPA anyway though, so if your network cards all support WPA, use that. Otherwise, unless you suspect people are hacking into your network, WEP should work fine. If you're doing anything incredibly sensative at home where the type of encryption is important, you shouldn't be using wireless in the first place.

Is the DIR-655 likely firmware-upgradable from Draft-N to whatever winds up being the final revision? A band sucks but the frequency range is highly appealing, which N also uses, but I don't want to be stuck with upgrading hardware in another year when I know that several routers will be firmware-upgradable form Draft-N to ratified N.

[Xanthe]

setting up a pay hotspot :D to make some money hehe (could potentially pay your monthly internet bill :D)

I'm pretty sure it's actually against the ToS for most if not all residential ISPs to resell bandwidth.

[hardlined]

I've used a netopia for a couple years thats been very good to me. It's suppose to be a little more "businessy" so it cost like a hundred bucks. But I got sick of d-links, netgears and linksys('s/es?) constantly failing, so it was worth it.

There is also a new generation of the of the WRT54G surprisingly named WRT54G2, however I'm almost positive it doesn't support the dd-wrt firmware yet.