DD-WRT has been going for some time now and it is in effect a complete replacement firmware for your router. Virgin Media supplied the D-Link 615 Rev 4 and I found this to be very slow, very restrictive and missing some important features. Instead of buying a new router, I went with DD-WRT instead. You can head off to the Main site for DD_WRT and find the files for your own brand of router.

Flashing your Router

The first thing I did was grab the right files, when I went to the router database, I found the correct section for my router. There was two files, one is marked Factory while the other is not. You pull up your router IP address (in my case 192.168.0.1) and head off to administration then firmware upgrade. It flashed the router after selecting the  dlink-dir615d-factory-webflash.bin file. After the router reboots, it is now running of a different IP. You can either set your network card to the correct details (192.168.1.2 with a gateway of 192.168.1.1) or you can just refresh your IP settings to get a new address.

One you get to the router page, the first thing it asks you for is a user name and password, you can set this to what you want and thus nobody will know what name to even type in (more secure). You now need to go to the admin page again, flash the firmware with the second file (dir615d-ddwrt-webflash.bin) and wait until all is done.

Remember that as it is now a new firmware and such, you need to change a few settings, the first one will be the wireless security for a start. I changed the IP address of the router as well, I had everything set up for 192.168.0.xxx so I made sure the router was now 192.168.0.1.

What does this do?

It improves the current features and gives you a whole lot more. I mentioned at the start that my router was very slow when accessed and now it is very quick indeed. I can see what machine is using in terms of bandwidth, I can see who is connected and a whole lot more. The Wiki Page can tell you what it does better than I can – best have a look there.

While I already have a gigabit network running, there is not enough ports to allow all the computers to connect via gigabit which means some are locked to 100mbit and the rest are on wireless (a mixture of Wireless N and Wireless G speeds). Converting your network to gigabit gives you a boost in speed and the cost is very low these days as you will see. A Quick recap on what I already have – I am on 50mbit / 5mbit Cable Internet via Virgin Media which is connected to a D-Link 615 Router (Supplied by Virgin media as part of the install) which features Wireless N Speed but only 4 ports at 100mbit. I have a 5 Port Netgear gigabit Switch which is a bit dodgy on the 5th port – this means I can only have 4 computers (or NAS Boxes) max that is on Gigabit.

Expanding the ports

The first thing that I bought was an 8 Port ZyXEL Switch for £29 from Amazon, I see it has already gone up to £34 but it was rated as £29 when I in fact bought it (just the other day). Why do I need so many ports you may ask? I have two Synology NAS Boxes and running these off 100mbit is almost too painful for words, this means I need one each for them – thus so far 2 Ports. My Main machine has a gigabit network port, my Core 2 Duo machine also has a gigabit. My Acer Aspire E700 has a faulty network port and at present has a Wireless G PCI Card fitted – so I added to my Cart TP-Link 32bit Gigabit PCI Card – this cost a mere £4.87 – both items are free delivery if using SuperSaver – this means it could take between 4 and 7 days to arrive. I am in no rush for these items – they will all arrive by the latest the beginning of next week.

What this extra equipment gives me

All the computers that are around me will have access to 1gigbit network speed, which feed back to the router which is running if you remember 100mbit. If I run the other switch off the router, I will cause a bottlenet in speed as it moves from gigabit to 100mbit and back to gigabit so I may wire a return wire to feed the other switch in this respect – this can drive the PS3 as well as a pc I may put over there.

Media Streaming

I still use my heavily modded WDTV to feed movies (all formats) from my NAS Box into my LG 42” TV downstairs. I have Wireless N Dongle plugged in and on my testing, I can stream normal moives as well as 720P with no issues, it is not until I come to 1080p that wireless N starts to fall apart and even then it depends on the encoding used, some play fine, other stutter too much to watch.

The alternative of course would be to buy a Network powerplug thing and wire up the PS3 downstairs but this is too much hassle for all involved. Remember that at the worst case, I can copy the 1080P movie to a memory stick and play it that way on the WDTV.

Any more equipment?

For some strange reason, I still look at audio Mixers, microphones, Scissor stands and the like but due to been such a wide range of choice on each part, I have or now left this alone and at the moment have no need for such a thing anyhow.

Its been a full week of my upgrade to the 50mbit and I thought I would write a post just updating people on how it is going and some lessons learnt. The important thing to note I suppose is that jumping around the speedtest sites and getting annoyed when it does not do what it says on the tin only serves to annoy you when in reality it could be the site your testing from that does not have enough bandwidth.

Do you need 50mbit?

The short answer is that unless you download every Movie, MP3 or game – then you can pretty much do everything with the speed before, in my case been 20mbit. Upload is only useful to people who stream, upload files to FTP sites or push YouTube video’s – of course they also help the Torrents if that is your kind of thing.

Does the connection live up to the hype?

For the first few days, it hit 50mbit and 1.5mbit no matter what time of day and I could grab files from various sources faster then I could find things to download. Once the novelty wore off with me either speed testing, downloading files or uploading to my website – normal service resumed to be honest and I would not know the difference between my previous connection and this new faster one. I still had web sites that buffered in fact – so not the speed I need but better streaming sites. A few days ago – my speed started to vary a lot and it was impossible to get above 768K uploading – what gives?

QoS (Quality of Service)

One of the options on the router was QoS – now this little function will make sure that one application will not consume. Th e best example is a torrent will not affect a Skype call – the router will slow down the torrent to make sure it has enough to make skype work. I was not aware though that this “tick in the box” would make speed testing or normal downloading swing from one extreme to another.

I called Tech Support and he said he had tweaked my modem and give it a couple of hours and all shall be well again. Three hours passed and still the same – but then I remembered about this QoS thing - could it be that it was restricting my connection and keeping some bandwidth for spare?

I removed the setting – did various speed tests and bingo – full speed once again. My understanding is wrong then of this function and it is easier for me to restrict a torrent say to 1/4 of my connection and manage it myself – at least I would have all the speed at hand instead of been restricted – lesson learned.

It’s good to have your own personal wireless network, both for reasons of security and convenience – and now, with a little help from us, you can set one up with your HTC HD2.

So, if you like the sound of using your HTC HD2 as a wireless router, follow these simple steps:

1. Before you do anything, make sure that your HTC HD2 has a SIM card in it and its connected to the internet – 3G, GPRS and EDGE are all good – and the computer you’re using has a built-in or external Wi-Fi adaptor.

2. To set up your phone as a wireless router Tap Start and go to Wi-Fi Router.

3. If this is the first time you’ve opened Wi-Fi Router there’ll be a little introduction, which you can either watch or skip. After this, tap Next.

4. Now, you need to set up the phone’s Wi-Fi network by entering a network name and a ten digit WEP key.

Note: You can also use the provided default Network name and WEP key. In Internet Connection, find the data connection your phone uses, then tap Start.

1. Once your device is ready to accept connections it’ll display instructions on how to connect your computer to the Wi-Fi network.
2. Once you’ve done this, the instructions on your mobile should disappear and the Wi-Fi router screen should be displayed again.

Connecting your PC to your HTC HD2 wireless network

1. On your PC, select Start, then Connect To (Vista) or Connect to, followed by Wireless Network Connection (if using Windows XP)
2. In the Connect to a network box, select the name of your HTC HD2 network, then select Connect.
3. If your phone’s network doesn’t show, click refresh.
4. Enter your WEP key and then select Connect.
5. To turn your HTC HD2’s wireless router off, simply tap Stop on the Wi-Fi Router screen.

Full credit to Belkin for coming up with a router that stands out from the crowd. Based on the N1 model this N1 Vision stands vertically, so that you can clearly see the LCD display.

Belkin has ditched the usual array of flashing activity lights and instead has used a monochrome LCD display to keep you up to speed with the doings of your router, starting with the initial configuration. It’s much easier to check the power is on and the cables are plugged in when you have a message that spells out the situation.

Once up and running, the display allows you to monitor upload and download speed, see how much bandwidth is being used, allow guests access to your secure network and check out who is connected to your network without referring to the Belkin Networking Utility on your laptop. The guest feature is very neat, as the press of a button will generate a temporary password for visitors to your home or office that allows them access to the network with the minimum of hassle.

Easy to set-up

The most useful features of the N1 Vision come into play when you’re setting up the network; so once you’re finished the screen loses a part of its value, but that’s no problem as you can switch the display into a different mode and it becomes a digital clock. The fact is that most routers would benefit from a switch to disable the array of flickering activity LEDs, but Belkin has made it a reality.

The router part of the equation is an excellent example of second-generation Pre-N or Draft-N hardware that provides good coverage in conjunction with the F5D8053 USB adapter.

You can plug the adapter directly into your laptop or you can use the one-and-a-half metre extension cable, which has a solid base that stands the adapter vertically to give it the greatest possible chance of sniffing out a wireless signal.