Advantages: Very Cheap, with lots of features Disadvantages: Will help with CCNA, but may stuggle with CCNP
I bought one of these routers off ebay to help with my upcoming (Cisco) CCNA exam.
These are by no means cutting edge routers, and are obsolete now as they only support 10Mbps via their AUI (lan) port and support a limited amount of protocols.
The router itself has one AUI port, which when used with a transceiver can connect to either another router or a switch (at 10Mbps); 2 serial ports which can be configured with a routing protocol such as frame relay to connect to another switch or ISP data terminal equipment, a console port to configure the router itself, and an AUX port for modem connection.
Though well past it's sell by date, the switch is perfect to get to grips with Ciscos IOS (internetwork Operating System) and set up simple routed networks in conjuction with other routers and switches.
One thing to be aware of when buying ...
Advantages: Fast, Secure and Efficient Internet Connection Disadvantages: High level of Technical Expertise needed to setup more advanced features
The Cisco 800 Series Routers provide a solution for high speed, secure and above all reliable Internet connection. The 857 model is specifically designed for connecting small office / home office (Soho) networks to the Internet via ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) or "Broadband" technologies. For those of you who know little of Broadband (ADSL), it is a new technology that allows more data to be sent over existing copper telephone lines at higher download rates.
Typically home users connect to the Internet via a Modem, often supplied by there internet service provider. However, this solution of internet connectivity is far from ideal in a mission critical environment. If you don't know what a router is, it is unlikely you need one. However, if you wish to connect to the internet in a fast and secure manner a router is the only ...
Advantages: Fairly easy to set up, easy to use, reliable, looks good. Disadvantages: Bandwidth Innacurate.
We'd wanted to upgrade our router for a while to cope with Rich playing on his Xbox online mainly as we kept getting lag, which was especially apparent if I was also browsing the net (which I generally was) even to the point of Rich being disconnected mid game. He was getting annoyed with it so when we saw this router on offer at ebuyer.com for £69.99 (but has since gone back up to its previous price of £89.99); I jumped at the chance to get it and now we have it, I thought it was worth writing a review about, so here we are!
My review will be based on my experience of the router, and not a full technological break down of what it is capable of etc as that is readily available online from the manufacturer and would probably bore most people to tears anyway.
The first thing I notice when opening the box is how big the router is ...
The Cisco 2500 series routers provide a variety of models designed for branch office and remote site environments. These routers are typically fixed configuration with at least two of the following interfaces: Ethernet (AUI), 10BaseT Ethernet hub, Token Ring, Synchronous serial, Asynchronous serial, ISDN BRI. Cisco 2500 routers come with Flash EPROM technology for simplified software maintenance. These systems support a variety of Cisco IOS software feature sets, so you can choose a feature set that supports your specific protocol environment. The software feature sets range from an IP and bridging-only to the full array of Cisco's software functionality, including APPN and RMON. Mission-specific models contain less memory and less hardware functionality to support a subset of protocols. Each mission-specific model can be upgraded to full router capability by downloading a new Cisco IOS software feature set and, if necessary, adding memory.
