[Chester LUG] WiFi Terror

[Bryn Salisbury]

Yeah, I have the idea in my head for a WiFi router with a touch screen on it (hidden behind a case or something), which asks a few simple questions:

1. What do you want the network to be named?
2. What's your ISP account number? Expanding to require ISP passwords and alike.
3. What would you like the password to be? It defaults to WPA2, as there is no need to confuse people by asking "WEP? WPA2? WPA2 Enterprise?"

The device would include the relevant presets for the ISPs that are out there. You'd then close the case and the job would be done. No need to plug in the laptop to the network interface, or install software on their laptop to configure the router.

I can't really think of a way to make it simpler than that… 

Bryn

On 14 Jul 2011, at 13:05, Michael Crilly wrote:

> I think many of the interfaces you find on consumer grade routers are designed to make NAT, PAT, DHCP, etc all easy to use by the family IT specialist (usually the 12 year old who plays WoW a bit, so he knows IT). However when someone like you or I come across it, it's seen as overly complicated and as if the manufacturer has tried too hard to make it all fluffy and simple.
> 
> Give me an IOS interface every time and I'll be cooking until midnight ;-)
> 
> On 14 July 2011 02:17, Sebastian Arcus <shop at open-t.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> On a related note, I'm probably going to switch to AAISP in the next few months, as their routers are hand made, and seem to be rock solid.
> 
> Hand made? I'd be really curious as to what exactly does that mean. For some reason I keep on hearing the music from those M&S adverts, with cream flowing over luscious raspberries. Or some such imagery. I'd be happy if they use good chippery, and quality capacitors - I've nothing against being built by some non-unionised robot.
> 
> If it's up to me, I'm perfectly happy with one of the Netgear routers - pretty much any. Except for the square corners ones - all of them seem to suffer from the red/orange power light startup failure after about one year. There is a long thread on Netgear's forum about it (and no solution). However, even then, once you let the power adapter cool off for about 10 minutes, they'll get going and not stop for another few months.
> 
> Although some people seem to have different opinions - I must have installed close to 100 Netgears over the years - and they seem to be the most robust consumer routers out there. And at least as far as I'm concerned - the interface actually makes sense.
> 
> I was trying to configure some port redirection on a router supplied by Plusnet the other day - and I must have gone 10 times in circles until I figured out how did *they* expect you to configure the router to do it. Even a Draytek - which as far as I can tell, seems to be a solid (and not cheap) piece of hardware - if, for some reason, quite unpopular - has an outright weird and unnecessarily obfuscated online interface.
> 
> 
> Sebastian
> 
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--
Bryn Salisbury
http://about.me/bryns/bio