[Cerowrt-devel] Other router models for OpenWireless deployment

[Cerowrt-devel] Other router models for OpenWireless deployment

[Ranga Krishnan]

As folks on this list might know the OpenWireless project at EFF adopted
CeroWRT as a base for the hacker release of the OpenWireless router
in July  -- which as a result is based on the WNDR 3800.  Thanks very much 
to the CeroWRT community for providing such a solid base on which to 
build. We could not have got the release out without the help of this 
community. 

For the OpenWIreless project we want to move toward wider deployment. 
I have started to look into how the EFF could support more router models. 
The idea is to find a few routers with OpenWRT (Barrier Breaker or later) that 
are widely deployed in the field today. By releasing images for an additional
3-5 widely deployed router models we hope to reach more people with a 
software only solution for openwireless  -- i.e remove the need to buy a 
specific router model. 

We do want one very modern high end platform  that can support 100+ Mbps
on the WAN link. This might be the one people on this list have been searching 
for over the last few months. However, we also want to pick 3 or 4 previous 
generation routers with just 802.11n (no need for 11ac) and processor / memory 
equivalent or just a bit better than the 3800.

With OpenWRT support, presumably it would be simple to port over the 
Openwireless code. However whether that is true is TBD. Ease of porting 
would be an important consideration. 

  Are there any router models folks on this list can recommend for me to look 
at  ? Large existing installed base and good OpenWRT support are the main 
metrics for ranking candidates. 

Thanks,
Ranga

Re: [Cerowrt-devel] Other router models for OpenWireless deployment

[Sebastian Moeller]

Hi Ragna,

On Oct 9, 2014, at 01:51 , Ranga Krishnan <ranga@eff.org> wrote:

> 
> As folks on this list might know the OpenWireless project at EFF adopted
> CeroWRT as a base for the hacker release of the OpenWireless router
> in July  -- which as a result is based on the WNDR 3800.  Thanks very much 
> to the CeroWRT community for providing such a solid base on which to 
> build. We could not have got the release out without the help of this 
> community. 
> 
> For the OpenWIreless project we want to move toward wider deployment. 
> I have started to look into how the EFF could support more router models. 
> The idea is to find a few routers with OpenWRT (Barrier Breaker or later) that 
> are widely deployed in the field today. By releasing images for an additional
> 3-5 widely deployed router models we hope to reach more people with a 
> software only solution for openwireless  -- i.e remove the need to buy a 
> specific router model. 

	So, what about packaging the Openwireless magic into a series of openwrt packages so all openwrt supported routers (if hardware capabilities allow) are ready?

> 
> We do want one very modern high end platform  that can support 100+ Mbps
> on the WAN link. This might be the one people on this list have been searching 
> for over the last few months.



> However, we also want to pick 3 or 4 previous 
> generation routers with just 802.11n (no need for 11ac) and processor / memory 
> equivalent or just a bit better than the 3800.

	From my totally unscientific monitoring of https://forum.openwrt.org/viewforum.php?id=10 the TP-link wdr4900 v1.3 seems to be in the right ballpark:
https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=244167#p244167, the used powerpc SoC seems to be quite capable. No idea how long this will still be available and what hardware will power the successor (it is just me or do other’s also dislike the router manufacturer’s inclination to keep the same name for wildly hardware platforms, e.g. wndr3700 v1 to v4)


> 
> With OpenWRT support, presumably it would be simple to port over the 
> Openwireless code. However whether that is true is TBD. Ease of porting 
> would be an important consideration. 
> 
>  Are there any router models folks on this list can recommend for me to look 
> at  ? Large existing installed base and good OpenWRT support are the main 
> metrics for ranking candidates. 

	I would assume that the size of the installed base should anti-correlate with price ;)

Best Regards
	Sebastian

> 
> Thanks,
> Ranga
> 
> 
> 
> 
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