I’ve pretty much had enough. The WRT54G has proven to be a fun router to play with, but I’ve bricked a few of them over the past couple years, and the one I have now is less than optimal. It drops wireless connections fairly regularly. I can try upgrading the Talisman firmware to the latest (I am running 1.0.5 and there have been two releases since), but I’m not convinced it’s a software issue really.

So, the question is: Which wireless router is best for me? I’ll do some research of my own, of course, but I know some of you smart people will let me know what your experiences are.

Here’s a bit off the old Stuff-I-Need list as it relates to the router:

• I use Vonage for phone service. For the past year I have had the Vonage terminal adapter sitting on the Internet, and the wireless router plugs into the TA’s LAN port.
• I’d like to be able to define QoS for a variety of apps, network destinations and service types.
• Security, security, security. It must have a good firewall and the ability to DMZ properly.
• Geekiness, geekiness, geekiness. Plus points for ability to configure and tweak a lot.

Any ideas out there? I’m off to do some research. This will be my Christmas present to myself, if and when I decide to do the replacement. I have a week off from work to catch up on life and things at home, so this is on my list (not at the top, priority-wise, but it’s on there).

Starting point: This Buffalo router looks pretty good.

UPDATE: I tried upgrading to the latest Talisman/SveaSoft firmware, but problems persisted and in fact even got worse. DHCP completely failed and . I removed the router from the network, hooked up to the Vonage TA directly, connected to Linksys.com, and downloaded the latest factory firmware. Once I managed to get that installed, everything seems to be back up and running and looks stable at first glance. But the Linksys firmware, although greatly improved since I last looked at the Linksys factory stuff, doesn’t have the same great options. But I’ll let this run for a while and see if it’s more stable. Fingers crossed. I still want to replace this thing. Thanks for the emails and comments so far. Any more ideas to consider?