The Linksys WRT54G line of wireless broadband routers and its competitors, may be the bargain of the 21st century when combined with DD-WRT \u2014 Broadcom-chip-based open source firmware.<\/b><\/p>\n
by Carla Schroder<\/b><\/p>\n
Looking to supercharge your cheap blue box? The Linksys\u00a0WRT54G<\/a>\u00a0line of wireless broadband routers and its competitors, may be the bargain of the 21st century when combined with DD-WRT \u2014 Broadcom-chip-based open source firmware.<\/p>\n The bargain of the century is the Links WRT54G line of wireless broadband routers and its many rivals: Buffalo WHR-G54S, ASUS WL-520g, Belkin F5D7230-4 and others. These little four-port boxes will set you back less than $100, and some are even less than $50. On their own, they’re not much to get excited about \u2014 they’re just inexpensive, consumer-oriented broadband routers with fair-to-middling firmware. But you can turn your cheapie box into a $500 powerhouse by replacing the stock firmware with\u00a0DD-WRT<\/a>.<\/p>\n DD-WRT is Broadcom-chip-based open source firmware written for 802.11g wireless routers. Although it’s designed to fit on dinky devices with as little as 4 megabytes of storage and 16 megabytes RAM, it’s a feature-filled powerhouse. Among its many capabilities include the following:<\/p>\n And, of course, bales of more useful stuff. DD-WRT comes in several free-of-cost editions with different features. Commercially supported versions are available as well. The commercial edition has additional features, like per-user bandwidth control and\u00a0PPPOE<\/a>-Relay. The developers will also contract for custom work.<\/p>\n\n