Harley

Perfect example here - OK it's a bit Japanese (doh-bots), but you get the idea. This thing sells for a massive £150 more than the standard router.

You are a network engineer so you have a very good understanding of the inner workings of a router. But the average person does not, and doesn't want to spend the time messing about. They want a plug in solution that is easy to understand. Don't forget that many people are simply not technically minded and no matter how many books you give them they simply will not grasp the fundamentals. A gaming router is an out of the box solution that gives them what they want. I mean, honestly, don't you think it's a bit crazy to expect people to "read up" on networking to configure their router? I am really puzzled by your comment that ping can't be reduced. I guess you never read about Adaptive QOS at college then! I mean this is a fundamental for gaming in a modern (busy) home network, yet it is something you certainly do not find in every router. It's called Buffer Bloat or Congestion Control in the DumaOS routers. Thing is about Adaptive QOS is the router MUST recognise the high priority traffic and a DumaOS router will thanks to the list of games it recognises. That's what makes it a gaming router and it's also why a Cisco router is not. I have hundreds of games. It is far more valuable to me that my router recognises all of these games "off the shelf" rather than having to "teach" a Cisco router how. In my case my latency was 2ms to my ISP. That collapsed to 200ms when the connection was seriously busy. I might add that it was the XR1000 and DumaOS that told me about that problem. I think you will know that's useless for gaming. I ticked ONE TICK BOX on the XR1000 DumaOS router and it dropped to 12ms. THAT is what I want. No books. No fumbling. Five seconds and a huge improvement in performance. The key thing in that process was that DumaOS recognised I was gaming without me having to do anything - a Cisco Router will not do that. It doesn't stop there, either, there are features in DumaOS that simply are not in a Cisco router. Finally, I like a product to look like a home product, not something that fell out the back of a data center with a plate of spaghetti hanging out the front. If you like that look, then fine, buy that look, but please don't criticise my choices! And certainly do not imply that my choices indicate a lack of gaming skill. That's just cheap, elitist nonsense.

Hence force you shall be known as DOOM! NetDoomer Fraser. Yep I think it would be good to have optional plug in aerials, lol. But the upright concept seems to be one that is gaining popularity. I guess it all comes down to where people put them, but the smaller footprint seems to appeal to many.

I'd like to see vertical routers. Can you imagine it? You could make them all sci-fi, like a neon building. I mean the idea of course comes from the Alien. Not a product I would actually buy, but if DumaOS was in it it would be a different story. But their design is BORING compared to what I would do, lol. You could even build the router in to various sculptures of characters. Awesome!

SATAN BE GONE! *burns your forehead with my silver cross* May God strike down this foul purveyor of bling-blasphemy!

I was considering this again yesterday. I had a chance to test out an ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000. What a miserable looking thing it is. Unpainted plastic with the looks and style of a household brick. I mean seriously. And yet it is a really expensive router. The XR700 beats it hands down. Plenty of informative LEDs, a nice metallic painted finish. Good looks a go faster red stripe! Even the XR1000, which is pretty good, can't compete with the older routers. Why is it routers are just getting cheaper and cheaper looking?

OMG more bling please! Have you noticed the way routers are getting more and more cheap looking while computers are getting more and more arty? Even some seriously expensive routers latest gen just look so cheap. More LEDs and more decent painted finishes! Yes, I know, this isn't the operating system, but really, you are underselling your product. We want bling!

I just checked QOS on mine and it seems to be working fine. The thing I would check is are you sure the router is detecting the game? Look for the "LEDs" in the user interface lighting up to see if it is detecting high priority traffic.

I agree with that. Just to counter some of the negative posts, I have had an XR1000 now for about six months and have yet only encountered minor issues. I am sure that forums like this one are hounded by people who have specific application problems but those people are in very small numbers.

I have made a new post about this with some screenshots and additional problems ( hence why I started a new thread ).

Ah it's OK, it was confused. I rebooted it and it sorted it out. That is something I find with these routers, the network map can go a little crazy.

Two IPv4. It was strange. It had two devices online. One had the ip 192.168.1.12, 192.168.1.13 and the second device was 192.168.1.12 There was also one PC that didn't show up at all. In the end I rebooted the PC and the problem seems to have gone. I wonder though, should there be some sort of reboot or rest button on the map?

to make matters worse, one of the IP addresses is that of a different PC. I don't understand how that could happen

Mind you, with BT shutting down all the exchanges in the very near future, there is bound to be larger demand for voip. Not just with Zen, but all of them.

Apparently no other router works with Zen "Digital Voice" so it would be a real boost if Netduma did!

Well no because the support staff were really unhappy that people could not use their own routers. They indicated to me that they get a lot of complaints about it.

One thing I would worry about though is that I spent all day talking to Zen support ( and as far as support is concerned they are good ) and to other forums, and not once did anyone suggest using both routers.

I prefer that too. No point in making things too complicated!

I didn't know it was possible to do that. Too late now though, I have already bought an ATA and will arrange to use a different VOIP service. It's always a future option though. I guess the advantage is that the XR1000 gets to be first now!

How is that configured? I mean you have two routers on one internet connection.

That's fascinating.

It is Zen Internets Digital Voice. I spoke to them at length and much as though they would like it to work on something other than Fritzbox, it doesn't. Also I very much suspect that this may be based on BT's Digital Voice since BT seem to indicate ( but won't exactly admit that ) they have the same issue with their service. What I have had to do is order the fiber from Zen and the voice from a completely different company that works with a Cisco ATA, so that I can continue using the Netgear. Thing is I can imagine a lot of folks won't do that.

Incidentally, Netduma, you should be listening to this. There could well be a lot of potential customers lost because people can only use their ISP routers.

That sort of went woosh over my head. I think the only solution is to find another company for the voip, but I have no idea where to start. The problem is that voip seems to be largely a business thing in the UK and no one really seems geared up for what is about to happen with BT.

I don't mind a paid service but one that is pretty cheap. I mean it is typical of BT really to just stop a service and provide absolutely no replacement. OR perhaps there are other ISP's that allow me to use the Netgear and an ATA?