D-Link DI-624 AirPlus ExtremeG Wireless Router

See also:

• Various hardware notes
  

The DI-624 is a Wireless Broadband Router for home networking and small business networking.

Besides the usual feature set for consumer-oriented broadband routers it supports a feature known as "full cone NAT", sometimes also referred to as "game friendly" NAT. It can be enabled or disabled from the router web interface under Tools / Misc. / Gaming Mode.

Computers on a LAN behind a broadband router use local IP addresses, which the router multiplexes onto the ISP-assigned public IP address seen by the outside world by translating IP and port addresses on the fly (Network Address Translation). Most routers perform this translation in a way that only allow you to send a request to a server and get back a response. For peer to peer applications such as VoIP, Skype, screen sharing and file transfer, more flexibility is required. The availability of full-cone NAT will make it easy to establish peer to peer connections with other computers on the Internet in such situations.

It's hard to get information about what routers will support what type of NAT, but if you're looking for a low cost "full cone NAT" router, the DI-624 is a possible candidate. My experience with it so far has been somewhat mixed. The first thing I did when it arrived was to upgrade the firmware to 4.03 (Firmware Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006).

I do get the occasional spontanous reboot of the device, which breaks all FTP, ssh, etc. connections active at the time. Some people have stated that these reboots can be avoided by disabling the wireless part of the router, but unfortunately that is a feature I require.

Last update: 2008-08-23

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