router & internet speed

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I have a D-Link DI-704P router (wired not wireless) for my local network, and connection to broadband internet. No real problems. But I was wondering if there is a chance that it affects the actual upload/download speed on the net. (It does have a built in firewall.)

Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

Al

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Boy, I don’t think I have the “credentials” to say how much, if any, your router has an impact on the rated performance of your ISP, Al. Have you tried one or more of the so-called speed test sites like The Global Broadband Speed Test to see how your ISP throughput looks? I believe my service from Insight is stated as “up to 10 megs” and I believe that to mean megabits per second. I’ve forgotten what the upload side is supposed to be. But here’s a look at one I just ran – what I meant by my initial sentence is that I can’t tell whether this speed is impacted by my router, web traffic OR the performance of my cable service.

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If you really want to have as free-flowing of traffic as possible, you can shut off any firewall that’s on your router’s firmware (though not really recommended, if you’re not wireless, it’s a bit of a non-issue). You could also use in the built in virtual server to port-forward for your specific applications while leaving your firewall in place.

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I would think the answer is “Yes, but not much – perhaps a few %”. You have to have a modem (component) anyway, and the router part just extends flexibility.

But it has the major advantage of being a hardware firewall, and I’d be quite happy with a 20% restriction in speed just to have that! You only have to look at the amount of dross picked up by a software firewall (e.g. ZoneAlarm) when there’s no hardware router in front of it, and compare it with the very few hits received when there is a hardware firewall…

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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Thanks … I’m guessing you are probably right on the %.

Al

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