Hi all,
This would be a longish post about namebench and my tries at getting a modem+router which can run OpenWrt and failing at that.
Sorry for the long leave of absence. A bit of work and laziness at my end apart from equipment failure (read modem+router dead) made sure I didn’t do any blogging.
First up is namebench though. This piece of software comes from Google stable.
The last release was in 2011 though. When it works, it is great. You can see some of the pics at https://code.google.com/p/namebench/ . When the GUI works, it’s great but when it doesn’t you are dumbed down to using the CLI.
Here’s a screenshot how it will look the first time it’s run
This has happened quite a few times, I just filed a bug for it today although don’t know if any action would be taken as upstream is dead and namebench is not so popular according to popcon
There are times when the python-tk (tkinter) library works/is found and that time namebench shows :-
$ namebench
Starting Tk interface for namebench...
* Failed to use GoogleLocAPI: simplejson.scanner.JSONDecodeError Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0) (content:
Error 404 (Not Found)!!1
*{margin:0;padding:0}html,code{font:15px/22px arial,sans-serif}html{background:#fff;color:#222;padding:15px}body{margin:7% auto 0;max-width:390px;min-height:180px;padding:30px 0 15px}* > body{background:url(//www.google.com/images/errors/robot.png) 100% 5px no-repeat;padding-right:205px}p{margin:11px 0 22px;overflow:hidden}ins{color:#777;text-decoration:none}a img{border:0}@media screen and (max-width:772px){body{background:none;margin-top:0;max-width:none;padding-right:0}}#logo{background:url(//www.google.com/images/errors/logo_sm_2.png) no-repeat}@media only screen and (min-resolution:192dpi){#logo{background:url(//www.google.com/images/errors/logo_sm_2_hr.png) no-repeat 0% 0%/100% 100%;-moz-border-image:url(//www.google.com/images/errors/logo_sm_2_hr.png) 0}}@media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:2){#logo{background:url(//www.google.com/images/errors/logo_sm_2_hr.png) no-repeat;-webkit-background-size:100% 100%}}#logo{display:inline-block;height:55px;width:150px}
404. That’s an error.
The requested URL /loc/json was not found on this server. That’s all we know.
)
Failed to get Geodata: socket.timeout timed out
> Reading Top 2,000 Websites (Alexa): /usr/share/namebench/data/alexa-top-2000-domains.txt (0.7MB)
> Reading Cache Latency Test (100% hit): /usr/share/namebench/data/cache-hit.txt (0.1MB)
> Reading Cache Latency Test (100% miss): /usr/share/namebench/data/cache-miss.txt (0.1MB)
> Reading Cache Latency Test (50% hit, 50% miss): /usr/share/namebench/data/cache-mix.txt (0.1MB)
> Reading Chromium: /home/shirish/.config/chromium/Default/History (1.8MB)
> Reading Mozilla Firefox: /home/shirish/.mozilla/firefox/jxa0lboq.default/places.sqlite (40.0MB)
> Running...
> namebench 1.3.1 is ready!
The first part is interesting. I would suggest/argue that GoogleLocAPI has been removed by the Debian Maintainer. There are lots of people (like me) who don’t want to disclose where they are coming from to every tom, dick and harry and from what little I have seen, the data comes and goes in plain-text on port 80. Hence it would be far easier for somebody sitting me and Google to use/interpret for his/her benefit. The rest of the journey is shared below.
The CLI goes something like this :-
$ namebench
- The python-tk (tkinter) library is missing, using the command-line interface.
namebench 1.3.1 - best source (automatic) on 2014-06-18 20:15:17.111025
threads=40/2 queries=250 runs=1 timeout=3.5 health_timeout=3.75 servers=11
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Reading Top 2,000 Websites (Alexa): /usr/share/namebench/data/alexa-top-2000-domains.txt (0.7MB)
- Reading Cache Latency Test (100% hit): /usr/share/namebench/data/cache-hit.txt (0.1MB)
- Reading Cache Latency Test (100% miss): /usr/share/namebench/data/cache-miss.txt (0.1MB)
- Reading Cache Latency Test (50% hit, 50% miss): /usr/share/namebench/data/cache-mix.txt (0.1MB)
- Reading Chromium: /home/shirish/.config/chromium/Default/History (1.8MB)
- Reading Mozilla Firefox: /home/shirish/.mozilla/firefox/jxa0lboq.default/places.sqlite (40.0MB)
- Generating tests from Mozilla Firefox (110379 records, selecting 250 automatic)
- Selecting 250 out of 29012 sanitized records (random mode).
- Checking query interception status...
- Checking connection quality: 1/3...3/3
- Congestion level is 3.52X (check duration: 140.66ms)
- Applied 3.52X timeout multiplier due to congestion: 1.8 ping, 13.2 health.
- Checking latest sanity reference
- Building initial DNS cache for 4515 nameservers (40 threads)
- Checking nameserver availability (40 threads): 0/4515............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Terminated
20:16:46 shirish@debian:~$ namebench
- The python-tk (tkinter) library is missing, using the command-line interface.
namebench 1.3.1 - best source (automatic) on 2014-06-18 20:16:50.395048
threads=40/2 queries=250 runs=1 timeout=3.5 health_timeout=3.75 servers=11
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Reading Top 2,000 Websites (Alexa): /usr/share/namebench/data/alexa-top-2000-domains.txt (0.7MB)
- Reading Cache Latency Test (100% hit): /usr/share/namebench/data/cache-hit.txt (0.1MB)
- Reading Cache Latency Test (100% miss): /usr/share/namebench/data/cache-miss.txt (0.1MB)
- Reading Cache Latency Test (50% hit, 50% miss): /usr/share/namebench/data/cache-mix.txt (0.1MB)
- Reading Chromium: /home/shirish/.config/chromium/Default/History (1.8MB)
- Reading Mozilla Firefox: /home/shirish/.mozilla/firefox/jxa0lboq.default/places.sqlite (40.0MB)
- Generating tests from Mozilla Firefox (110379 records, selecting 250 automatic)
- Selecting 250 out of 29012 sanitized records (random mode).
- Checking query interception status...
- Checking connection quality: 1/3...3/3
- Congestion level is 3.30X (check duration: 132.07ms)
- Applied 3.30X timeout multiplier due to congestion: 1.7 ping, 12.4 health.
- Checking latest sanity reference
- Building initial DNS cache for 4515 nameservers (40 threads)
- Checking nameserver availability (40 threads): 0/4515....
While checking you may get things like these :-
* Unusual error with A:a.root-servers.net. on Telefonica Movistar ES [194.179.001.100]: SyntaxError
This is simply stating a root DNS server is for one reason or the other not accessible to this system.
after sometime all the nameservers have been tried and you get the following :-
4515/4515
- 1020 of 4515 servers are available (duration: 0:10:33.407956)
- Removing secondary nameservers slower than 176.85ms (max=400)
- Running initial health checks on 114 servers (35 threads): 0/114...................37.............62..............89.................112..114/114
- 102 of 114 tested name servers are healthy
- Making Google Public DNS the primary anycast - faster than Google Public DNS-2 [173.194] by 20.46ms
- Making DynGuide [default] the primary anycast - faster than DynGuide-2 [default] by 143.84ms
- Making UltraDNS [213.130] the primary anycast - faster than UltraDNS-2 [4.34] by 86.43ms
- Making OpenDNS-2 [1.hkg] the primary anycast - faster than OpenDNS [9.hkg] by 208.95ms
- Picking 17 secondary servers to use (8 nearest, 9 fastest)
- Waiting for wildcard cache queries from 22 servers (22 threads): 0/22xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx............22/22
- Waiting 4s for TTL's to decrement.
- Running cache-sharing checks on 17 servers (40 threads): 0/272xx!x!xx!..................!x!........................82x!x!...........................x.........................185xxx!...........................x.................271.272/272
- Disabling Google Public DNS-2 [173.194, 173.194] - slower replica of Google Public DNS by 20.5ms.
- Picking 6 secondary servers to use (3 nearest, 3 fastest)
- Parle IN [220.226.206.216] appears to be the nearest regional (24.17ms)
- Running final health checks on 11 servers (11 threads): 0/11........11/11
- All nameservers have warning: www.paypal.com is hijacked: www.paypal.com.akadns.net (likely a false positive)
- All nameservers have warning: www.facebook.com appears incorrect: star.c10r.facebook.com (likely a false positive)
Final list of nameservers considered:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
218.248.255.139 BSNL Broadband 139 49 ms | twitter.com appears incorrect: 199.59.149.230, 199.59.150.7, 199.59.150.39, 199.59.149.198, www.google.com is hijacked: 74.125.68.105, 74.125.68.106, 74.125.68.147, 74.125.68.99, 74.125.68.103, 74.125.68.104
203.115.81.38 PaceNet IN 51 ms | www.google.com is hijacked: 74.125.130.103, 74.125.130.104, 74.125.130.105, 74.125.130.106, 74.125.130.147, 74.125.130.99, twitter.com appears incorrect: 199.59.150.7, 199.59.148.10, 199.59.148.82, 199.59.149.230
218.248.255.146 BSNL Broadband 146 56 ms | twitter.com appears incorrect: 199.59.149.230, 199.59.150.39, 199.59.148.10, 199.59.148.82, www.google.com is hijacked: 74.125.236.212, 74.125.236.208, 74.125.236.209, 74.125.236.210, 74.125.236.211
8.8.8.8 Google Public DNS 61 ms | www.google.com is hijacked: 173.194.36.51, 173.194.36.48, 173.194.36.52, 173.194.36.49, 173.194.36.50, twitter.com appears incorrect: 199.59.148.10, 199.59.150.7, 199.59.150.39, 199.59.149.198, Replica of Google Public DNS-2 [8.8.4.4]
202.138.96.2 Reliance IN 68 ms | twitter.com appears incorrect: 199.59.148.82, 199.59.149.198, 199.59.150.39, 199.59.148.10, www.google.com is hijacked: 74.125.236.179, 74.125.236.180, 74.125.236.176, 74.125.236.177, 74.125.236.178
216.146.35.35 DynGuide 127 ms | NXDOMAIN Hijacking, twitter.com appears incorrect: 199.59.149.198, 199.59.149.230, 199.59.148.82, 199.59.150.39, www.google.com is hijacked: 74.125.135.103, 74.125.135.147, 74.125.135.106, 74.125.135.105, 74.125.135.99, 74.125.135.104
218.248.240.181 BSNL Broadband 181 155 ms | google.com appears incorrect: 173.194.117.41, 173.194.117.46, 173.194.117.32, 173.194.117.33, 173.194.117.34, 173.194.117.35, 173.194.117.36, 173.194.117.37, 173.194.117.38, 173.194.117.39, 173.194.117.40, twitter.com appears incorrect: 199.59.148.10, 199.59.148.82, 199.59.150.7, 199.59.150.39, www.google.com is hijacked: 173.194.117.50, 173.194.117.51, 173.194.117.52, 173.194.117.48, 173.194.117.49
156.154.70.1 UltraDNS 160 ms | twitter.com appears incorrect: 199.59.150.39, 199.59.148.10, 199.59.149.230, 199.59.150.7, NXDOMAIN Hijacking, www.google.com is hijacked: 173.194.117.48, 173.194.117.49, 173.194.117.51, 173.194.117.52, 173.194.117.50
208.67.222.222 OpenDNS-2 172 ms | www.google.com is hijacked: 74.125.236.113, 74.125.236.114, 74.125.236.115, 74.125.236.112, 74.125.236.116, twitter.com appears incorrect: 199.59.149.230, 199.59.149.198, 199.59.148.10, 199.59.150.39
220.226.206.216 Parle IN 1730ms | twitter.com appears incorrect: 199.59.149.198, 199.59.149.230, 199.59.148.82, 199.59.150.7, www.google.com is hijacked: 74.125.236.80, 74.125.236.84, 74.125.236.81, 74.125.236.83, 74.125.236.82
192.168.1.1 Internal 192-1-1 3389ms | Replica of 203.124.230.12, www.google.com is hijacked: 74.125.236.179, 74.125.236.180, 74.125.236.176, 74.125.236.177, 74.125.236.178, twitter.com appears incorrect: 199.59.150.39, 199.59.148.82, 199.59.149.198, 199.59.149.230
- Sending 250 queries to 11 servers: 0/2750.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................553..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................1105.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................1657............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................2208.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................2750/2750
- Error querying BSNL Broadband 146 IN [218.248.255.146]: www.schoolsplay.org.: Timeout
- Error querying BSNL Broadband 139 IN [218.248.255.139]: forums.debian.net.: Timeout
I have just shared the first couple of threads. What it does is look up all the bookmarks from your primary browser and tries to access it via the nameserver.
At the end of the whole thing this is what you get :-
Fastest individual response (in milliseconds):
----------------------------------------------
Internal 192-1-1 # 1.72782
Google Public DN ######## 22.36295
Parle IN ######## 23.15688
Reliance IN ######### 24.49298
PaceNet IN ######### 24.89185
BSNL Broadband 1 ############ 33.24103
BSNL Broadband 1 ############ 33.31184
BSNL Broadband 1 ############### 43.64491
DynGuide ########################### 78.16601
OpenDNS-2 ##################################### 108.55389
UltraDNS ##################################################### 158.58507
Mean response (in milliseconds):
--------------------------------
Reliance IN ########### 170.25
Internal 192-1-1 ############# 199.65
Google Public DN ############# 206.03
BSNL Broadband 1 ############### 245.66
OpenDNS-2 ################# 268.62
UltraDNS ################## 293.84
DynGuide ########################## 411.14
PaceNet IN ############################## 489.20
Parle IN ########################################### 693.56
BSNL Broadband 1 ##################################################### 861.80
BSNL Broadband 1 ###################################################### 868.59
The final charts that can be browsed via a browser. I cannot seem to embed the charts hence sharing the URLs as a code piece as they are big URLs.
Response Distribution Chart URL (200ms):
----------------------------------------
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=lxy&chs=720x415&chxt=x,y&chg=10,20&chxr=0,0,200|1,0,100&chd=t:0,1,2,14,15,17,19,32,48,60,63,72,76,83,108|0,0,16,22,30,34,39,42,46,50,54,58,62,66,70|0,39,40,41,41,42,43,48,59,77,107|0,0,6,17,25,30,34,38,42,46,49|0,11,12,13,44,45,46,46,47,48,50,52,55,101|0,0,5,16,23,32,44,48,58,62,67,71,74,78|0,54,56,57,57,58,59,60,61,72,77,98,139|0,0,6,13,28,42,48,54,58,62,66,70,74|0,79,81,82,83,84,85,85,87,90,96,107|0,0,8,15,24,32,38,42,48,52,55,59|0,17,17,18,19,20,20,50,77,131|0,0,8,24,35,41,46,50,53,58|0,22,23,23,24,25,26,36,56,93,138|0,0,12,24,38,44,48,52,56,60,65|0,17,17,18,19,20,20,25,53,90,133|0,0,5,19,35,42,46,49,54,57,61|0,12,14,15,15,18,42,81,86,99,120|0,0,12,23,27,30,34,38,42,45,49|0,12,12,13,15,44,57,62,78,86,103|0,0,6,16,20,24,27,32,36,40,43|0,12,13,13,14,15,16,17,28,53,64,68,83,91,110|0,0,4,16,27,37,41,48,52,56,59,63,67,71,74&chco=ff9900,1a00ff,ff00e6,80ff00,00e6ff,fae30a,BE81F7,9f5734,000000,ff0000,3090c0&chxt=x,y,x,y&chxl=2:||Duration+in+ms||3:||%25|&chdl=Internal+192-1-1|DynGuide|Google+Public+DNS|OpenDNS-2|UltraDNS|BSNL+Broadband+139+IN|BSNL+Broadband+146+IN|BSNL+Broadband+181+IN|PaceNet+IN|Parle+IN|Reliance+IN
Response Distribution Chart URL (Full):
---------------------------------------
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=lxy&chs=720x415&chxt=x,y&chg=10,20&chxr=0,0,3500|1,0,100&chd=t:0,0,0,1,1,1,1,2,3,3,4,4,4,5,6,7,7,8,8,10,11,16,60,62|0,0,16,22,30,34,39,42,46,50,54,58,62,66,70,73,77,81,85,88,92,96,99,100|0,2,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,4,6,8,9,9,10,11,12,14,17,18,21,26,30,60,100|0,0,6,17,25,30,34,38,42,46,49,53,57,61,64,68,72,76,79,83,86,90,94,97,100|0,1,1,1,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,6,9,10,12,14,22,100|0,0,5,16,23,32,44,48,58,62,67,71,74,78,82,86,89,93,96,100|0,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,6,8,9,10,10,11,16,21,100|0,0,6,13,28,42,48,54,58,62,66,70,74,78,82,86,89,93,96,100|0,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,6,6,7,7,7,8,9,11,12,14,16,20,100|0,0,8,15,24,32,38,42,48,52,55,59,64,67,71,75,78,82,86,89,93,96,100|0,1,1,1,1,1,1,3,4,7,8,9,9,13,19,75,100|0,0,8,24,35,41,46,50,53,58,61,66,69,73,76,80,100|0,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,5,8,9,9,17,68,100|0,0,12,24,38,44,48,52,56,60,65,68,72,76,80,100|0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,3,5,8,8,8,9,10,15,16,16,17,21,31,100|0,0,5,19,35,42,46,49,54,57,61,65,68,72,76,80,84,88,91,95,98,100|0,1,1,1,1,1,2,5,5,6,7,8,9,14,17,18,19,22,24,26,28,31,36,47,100|0,0,12,23,27,30,34,38,42,45,49,53,56,60,64,68,71,75,78,82,86,89,93,96,100|0,1,1,1,1,2,3,4,4,5,6,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,14,16,18,22,99,100|0,0,6,16,20,24,27,32,36,40,43,47,51,54,58,62,66,69,73,76,80,84,87,100|0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,4,4,5,5,6,7,9,9,10,13,18,100|0,0,4,16,27,37,41,48,52,56,59,63,67,71,74,78,82,86,90,93,97,100&chco=ff9900,1a00ff,ff00e6,80ff00,00e6ff,fae30a,BE81F7,9f5734,000000,ff0000,3090c0&chxt=x,y,x,y&chxl=2:||Duration+in+ms||3:||%25|&chdl=Internal+192-1-1|DynGuide|Google+Public+DNS|OpenDNS-2|UltraDNS|BSNL+Broadband+139+IN|BSNL+Broadband+146+IN|BSNL+Broadband+181+IN|PaceNet+IN|Parle+IN|Reliance+IN
WordPress.com is doing some weird stuff with the URL so please copy and paste it to in some text-editor, make sure there are no spaces or anything and then put it in any browser which understands modern JavaScript (any browser in last 2-3 years should be good enough.)
At the very end I got the following :-
Recommended configuration (fastest + nearest):
----------------------------------------------
nameserver 202.138.96.2 # Reliance IN
nameserver 192.168.1.1 # Internal 192-1-1
nameserver 8.8.8.8 # Google Public DNS
********************************************************************************
In this test, Reliance IN is 17.3%: Faster
********************************************************************************
- Saving report to /tmp/namebench_2014-06-18_2042.html
- Saving detailed results to /tmp/namebench_2014-06-18_2042.csv
As can be seen it’s a good tool but unfortunately seems to be not maintained anymore. The other good thing which I was not aware of was the PARLE nameserver. This one seems to be a new nameserver.
Update: Just found out that a major rewrite/refresh is in the offing. Just saw https://github.com/google/namebench and the developer/contributor is the same person who developed namebench 1.0. It’s good to see he’s working on it. I’ll try the next version and hopefully see how far he has got. The good thing I saw immediately is that he has made DNSSEC support in the resolvers as well.
That’s that for namebench for the moment. I would probably try the trunk version this week-end and see how it stacks up to the older version.
Now the next thing was I had been using my old modem+router DSL-502T for many years when it suddenly decided to kaput. By kaput it didn’t go out but stopped connecting to VPI/VCI 0/35 which meant it couldn’t connect to the ISP. It would sometimes connect and sometimes not.
Now as my ISP is BSNL broadband and their ADSL service has been exemplary for years with disconnections pretty rare, even though their plans have not kept pace with competition I knew that this is probably an issue at my end and not theirs.
After few days of attempting to trouble-shoot at my end and being at wit’s end decided to go to D-Link support where another surprise awaited me. The people I had known at D-Link support were no longer with D-Link but had separated from D-Link around 5-6 years back and since then the company had been bought over by Schneider Electric few years back. I had known the brand Digilink which is/was into structured cabling business since it beginning and had seen D-Link/Digilink or now Schneider factory in Goa from outside. It was only a handful of industries which had prospered in Goa but that’s another story.
Anyway, cutting the chase, went to the D-Link support center in Pune. While I do give full marks to the gentleman who were there, they did seem to lack experience (a bit). This was the first D-Link 502T they had seen even though the center had been operational for last five years or so. Thankfully, both the engineers, Ameya and Mr. Jadhav had time and did time to try to trouble-shoot the issue but to no avail. We saw that trying to restore to factory settings would not work most of the times as the values were being retained. We tried both via the GUI as well manually by inserting a pin in the hole. After trying for couple of hours it was concluded that there is indeed something wrong with the modem+router. As it had lived long beyond its warranty date asked which one they would recommend and they shared D-Link 2730u as well as D-Link 2750u. They also showcased which was minimalistic but had virtually no LED’s (o.k. it had one) . One of the main reasons apart from price while buying the DSL-502T was it had 6-7 LED so at any time you had some idea what was going on even though the LED’s themselves would not give much idea if something was wrong.
Went to market and tried to research different products. The options were D-Link, TP-Link and Netgear. Netgear was out of the options as their prices were sky-high and had read reports as well as had bad reviews from friends. So that was out. TP-Link could have been but as I visited the local official vendor was put off by the attitude of the salesperson and their support policies. Also the model I was looking for, TD-W8970 will not be available for another couple of weeks and the price they quoted was around Rs. 5k/- . There were couple of things in its favor, it had gigabit ports (although in my SOHO scheme it wouldn’t have mattered much), dual-band (2.4 GHz and 5 Ghz, again nice but not a killer feature in my setup) and finally support for OpenWRT. As the expected/quoted price was too high, availability of 1-2 weeks and the behavior of the shop-keeper my only option was D-Link even though I wanted to try another vendor.
The price quoted for D-Link 2730u and D-Link 2750u were Rs. 2200/- and Rs. 2400/- . As the difference was quite small, opted for D-Link 2750u. One thing in its favor was the vendor DCC had been extremely supportive of me in past. So bought the device and even went to support to see if it was not a 0day dud. Although rare, you sometimes get products which do not function. Even though they didn’t have a DSL connection, they did have a look at it in the sense of hooking the Ethernet line to the modem to see if 192.168.1.1 was accessible and it worked.
This is how it looks from the outside :-
Then bringing to my end, I was pleased to find several things they had fixed while several new things I saw that needed to be fixed :-
a. One of the first things they had fixed was having a power-off button. As the power adaptor of DSL-502T was quite heavy, I used to remove the other end when not using the modem+router. Having a power-off meant not having a ugly hack which I was using.
b. The LED’s themselves are multi-colored (or they be may be more inside). As the warranty is of 36 months and don’t wanna void it, haven’t opened it. There seems to be three states therein: Red, Orange and then Green. It certainly made my job far easier to trouble-shoot than before and this was known as I made an inadvertent mistake. While trying different things, I changed the username which had two letters short and I was unable to login. As I had no ping, I also saw a red LED staring at me from Internet symbol. Once I put the right credentials, it started being green and I was able to carry on with my work.
c. Doing changes doesn’t need MS-Windows/Internet Explorer anymore. I had to keep an MS-Windows machine and IE. While I could access the web-server and web-pages at whatever I had configured the web-server I had to use IE to make the changes. Now that I can use either Mozilla Firefox or Chromium and do make any changes permanent, the need for MS-Windows and IE is gone. Both of them memory hogs with IE being particularly deficient. This is a big plus for me.
d. The power adaptor is half the size of the old adaptor. I *think* it means lower power needed even though the functionality is more than doubled.
e. Has four Ethernet ports rather than just one which DSL-502T had. Although four ports seem to have become standard fare for this sort of thing.
f. It doesn’t get too much hot compared to DSL-502T which used to get hot very quickly.
In the older model if the modem had been running a while, say 10-15 minutes and if it lost the connection (rare but happens/used to happen) I had to wait between 10-15 minutes or even more for the modem to cool down before I could retry again. This has apparently been taken care of.
g. There is a guest mode for the wireless. While I have closed Wireless access as have no need for it now, it was good to see that there is a guest mode. If I do have actual guests will try and share how far one is able to get signals in some $future blog post. The point of guest mode is they don’t see the internal network connected. As somebody who’s committed to privacy, it’s a good thing.
So while there are good things, there are things they could improve upon :-
a. Unbranded Ethernet cable :- The cable which came in the box was an unbranded cable. I never trust unbranded cables as had bad experiences with them. While I am still using the last D-Link cable and it has worked till date, it would have been better if they had stuck with using their own cable or anything. For a company who I think stands for quality this is a big short-coming.
b. Detachable antennas :- I didn’t read it fully. While almost everybody else is giving detachable antenna’s why doesn’t D-Link? It would make that box so much easier to use anywhere as it would reduce the size.
c. Another sticker :- It would have been nice to have another stop sticker. Most of the people who would buy one of these things would use one or at the most two ports. It would have been better to have a sticker by which I could hide the rest of the ports from the dust that is in Pune.Dust is corrosive to all and any sort of electronic equipment.
d. Meaningful specs are not there :- It was only sometime later when I was accessing the internals did I understand what the actual specs of the modem were. Rather than me going into it, my friend’s Yogesh Chavan’s find a URL link would give more info. into it
http://www.foxnetwork.ru/index.php/en/component/content/article/115-d-link-dsl-2750u.html
The only difference I can find between the two looks-wise is that while the Russian looks ugly, it looks much sturdier than the one here. Notice the added number of air-holes, the indian version has lesser. Also the UI is pretty different from the version here but then that is over 2 years old review, the firmware I have is Firmware Version:IN_1.08 while the one reviewed has 1.0 at that time. I also realized that the guest mode was a recent addition, as recent as in February of this year.
Am I happy with the product I have ? No, would have loved to have something on which I could get OpenWRT and try to play with it but in absence of that, this is o.k. It does have busybox of last year and it might be hackable, just its low RAM (just 8 MB) doesn’t give me much to play with.
All of which would happen in 3 years from now when the warranty will naturally lapse. Then opening the kit and looking on the inside is not an issue.
Till l8er.
Experiences in the community 
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