[GLLUG] If you were looking for a router tomorrow or later this year, what would you be looking at?

[Don Bosman]

Hello from another lurker.

While the old blue Linksys wireless routers running third party software 
have been great and still work well, what current or near current 
product would you be looking for today or sometime this year?
I'm prepared to run two routers. One wired and one wireless running as 
just an access point. Two story house with basement, about 700 square 
feet per floor. No easy wire access from basement to second floor. 
Currently we have DLS via PPOE.

I need wireless and wired ports (basement workshop/sandbox is going to 
be on gig switch shortly), support for my sons (plural) X-Box 360, Wii, 
Sony PSP, Eee PC running Linux, Linux boxes and Windows boxes. Except 
for being the smallest house in a nice neighborhood, pretty much a 
standard house with 4th, 8th and 11th grade kids.

Built in support for a NAS would be nice.
Support for my kids friends to have short term wireless access for their 
PSPs and notebooks would be good.
   I'm thinking monthly pass phrase changes, but something simpler and 
at least semi automatic would be desirable.
Low power consumption is a must, and above all - reliability. I'm 
thinking SD card for boot if I assemble something.

And I'd like to keep the out of pocket around $200.00. A lot less would 
be nice. I do have three kids to feed.
One example - using current products - is a wired Linksys Cable/DSL 
router, one Linksys wireless running Tomato for high security access for 
family and another Linksys wireless box running nearly wide open.