We recently got a Linksys RV042 Dual Wan Router from MicroOptech Davao City, if you’re looking for a good computer shop that finds items for you outside Davao, this is the one. It only took them “TWO” (2) days to get it for us together with a 3com 24-ports 10/100 Mbps LAN Switch! I also purchased some of my computer’s parts here but I will post about it later. I also included a 5-step guide to installing and the configuration of this router, it can be found in the last part of the post.

Anyway about this router: It certainly is a must have for those small businesses who should not have any downtime especially SEO companies that rely on the internet to survive. Very easy to install and manage plus you can have two of these to join two separate networks that are in different locations through it’s VPN system. I enjoyed speeds reaching upto 650KBps per second using this router, this speed was achieved trough load-balancing wherein our two ISPs (one is 3.0Mbps the other is 2.7Mbps) joined forces to quickly get me a copy of Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2008. Not only is this router good but its manufacturer is a partner of Cisco Networking Systems.

These reasons are my opinions on why you should go into Dual-WAN setup rather than a single line:

1.) Two 5 mBps lines will always be better than one 10 mBps line, The reason why is that most ISPs limit the number of connections you can have to certain access point/file so for example you have a download utilizing 5 connections, with Dual-WAN you can have double this number and thus you can reach higher speeds.

2.) You’ll always have a backup line if one goes down.

These reasons are my opinions on why you should NOT go into Dual-WAN setup rather than a single line:

1.) Some websites will detect IP change so if you have a Dual-WAN connection the website will see you as being in two places per session, This is concurrent of DOS attack and you might get logged out of the site due to this.** As a remedy to the above situation I recommend a line that has higher bandwidth than the other, this way the RV042 will use that line always and when the load is not balanced it will automatically go to the other connection thus solving the interchanging IP problem

My Linksys RV042 Dual-Wan Router/ PLDT DSL Modem/Globe DSL Modem and Linksys SipuraSPA VOIP Office Short Layout Video

* This setup places the router in two wan connections, 1 VOIP Modem and is connected to our main switch which is located inside the cabinet. I recommend installing a little fan if the area is a bit hot, A hot router, regardless of brand, will not produce good speeds.

These are five easy steps to do when deploying this router in dual wan mode:

1.) Connect one at a time the two DSL Routers to your PC and configure them to become stand-alone bridges if their connection type is PPPoE. This is the only hard part that you will have to do in this setup. If you’re given a static IP by your ISP it would be much easier then.

2.) Connect the RV042 to your computer temporarily and access http://192.168.0.1 through a browser, if this does not work try accessing http://192.168.1.1/. This should display the router’s configuration page.

3.) Go to Cisco’s website here. Download the appropriate firmware, To do the upgrade go to System Management -> Firmware Upgrade. The reason why this is a must have is because there are a lot of fixes that have happened since the router was initially launched, I will not go into the details but I will require that you do this update before proceeding! A lot of people have not done this and have problems configuring the router usually in VPN.

4.) After the firmware update, connect your two DSL Modems to the WAN 1, DMZ / WAN 2 Lan ports, configure the two WAN connections in the Setup -> Network page of the RV042. It should be located below and should not be that hard to setup because your ISP should provide the details for it, I recommend leaving the “Service Name” fields empty in PPPoE, this caused me five days of figuring out why the router cannot dial one of the lines. This was caused by a Siemens SpeedStream Modem, this modem is good but it’ll kill you if you don’t know how to set it up as a bridge. Also check the setting for Load Balance under System Management->Dual-WAN, should you wish to use only one line/connection and keep the other as a backup when it goes off-line or down, select the Smart Link Backup setting. If you want to do a setup like mine where the two lines will be used simultaneously, select the Load Balance setting.

5.) Test the two connections System Summary Page of the RV042, The connections should light up in the image as light green and if you have connected successfully, Go to the System Management -> Dual-WAN and select Load Balancing to fully utilize both WAN ports of the RV042, and we are done, enjoy the immense speeds of this setup!

If you have any trouble at all setting up this router please add a comment and tell me about it! c(”,)

Update 06/26/08: Tip on DSL Modems and the Linksys RV042 Router

1.) Always check the System Log of your Linksys RV042 router! : I’ve never really noticed this until I realized one day that my Skype IM was always reconnecting, I then studied the router logs and noticed that one of the modems were experiencing intermittent connections. It kept disconnecting every 5-10 minutes! It took so much time troubleshooting, the ISP even had to replace the telephone wire that leads to the modem, and the problem was narrowed down to the DSL Modem and it got replaced. Lesson learned!, always check the System Log of the RV042 when it is in load balancing mode. The reason we won’t notice the intermittent connection is because there are two connections and the RV042 is great at load balancing when one goes down. What it does is that it automatically tries to reconnect that connection and if successful proceeds to balance the load again. Due to this you will not be able to see clear signs that there is something wrong.