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822 Review
57 Karma

Review on πŸ”’ Cisco RV132W Gigabit Ethernet VPN Router with ADSL2+ Wireless-N, Limited Lifetime Protection (Model: RV132W-A-K9-NA) by Zachary Greene

Revainrating 2 out of 5

Not easy to set up compared to other DSL routers, turns off randomly.

I bought a new (previously returned) version of this router to replace a Frontier supplied Arris router which overheated in warmer weather and lost connection due to heat generated by the internal Wi-Fi Has. Crisps. During the initial setup, the router recognizes that I have a DSL connection and then asks if I need to register. Frontier requires a PPPoE login. I enter my username and password, but authorization failed. After spending a lot of time with the DSL settings, it turned out that the only change I needed to make (for the Frontier) was to set the VPI/VCI to 0/35 (the default is 0/ 33 and the "auto" option doesn't work). The connection type should be "Multi-Mode" by default; no other settings will work and it will mess up the DSL signal detection if you try to run the initial setup procedure again. The router only supports 2.4 GHz WiFi. This is a very old design and the web UI is clunky. For example, the Connect button isn't on the page where you edit DSL settings, and it's not on the main status page, but it's almost invisible on one of the other status pages. This router also seems to randomly lose the login connection (not the signaling connection) for DSL and takes up to 2 minutes to reconnect (so I started looking for a manual connect button). It's not due to overheating, but I haven't been able to figure out why it's behaving this way, even after updating the firmware. Connection time from power on to DSL login is almost the same as the Arris model, 3 to 4 minutes. .Cisco recently announced end of life for this product. I replaced this router with a used Motorola MD1600 which is much easier to set up and fully connected to the internet within 90 seconds of turning it on. And so far no random shutdowns.

Pros
  • Not cheap but decent
Cons
  • Nothing