I’ve been wanting to buy a new router for a while and well since I was being asked what I wanted for gift’s, I thought the router might be a good idea.
The model I am going to be talking about is the TP-Link N600 TD-W8980 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit ADSL2+ Modem Router.
It’s not a bad router, however it does lack some features in my opinion. A feature I noticed lacking is static dns assignments, in addition I think the Parental Controls need a going over. It would be nice to have the Parental Controls enabled for more than 4 different MAC Addresses, in addition to also being able to have them turned on without having to also define URL’s that are allowed. I would like the option to have just time periods where those devices cannot use the internet and/or also have the URL feature defined in a different way. i.e. black list URL’s vs white list URL’s (or turn URL controls off completely).
The status page should also include packet statistics for all interfaces on the router, bit like the Billion 7800NL that it replaced.
I’d also have to say that the Bandwidth Control needs enhancement also, as I found my Billion 7800NL to be a lot better in how it was configured, however we will see how the rules i have defined go on the unit.
Still a good purchase based on the price the TP-Link unit goes for, and I now have a EWAN port available should we ever get any other sort of internet connectivity in the future.