Tag Archives: Cisco

Should I buy “ease of setup” Cisco Valet router or “smart router which can get more things done with ease of setup” aka Fon 2.0N .

I’m not writing a PR for Fon 2.0N nor this is a marketing blog for Fonera. I’m working on home automation on a tighet budget and have been looking at various devices and saw the video from cisco valet routers and after reading through the specifications , I had this question: why buy Cisco Valet routers when you can do the same and get more things done for lesser price . I’m talking about the Fon 2.0N router from Fonera . I’m an happy Fon 2.0N user for over 8 months and the setup is a breeze so it should satisfy the networking newbies as well (defaults works as well ) and can create seperate network for outsiders/guests (meaning no need to share you private wireless SSID/WEP keys). So question is why someone should 150$ for just “ease of setup”.. Fon works on opensource and also downloads torrents, converts 3G to Wifi, is media/print server, can handle youtube/picasa/megaupload/rapidshare . It actually serves large audience including newbies/geeks/students/wireless enthusiasts .

check this link from networkworld newsletter where the author tells that linksys E-series routers from cisco itself does all the above with lesser price tag..Even then, Fon 2.0N should be a better choice.

Looks like Cisco is trying to appeal consumers with “ease of setup” as their pitch…but will they succeed or will this be yet another router from cisco…?

What I have to admit is, I liked the product design and from what I have seen, they seem to have avoided the usage of technical terms including “router” and they use wireless hot spots/internet access which helps many users though… Since I haven’t tried the router hands-on and my impression was based on the router specs and videos from cisco, I might be wrong as well. If anyone has hands-on experience , let me know or let me know if I’m missing something