Asus DSL-N17U Wireless N300 Router ReviewMy owners review of the Asus DSL-N17U Wireless N300 ADSL2+ Router which replaces my ancient and failing Draytek Vigor 2600w.
My current ADSL router is a Draytek Vigor 2600w, over ten years old and has worked flawlessly until recently. The only downside was that it didn't support secure VPN connections. When the Draytek packed in, I had to use the router provided by my ISP, which was a horrible experience.
I quickly began the hunt for a new router that supported a secure VPN server, port forwarding, and guest wireless networks, and I settled on the Asus DSL-N17U.
When looking around for suitable replacements, there wasn't much competition for wireless routers supporting ADSL2+, VPN servers, port forwarding and guest WiFi networks. The Asus DSL-N17U was half the price of the other router, which supported my requirements, so that made my decision an easy one.
With the VPN (virtual private network) server and VPN client, you can access your home network remotely or surf the internet with encryption. I plan on using this to connect my smartphone via VPN for a more secure browsing experience on corporate and public WiFi connections.
The key features of the Asus DSL-N17U Wireless N300 Router include:
- Dual band 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi
- 4x Gigabit Ethernet
- 1x Gigabit WAN
- VDSL2 modem
- WPS, WPA/WPA2 security
- 2x USB 2.0
- AiCloud media sharing
Out of the box, the router is very stylish. Much more so than the traditional slab with wires hanging out. It's good enough to put on display.
The web interface was the first thing I noticed after connecting all the cables and turning them on. It's all nice and pretty looking, but it is slow. It takes over a minute to save settings. It took a while to configure the ADSL connection, set up WiFi and guest WiFi, configure the VPN server and add my webserver to the port forward list.
There are many ports on the back. 4 1000/100 Mbps LAN ports, two USB 2.0, the ADSL modem port and the power supply. These are all standard.
Once the initial setup is all done, the router is forgotten. It just sits up on the shelf, quietly getting on with doing routery things. I've not needed to reboot or reset it since the initial configuration four months ago.
The WiFi is really strong compared with the Draytek and ISP router. Rooms I couldn't get WiFi in were now on half signal, and the rest of the house was on full signal. WiFi speed is also much faster and allows streaming of movies over WiFi from my Plex Media Server to my iPad or Chromecast, something that the Draytek had trouble with and the ISP router failed on.
If you have many visitors to your home who want WiFi, you can set up a Guest WiFi network that does not have access to the main WiFi or Ethernet connections. I can protect my data better and prevent unauthorised access to my desktop and NAS.
The built-in firewall has much functionality, as a few tabs in the web interface allow you to configure everything there. As with the rest of the setup and configuration, it's set and forget. The only thing I want missing is a hostname blocklist to prevent access to ad servers and malware at the DNS stage. It's not a show-stopper, though, as I can do the same thing from a host file on each machine.
Overall, this is a great router for the money and a massive step up in performance and functionality over the standard free routers from the ISP. Everybody should upgrade from the ISP-provided router for faster internet speeds, WiFi performance and range, and enhanced security features.
Asus DSL-N17U Defaults
It is useful to note down the defaults for getting into the router if I have to do a factory reset and can't find the paperwork.
These are the default settings for getting into a freshly reset router.
Default IP address: 192.168.1.1 Default admin username: admin Default admin password: admin
