The best routers for Qos, etc.?

[TSellers]

Recently my Asus RT-N15 router starts to grind to a halt over the course of a day, and has to be rebooted every few hours to avoid this. So it looks like I will be searching for a new router. Doing some research on the Asus, I learn that it, as well as many others, only have Qos settings that apply to your uplink, and not down. In fact I think I experienced evidence of that when I made a call on my FPL line and was downloading and uploading some torrents at the same time. The person that I was talking to was fading in and out at times, but he said that he could hear my clearly at all times. I assumed that's because Qos was throttling the uploads, but not doing anything about the downloads.

It appears that it's worth it to invest in the best router you can if you are using VOIP, especially one that has a well implemented Qos. Does anyone have any recommendations as to the best routers for this?

[FONGO_steve]

I'm using the D-Link DGL-4500 right now, it's automatic QoS is wonderful! In addition to heavily using my VOIP, I'm also downloading/uploading large amounts of files for my studio on a daily basis, never have any issues, and never done any port forwarding to make things work.

Similarly, we have the D-Link DGL-4300 on another network in the house, also with VOIP, also without issue (same general firmware, just wireless G)

If those are out of your budget, I believe the D-Link X-Treme N wireless router has very similar auto QoS.

But you are correct, for VOIP/Downloading, spending the extra money on a good router is well worth it in the long run. Better performance and less headache.

[TSellers]

Thanks Steve,

It seems that every D-Link product I've owned has ended up in the garbage bin just after warranty expired, and a former reseller of hardware, I've had a lot of them.

However, having said that, and after getting your recommendation and reading some other reviews, I should consider it, most of the Canadian Onlie site are presently selling it for $159.00.

Some of the more negative reviews, such as this have me somewhat concerned because I have a lot of machines on the network:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Utter Garbage - 7/14/2009 10:46:43 PM
Reviewer: Keith
Location: Calgary
1 / 5

Strength:
Ease of setup

Weakness:
Large amounts of network collisions with multiple computers on the network.

When two or more machines are on the network gaming ping times are in excess of 400ms.

Summary:
I have had dlink products for over 8 years now, I bought this router just before Christmas all the ports failed within a month. After spending $12 for shipping I got my new router.
The new router was fine for about a month, all of a sudden network ping times were in excess of 400ms spiking to 800+ ms. I sold this piece of junk on one of the used internet sights and bought a NETGEAR wireless router and have had no trouble since. Check the news groups a lot of other people have the same issues.

[FONGO_steve]

Thanks Steve,

It seems that every D-Link product I've owned has ended up in the garbage bin just after warranty expired, and a former reseller of hardware, I've had a lot of them.

However, having said that, and after getting your recommendation and reading some other reviews, I should consider it, most of the Canadian Onlie site are presently selling it for $159.00.

Some of the more negative reviews, such as this have me somewhat concerned because I have a lot of machines on the network:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Utter Garbage - 7/14/2009 10:46:43 PM
Reviewer: Keith
Location: Calgary
1 / 5

Strength:
Ease of setup

Weakness:
Large amounts of network collisions with multiple computers on the network.

When two or more machines are on the network gaming ping times are in excess of 400ms.

Summary:
I have had dlink products for over 8 years now, I bought this router just before Christmas all the ports failed within a month. After spending $12 for shipping I got my new router.
The new router was fine for about a month, all of a sudden network ping times were in excess of 400ms spiking to 800+ ms. I sold this piece of junk on one of the used internet sights and bought a NETGEAR wireless router and have had no trouble since. Check the news groups a lot of other people have the same issues.

I saw a bunch of those reviews too - did make me a little hesitant as well, because it's definitely not a cheap router. I had good luck with the slightly older DGL-4300, so I took the dive with the DGL-4500. So far so good! But it's up to you in the end, I don't want to be held responsible if I'm having abnormally good luck with it over others

Edit: I know Buffalo makes a wireless N router with some form of auto QoS as well, but I'm unsure if that works for VOIP or just streaming video/audio. Might be worth looking into and/or inquiring with them about.