How can I get a E3000 or E4200 to manage more than 5 devices

[markeastwood]

How can I get a E3000 or E4200 to manage more than 5 devices? Come on Cisco, lets get real. EVERYONE has more than 5 devices to manage. The average family of 4 has 3 or 4 computers, 4 smart phones and at least a couple of tablets and maybe some TV or game consoles. Setting access control policies is a must for anyone who is a parent.

Does anyone know of a good router that has a reasonable set of access control features? I've always loved Cisco up to this point, but I'm frustrated by this significant limitation.

[forsaken]

The Parental Controls feature allows you to restrict Internet access for some users within your network.  Specifically, you can block Internet access for up to five (5) users. Some wireless-N routers do not have a built-in Parental Controls feature. The Linksys E4200 v1 and E1200 v2 access features offer both Internet Access Policy and Parental controls.

Here is the link for setting up Access Restrictions on a Linksys router: http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/ukp.aspx?vw=1&docid=20b29e54474a4a17aff594cb659747ea_4041.xml&pid=80&r...

[northbanker]

Fuggedaboutit.  Cisco apparently has retreated from the more advanced Internet Access Policy (IAP) to leave users with their paltry Parental Controls (PC) instead.  For example the E4200v1 had IAP+PC, and the E4200v2 has only PC.

And good luck trying to find a E4200v1.  I spent the last week, ordered 3 of them from different sources, and every one of them was a V2 inside of a V1 box, even the last one I ordered directly from Linksys!

That's a very bizarre marketing scam they're pulling there.  The sad thing is that I actually want to keep using their product line, but they are doing their best to push me away.

I too am now regrouping and looking for a competitor who does 2 things well:

  (A) High performing dual-band wireless access point, w/ pswd-protected guest-mode

  (B) Reliable & fairly full-featured Internet access control (parental control)

My basic requirements for "B" are:

  (1) Allow restrictions by IP or better yet MAC address (Cisco PC's hostname list didn't work for me)

  (2) Device list of at least 12 devices (obviously family size varies but Cisco's 5 is a joke)

  (3) Restricty by days of week and time of day (hourly or half-hourly would be nice)

  (4) Restrict by URL's and keywords, at least 12 per device or policy/rule

I wonder if there's a home router whose stock OS, meets these requirements.  Otherwise I may have to look into using DD-WRT or similar.

[markeastwood]

So you're telling me Cisco isn't even trying to provide adiquate parental controls for their home/SOHO products. That's a shame and will drive me to a competator's product assuming I can find one. I saw a post that basically said "we don't care" because you shouldn't try to manage more than 5 devices in a home/SOHO.

Somone hasn't read the news lately to understand that even the smallest families have multiple IP devices to manage such as a desktop, an iPad and a iPod or their Android equlivalents... and that's for each member of the family. A simplistic example is a family of 4 having about 16 devices to manage. I'm oficially shopping for a Cisco replacement....

[markeastwood]

There is no "address restrictions" tab on the E3000... 



[northbanker]

As per this article 24957, the E3000 is supposed to have Access Restrictions: Internet Access Policy http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/ukp.aspx?pid=80&vw=1&articleid=24957

I wonder if there's a newer firmware for the E3000 that included IAP?  Where did you get that screenshot... from your own E3000 router?

Inadvertently you have given me a new idea for myself... it didn't sink in before that the E3000 supposedly does IAP... if it's not bad, maybe I'd go back to Cisco's previous generation routers and try an E3000?

Kinda backwards in more than one way, but if IAP worked... maybe.  For $90 maybe worth a try?!

[markeastwood]

I haven't checked for firmware updates lately, I will do that tonight. Yes, I took that screenshot live by logging into the router earlier today. That's my live E3000. I used to run the Cisco connect software on my Mac but they never upgraded it for the latest version of OS X.

[northbanker]

I've heard that some of the E-series routers require you to use Cisco Connect in order to manage the complete feature set.  Maybe that's why Access Restrictions isn't showing on your E3000's web GUI?

Frankly I always use the web GUI and have zero interest in using Cisco Connect, so I'd like to know if that's true for the E3000.

Keep us posted as to what you find out.

[markeastwood]

Circumstantially I think its true that the web-GUI provides less functionality than Cisco Connect... Because I WAS able to run Cisco Connect on Snow Leopard and it stopped working with Lion... I had been able to get to the 5 machines to manage for parental controls, but kept looking for how to configure more.

Whatever Cisco router I had before the E3000 had the ability to administer blocked sites and school-night blocking for lists of MAC addresses using the web-GUI. My recollection is that I was able to manage more, but then we likely had fewer devices.

Its like the electric cars that sonds like a good idea and then you learn they only go 30 miles before you have to plug in for several hours. The E3000 and E4200 seem great from what you read on the box and then you find out its rather limited. I don't need unlimited but 25 or 30 would have been a more reasonable limit for SOHO product. Its the same with websites to block, help me out so I cna block all .xxx and the common .com sites that teenage boys will want to visit.

While they are at it, the interface and documentation for attaching a disk drive sucked. It took me more effort to get it working that it should have taken for someone whose worked with computers for 20+ years.

[forsaken]

Well, blocking all unwanted websites or .com website is not feasible for a SOHO router to act as a firewall. Since the SOHO router do not have the feature to filter those type of website.. Second, regarding the wireless range no doubt E3000 or E4200 are among the great routers which has been launched by Linksys/Cisco. Just they require proper settings. 

There are many reasons why you experience poor signal or connection. Well, there are few things you should keep in mind with regards to N routers:

1) For the best possible speeds, you need to be using WPA2-AES as your security mode. Any other security mode will see your speed/range capped.

2) Ensure that your router is running the latest firmware from homesupport.cisco.com The new firmware includes performance enhancements and fixes.

3) The router by default uses a channel setting of auto, which means that it would keep switching channels depending on the interference. I’d recommend you set it to a fixed channel. Usually, 1, 3, 6 and 9 give you the best performance depending on your environment of course. I’d suggest you try different channels, observing each for a while, to see which gives you the best performance. You can follow the link here on how to change channels.