| Greg's ASUS RT-N13U router |
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In December 2010 I bought an ASUS RT-N13U wireless router for the specific purpose of using it to connect to the 3G network, for which it was advertised. It does not fulfil the requirements. The device came with Beta firmware and incorrect instructions, and produced error messages in Chinese, independent of the language settings. It also refused to accept any IP address except RFC 1918 addresses, which are useless for my situation. After finding out how to upgrade the firmware (those instructions were incorrect too), the Chinese messages disappeared. The RFC 1918 problem remained.
On 29 December 2010 I called ASUS support during normal working hours and received a recorded message. The complete support department (which I think consists of one person) had closed down from 23 December until 4 January. On 6 January 2011 I called again. On the positive side, the support person understood my problem. On the negative side, he wasn't able to do anything about it, and promised to contact Taiwan. I haven't heard back.
On 10 January 2011 I received a mail message from ASUS. Not to solve my problem, just a customer satisfaction survey (or, as they wrote in badly punctuated German, “ASUS Callcenter Kundenzufriedenheits Umfrage”). Yes, it was in German. Why? What earthly connection did my issue have with Germany?
My overall experience: ASUS is a mess! They deliver equipment with beta firmware, their documentation doesn't match their equipment, their implementations are sloppy, even their mail messages show serious breakage. There's much more detail below.
In December 2010 I decided to try an Optus HSPA reseller in an attempt to solve my ongoing network problems. I had established that the NetComm 3G9WB that Telstra supplied was very easy to set up as long as you ignored Telstra's nonsense, so it seemed reasonable to use something similar. It wasn't easy: there's almost nothing out there except for the NetComm equipment (which doesn't support HSPA at 900 MHz). The closest I came was a wireless router with option to connect a USB HSPA modem.
After comparing what was available, I decided on the ASUS RT-N13U, which is really a wireless router with four port switch. It claimed to support the Huawei E1762, which appears to be the modem for Optus networks. The truth was very different. Basically, the unit is useless to me.
The main problems I had are:
The device insists on having an RFC 1918 address. This is completely useless for anybody with assigned Internet address space. It also requires me to set up DNS for the thing to avoid multiple error messages from my name server.
The installation instructions for the modem were incomplete and incorrect. It was impossible to save the settings. The router produced error messages in Chinese, independently of the language set.
I'd consider those two show-stoppers. There are many more irritations:
It provides a system log facility that can be pointed at another system in its restricted view of the Internet. For reasons that the developers presumably don't understand, a large number of the log messages have priority LOG_EMERG (emergency), which vomit over every shell screen on the system.
The documentation is terrible. It looks good—it was one of the reasons I bought this device—but it is so inaccurate as to be completely useless. I've already mentioned the incorrect instructions for installing the USB modem. Following on from there, I discovered that the firmware was down-rev. It took me four attempts to upgrade it, and only after diverging from the instructions.
ASUS do not seem to offer proper support. On 28 December 2010 I called their support line during normal working hours and discovered that they had shut down for the entire period 23 December 2010 to 3 January 2011.
In summary, this is nothing like the “easy install” NetComm device. It offers nothing useful, and seems to have been built as an afterthought. It has seriously affected my previously good impression of ASUS.
The following are excerpts from my online diary relating to the problems I have had.
| Tuesday, 21 December 2010 | Diary entry |
Spent the rest of the afternoon looking for hardware. Why is it so complicated? First there's the issue of compatibility between the modem and the router, a problem you don't have with an integrated modem. Ran into an amazing number of problems finding good hardware:
I couldn't find any summary of what's available. Took a look at the Broadband Choice pages on Whirlpool and found lots of pages, all almost completely incomplete, and no overview at all. That's completely useless for finding hardware.
Took a look on eBay and found a number of devices tagged at “3G routers”, all with one thing in common: no 3G connectivity. It seems that there are about 3 or 4 potential candidates in the range $50 to $100:
The TP-Link TL-MR3220 seems to be the cheapest, and the specs are completely adequate for what I need. There's also a model TL-MR3420 with 802.11n 300 Mb/s instead of 150 Mb/s. But the only review I could find about it was very negative, and the unit had been sent back. It seems that the connection was very unreliable. Not the sort of thing I want to worry about for a few dollars.
The ASUS RT-N13U, which includes a printer server. The documentation is available online, nicely prepared, and incomplete: although the specs include 3G modem support, they don't say how to use it. The support was added in revision B of the machine, so hopefully it's just out of date. There are also some strangenesses: it only has one USB port, for example, though they talk of connecting more than one device. No mention of having to buy a hub for it. But the printer support is only for printers from Canon, HP and Epson, none of which I have, so the printer port is not of great interest.
The D-Link DIR-412 Wireless N 150 3G Mobile Broadband Router. It's closer to what I need, just an Ethernet port, the obligatory 802.11n network and a USB slot for the modem. But it's actually more expensive than the other two. It's also slower than the ASUS device, though that's really not of interest to me.
The router is only half the question, of course. Which modem? Again, Whirlpool was useless. I had heard that the Huawei E1762 was a good choice, but the Whirlpool page contains almost no information.
The manufacturer's web site was no better. It gives a list of 32 devices, 20 per page, starting with the oldest. That's certainly a case where chronological order doesn't make any sense. All the current models are on the second page. Did I say all? No, the E1762 isn't there at all. The links from Whirlpool are also invalid.
With some effort managed to establish that it's considerably faster than the other model, the E160, which doesn't do HSUPA, and that there doesn't seem to be much else available.
Finally decided to go with the ASUS router and the E1762. The E1762 may not be listed on the Huawei site, but it is listed as compatible on the ASUS site. Bought both on eBay, and was greeted by another surprise in checkout: the listed postage of $9.95 had suddenly become $12. Sent a message to the seller, who responded quickly with an amended bill, conveniently requiring me to re-enter all the details that normally get filled out automatically. Still, it's done: I have ordered a modem and router. What about an antenna? That'll have to wait until tomorrow: it was 18:00 before I finished this stuff.
| Friday, 24 December 2010 | Diary entry |
Note in the letterbox this morning that I had a packet to be picked up at the post office. That could only be the ASUS RT-N13U router. Was it worth it? On the one hand, I really needed the antenna to be able to do anything useful. On the other hand, today was Christmas Eve, and the way the feast falls this year, we'll have Monday and Tuesday off, and I won't be able to pick anything up until Wednesday. So I decided to pick it up anyway.
Back home and took a look at what I had. The router left a mixed impression. On the one hand, it states on the box:
That's certainly an improvement on what Telstra do. It also includes an afterthoughtsheet of paper with
instructions on how to set the router up as a 3G router. It requires first installing on a
Microsoft box. I don't know if that's just to ensure that you can localize any problems
that may occur, but I've heard rumours that the Microsoft installation reconfigures the
stick, and that you can't use them on FreeBSD without first installing on Microsoft.
On the other hand, it comes with a “Quick Start Guide” that really contains almost no information, not even the default IP of the box. It describes the switch on the bottom, with positions Router, Repeater and AP, stating to make a choice, but not describing what the positions mean. Fortunately, I've already established that there's a good manual, but who can use the quick start guide?
| Saturday, 25 December 2010 | Diary entry |
Then continued with the ASUS RT-N13U router. What a catastrophe! I've complained about stupid hardware in the past, but I think this takes the cake. I ran into one problem and irritation after another:
First I tried to set the IP address of the device to my network. But that's not allowed:
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For reasons that make no sense at all, it insists on an RFC 1918 IP address. That's almost enough reason to return it by itself.
Well, the thing runs Linux, so maybe there was a back door to the config information. Just look for files that have changed recently and look at what's inside. No ssh connection, just telnet. I can live with that, but it doesn't sound very professional or up-to-date. It proves to be another BusyBox implementation. But the utilities!
No times! Why not? Even the NetComm software has that. And there's no -R option to ls:
No find, almost no tools. Went looking in likely places, and found a directory /var/state/parport/svr_statue. On IRC we weren't able to work out whether they had meant /var/state/parport/svr_status or /var/state/parport/svr_state.
Gave up on that for the while and tried setting the system log to log remotely. I couldn't enter the host name. The input field was too short:
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Clearly it wanted IP addresses. But why? Finally set the address and rebooted the box—another Microsoftism—and got no less than 10 LOG_EMERG messages. Why do these router desingers so love LOG_EMERG? “Emergency! The router has booted!
After reboot, connected to the modem again, and got another silly message:
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Gave up on any kind of sensible configuration and turned my attention to the sheet of paper telling me how to configure the modem. It was really very brief: “Insert modem and select Advanced Setting, USB Application and HSDPA:
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Enable HSDPA, select the modem type, ISP, APN, dial number (what's that for? Anyway, Internode supplied one), user name and password. Did that, and discovered that, despite documentation to the contrary, my modem wasn't listed. Selected the E176, which is hopefully similar, pressed Apply, and once again it took an eternity before returning—with a number of the parameters reset to the default values:
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According to the instructions,
Click Apply, then you are prompted to configure your Wi-Fi network.
It's not clear what any of this has to do with a “Wi-Fi” network, but I couldn't find a way to connect the modem, and I couldn't find anything else to try.
Clicked on the network map, and sure enough, the modem showed up. Clicked on it and got messages in Chinese:
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Clicking on the links just took me around in circles. The instructions suggested a firmware upgrade if there are problems, so went to the ASUS site, which cleverly ensures that you can't refer to their content, and checked. Before getting any information, you need to select the operating system. But BusyBox isn't on the list. Selected Microsoft “WinXP” and found no less than 15 firmware versions. Mine is 2.0.0.3
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Beta software without warning in a device of this nature? They should be ashamed of themselves. But I repeat myself.
Downloaded the firmware and tried the instructions to install it. It hung.
Gave up for the night; this stupid “easy install” router had kept me busy all afternoon. It looks like the others on IRC were right in asking why I wanted one in the first place. If I had known what I was up against, I would never have bought it, but now I want to see if I can get it to work. Others on Whirlpool have reported success with exactly this combination. Is this really what networking is coming to?
| Sunday, 26 December 2010 | Diary entry |
My attempts to connect with the 3G network yesterday ended with a failed attempt to upgrade the firmware in this terminally broken ASUS RT-N13U router. Tried again today, in the process noting the messages that appeared during normal startup:
The messages in bold were logged with priority LOG_EMERG (“A panic condition. This is normally broadcast to all users.”), which vomited all over all my xterms. Why specifically these messages? And what doesn't get mentioned at all were the pppd messages, which show on the one hand that it appears to be attempting to connect, but it has some failure. Clearly not as much as serious as the discovery that a modem is connected. And the messages from named on dereel (there were many times the number shown here) shows the stupidity of limiting IP addresses to RFC 1918 ranges.
Tried the update again, and again it hung. So tried it with Microsoft “Windows XP” and “Internet Explorer”, and got further:
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According to the instructions, “After receiving a correct firmware file, RT-N13U Rev.B1 will automatically start the upgrade process. The system reboots after the upgrading process is finished.” But it finished and still didn't reboot. When I rebooted manually, I still had the old firmware version.
Why am I having this trouble? I'm doing everything according to the
bookslip of paper supplied with the router, using “standard”
Microsoft tools, and it still doesn't work. That's a far cry from the NetComm 3G21WB router. Once I got past Telstra's broken
software and installation procedure and used my
own method, everything Just Worked. That was the rationale for buying this thing at
all, to avoid setup problems; instead I've found a whole new range of them. Out of
interest, I'll call ASUS after the Christmas break on Wednesday, but it's almost certain
that it'll have to go back.
| Wednesday, 29 December 2010 | Diary entry |
I'm quite irritated by the fact that the firmware upgrade of the ASUS RT-N13U router didn't work. Took a look at the online manual, which pointed me at a different page on the router with a slightly different approach to the same procedure:
Check if any new version of firmware is available on ASUS website.
Download a proper version to your local machine.
Specify the path of and name of the downloaded file in the [New Firmware File].
Click [Upload] to upload the file to RT-N13U Rev.B1. Uploading process takes about three minutes.
After receiving a correct firmware file, RT-N13U Rev.B1 will automatically start the upgrade process. The system reboots after the upgrading process is finished.
Followed that link. Yes, it's a download page. Once again this stupid “Select OS” box. But it's empty. No OS, no firmware.
So back to the other, non-linkable page that you can only access by climbing down multiple levels from the home page. To be on the safe side, downloaded the firmware file again and compared it with what I got last time. Same thing. Then it occurred to me: the file was a ZIP archive with a single file in it:
=== grog@dereel (/dev/ttypk) ~/Desktop 220 -> unzip -l FW_RT_N13U_B1_2011.zip
Did they want me to unzip it first? That's contrary to the instructions. Tried it anyway, and Bingo! it worked:
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What stupidity! Incorrect links, something that they didn't have to break, incorrect instructions, and inadequate error checking: the upgrade application just needed to say “Invalid firmware file format, please unzip” or some such.
And the results? The Chinese messages are gone, but the thing still wants me to use an RFC 1918 address for the router. That makes the thing useless for me. Finally found the number for ASUS support in Australia (it's not under Support). You have to select the correct icon at top left from this collection:
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With the aid of a magnifying glass, it's easy to see that the middle of the five blue icons bears a passing resemblance to a stylized telephone, or possibly a floppy disk with a magnet attached. Run the cursor over it and the text “Contact” appears. Isn't technology marvellous? For reference the phone number is 1-300-278-788, which they write 1300-2787-88, and the opening hours are given as “(09:00-18:00 Mon.~Fri.)”.
Called the number, round 14:30, and received a recorded message telling me I was calling out of hours. After a while, it conceded that they had shut up shop last week, wouldn't be supplying any support at all this week, and they'd be back Tuesday next week.
I'm amazed. I had thought of ASUS as being one of the better companies. Everything I have seen about this product and the company itself had given me a very different impression. The router goes back, and it'll be a long time before I even consider buying another ASUS product.
| Thursday, 6 January 2011 | Diary entry |
Called up ASUS support about the ASUS RT-N13U router, and this time got through to Andrew, who seems to be their only support person. At least he sounds more competent than most. He went through a few things with me (“Configure as AP instead of as router”), but that didn't work either. He promised to contact the people in Taiwan and get some information. But in the meantime I've applied for a return authorization.
| Monday, 10 January 2011 | Diary entry |
In the evening received a message from ASUS, from whom I bought the RT-N13U router. Solving my problem? No. It was clearly in relation to the incident, though it must have been too much trouble for them to say so; another reason not to buy more than one thing from ASUS.
What they wanted was to know how satisfied I was with their support. I'm continually amazed that people send out messages like this without checking whether the issue has been closed. But this one took the cake:
Why in German? The whole issue took place in Australia. About the only thing that is even remotely related to Germany is the IP address I wanted to set. And that's so far from anything they have seen that it can't have been that. I'm completely baffled.
The letter is in relatively good German, except for the bad punctuation: verbs starting with capital letters, nouns split in two, missing commas—and a split URL! But of course, this kind of message is bound to be multipart-alternative with an HTML component. And that has to be legible. But:
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Broken HTML too, without any indication of the character encoding. Still, it has a usable link, so followed that and got an English-language survey concentrating on the support person, the only good thing I've found about the matter. Even there, there are errors. The questions have double numbers, and there are typos:
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If anything, this survey has just confirmed me in my decision to avoid ASUS where possible.
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