Wireless Access Point with 4-port Router

[tgxiii]

Can anyone recommend a fairly inexpensive wireless access point (B or G) with a built-in router with 4 or more ports? The thing is, I'm looking for one that DOES NOT close ports, has the option of opening up 50 or more ports, or can have multiple DMZ hosts.

My current setup is giving me headaches. It only has the option of opening up 10 ports. I have to keep going into the configuration menu to change the settings if one computer needs to sign on to AIM and another needs to connect to Battle.net. Even if I set one as the DMZ, there still aren't enough ports I can open up.

[Siliconjunkie]

Sounds like you are doing something wrong. I can have every PC in the house on AIM with no ports forwarded at all. Gaming is another story, but for almost everything else forwarding isnt needed.

[tgxiii]

What router do you have? I have a Linksys BEFWS114.

I'm not doing anything wrong. I contacted both AIM and Linksys tech support. They both told me that I need to have port 4443 forwarded in order to sign on to AIM, and ports 5190 to 5193 if I want to use the Direct Connect feature.

[Siliconjunkie]

They both told me that I need to have port 4443 forwarded in order to sign on to AIM

Completely wrong. Sorry, but you dont have to forward anything to just sign on.

You would have to forward some ports to get Direct Connect to work. But I have never messed with it.

[TrendyMartini]

I'd recommend the Linksys 2.4GHz Wireless-G Broadband Router with 4-Port Switch and Access Point ..it works with Wireless-B also....You can get one under a hundred bucks at Circuit City or Best Buy... I've got 15 or so computers networked using that and have no problems signing on to AIM. Hope that helps! Ciao!

[tgxiii]

Siliconjunkie: My bad. I was wrong. Port 4443 is used only for IM Images.

[Siliconjunkie]

If you want to use features like images and direct connect you will have to do this on one PC only, whichever one you forward ports to.

This is one of the shortcomings of consumer NAT devices, that you are limited to forwarding a port to one machine.