I have been in the process of reassembling my home network since I moved several weeks ago. Unlike most people whom have a single Internet connection and only need to throw up a single WiFi-enabled router and be done with it, I need a bit more.

In any case, I needed some new routers. I went down to my local Office Depot and picked up the D-Link DIR-625, pictured below:



One of the things I needed this router to do was to point to a second private network I have established, which goes out a different Internet connection. I combed the interface of the DIR-625 and could find no mention of routing or routing tables anywhere in the interface. I even called Tech Support, and they told me that with the exception of the DIR-660, all other DIR routers had no ability to establish routes.

I looked through a lot of other D-Link routers. With a few exceptions, most of the routers do not mention routing tables at all. In fact, my DI-604p that I had given to a friend of mine had the ability to set routes, but it was buggy.

Granted most people don't need the ability to mess with the routing table or disable the address translation functionality these routers generally provide. Most people have no idea what it is. However, my good old trusty Linksys routers, made by a company that actually knows a thing or two about routers, actually do it. They have the ability to change the routing table. You can even enable RIP on them, which is a protocol that makes it much easier to configure routing.

Needless to say the D-Link "toy" went back and I bought me one cheap and one not-so-cheap Linksys router to do what I needed. And you know what? They work. They're actually routers. The D-Link is not.