Ubiquiti - Getting Rid of the CenturyLink Router

Getting Rid of the CenturyLink Router When CenturyLink (CL) installed Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) with Prism service, they also required the use of their router/modem. I learned to hate this junky device with wi-fi issues and intermittent connection problems. Luckily, the modem of this device was not used. The modem was locked up in the access box outside.

Looking at the back of the Technicolor C2000T, the WAN port was connected by a regular Cat 5e cable, indicating that there was no need for the purchase of a fiber-modem.

The first attempt to replace the C2000T consisted of hooking up a TP-Link TL-600VPN router. The TP-Link has been a really reliable unit, but no amount of fiddling with with the WAN settings, would allow it to connect to the web.

So, I began planning a mini-pc build so I could install something like pfSense, Untangle, Smoothwall, or a similar routing/firewall package in order to get some finer-grained control over the WAN. The problem with this approach was that the hardware costs would grow to excessive and the recurring cost of feeding a pc (even a small one) electricity was something that needed to be considered. The price of this solution put it out of the running (over $200 for a Celeron based piece of junk).

The next option was to potentially flash the firmware of an existing router with Tomato or DD-WRT. The problem was that my TP-Link was not supported by these firmware packages. I had an older Linksys router that might have worked, but it didn’t support Gigabyte connection speeds. Additionally, as I looked at throughput numbers, I became less convinced that consumer-grade devices were very efficient.

This led to the option which worked for me. I found two router/firewall devices, similarly priced in the $50 to $60 range.

Company: Mikrotik

Device: hEX
Software: RouterOS 

Company: Ubiquiti

Device: EdgeRouter X, 
Sofware: EdgeOS based on Vyatta

Both pieces of hardware had Linux-based operating systems. Both had a phenomenal amount of features (almost too much!). And both expected a lot out of the end user. These are not for someone who just wants to plug a device in and expects it to work. They both require setup.

I ended up purchasing the EdgeRouter X because it had a proven configuration that worked with both CL FTTH and Prism. I was tempted to buy both.