ASUS RT-N15U.
Today the ASUS catalog contains about two dozen wireless routers with the 802.11n standard. At the top of this list, of course, are the flagships - routers. ASUS RT-N66U and ASUS RT-AC66U, but their high price is clearly not for most consumers. But we will consider a high speed router ASUS RT-N15U, which belongs to the more accessible segment. The letter "U" in the model name ASUS RT-N15U means that the router differs from the “simple” ASUS RT-N15 in its hardware platform.
Packaging and equipment.
ASUS delivers a router ASUS RT-N15U in a medium-sized cardboard package, which is slightly simpler than the models of the higher class, but still quite beautiful. The image of a black router on the same dark background does not look very correct. In addition to the photo of the router itself, the package contains the technical data of the device. There are very few Russian-language inscriptions, and they can not be seen immediately.
ASUS RT-N15U: packaging.
Package contents are standard: router itself, power supply (AC Input: 110V ~ 240V (50 ~ 60Hz); DC Output: 12V, 1A), stand for vertical installation, flat gigabit patch cord, warranty card, brochure with instructions for initial installation CD with electronic documentation and software. Most programs and documentation have Russian versions. Among the supplied programs are: a utility for finding a router in the network, a setup wizard, a program for connecting a network printer, a utility for restoring the firmware. The manufacturer makes it possible to download electronic versions of manuals, updates of utilities and firmware on its website. ASUS provides a three-year warranty on its device ASUS RT-N15U (different representatives may differ from the declared one).
ASUS RT-N15U: package content.
Appearance.
External design of the router ASUS RT-N15U continues the trend that was set by the model ASUS RT-N56U - stylish and attractive appearance, which is ideal for both office and home interiors. The router is made in a black plastic case and has a glossy front panel with a pronounced "diamond" design. Even with built-in antennas, it is very compact and measures 145x172x24 (LxWxH) millimeters. The device weighs 240 grams. On the front panel there are five blue indicators that behave very calmly during operation and do not interfere with their frequent blinking. Although it is not very convenient when diagnosing the state of the router. It is also worth noting the lack of individual indicators of activity and speed of LAN ports.
ASUS RT-N15U: front view.
On the back of the router ASUS RT-N15U the following connectors are located: an input for an external power supply, one gigabit WAN port, a USB 2.0 port, four gigabit LAN ports. There is also a power switch. At the bottom of the device is a hidden reset button. The router supports WPS connection negotiation, for which there is a corresponding button located between the fourth LAN port and the USB port. If all the cables are connected nearby, then it will be inconvenient to use it. The "thin" design of the case can also create problems with direct connection of bulky USB devices.
ASUS RT-N15U: back view.
The main way of installing the router is vertical on a special stand. If you do not use it, then you can try to place the device in a horizontal position. This method is not entirely convenient, since the router does not have rubber feet. The stand has another use - for wall mounting.
In general, the design turned out to be attractive, but in terms of practicality, the case design and installation options are not very convenient.
Hardware configuration.
Router ASUS RT-N15U made on a single-chip Broadcom solution. This is a BCM5357 chip that operates at 500 MHz. The processor and gigabit switch have small heatsinks. The router has 64 MB of RAM. An 8 MB flash chip is used to store the firmware. The processor has a built-in radio unit that operates at 2.4 ~ 2.4835 GHz and supports modes up to 2T2R (300 Mbps). There are two built-in 3dBi antennas on the printed circuit board, but if necessary, internal micro-connectors are provided for connecting external options. The router switch supports Jumbo Frames on the LAN segment.
ASUS RT-N15U: printed circuit board - top view.
The CPU also has a USB 2.0 port. There is a place for the console connector on the PCB. Overheating problems with the router ASUS RT-N15U not detected, even in spite of the compact body. There are ventilation grilles at the ends of the device. The vertical installation option is the most favorable for normal temperature conditions.
ASUS RT-N15U: printed circuit board - bottom view.
The device was tested with firmware revision 3.0.0.3.113, which was provided by the manufacturer.
Features and customization.
The web interface has an appearance that practically does not differ from those of other ASUS models. In the router ASUS RT-N15U there is a translation into several languages, Russian among them. For beginners, the built-in help system will be helpful. It is also worth noting the presence of an assistant for the basic configuration of the router. If necessary, you can access the settings from the WAN port.
ASUS RT-N15U: web interface.
The main page of the web interface contains a network diagram - a router, external devices and connected clients. The same page allows you to change some of the basic settings of the router, such as the key and name of the wireless network. At the top of the window there are several icons that can be used to enable or disable the Internet, manage the guest Wi-Fi network, and safely remove USB drives. There is also a soft button to reboot the device.
In the main menu, namely on the left side of it, there is access to all pages with settings. At the beginning there are five general points - the network map, guest network settings, traffic manager, parental controls, and USB applications.
Organization of guest networks allows you to have individual login parameters - the router supports up to three additional wireless networks that have their own names and access restriction parameters. In the options, you can also set the duration of the work and enable the ability to access the local segment. It should be noted that the duration refers to the operation of the network itself, not the clients connected to it.
In the traffic manager, you can set priority rules for filtering traffic and ensure the operation of bandwidth-intensive programs when there is a high load on the channel. The use of QoS often degrades the overall performance of residential routers, and the actual use of this option is significantly limited. In most cases, it is more efficient to configure clients correctly. The second page is more useful - graphical monitoring of traffic by interfaces.
Such a function as "Parental Control" is already common for most routers. But different developers under the same name may mean different capabilities. In ASUS firmware, it means setting a schedule for client access to the Internet.The rules specify the computer name (for convenience) and the MAC address (for filtering rules); for convenience, they can be selected from the list of current connections, and the hours of Internet availability in the table for each day of the week. The accuracy is equal to one hour. In general, a convenient function came out, which does not depend on the client, so that it can be used with tablets and phones. True, it is very easy to bypass the filter - change the client's MAC address.
The built-in wireless access point is 2.4GHz and supports 802.11n with a maximum speed of 300Mbps. It contains standard settings - selection of the network name, 20/40 MHz mode, channel number, encryption parameters (including open network, WEP, WPA / WPA2 with a password or via a RADIUS server). Implemented WPS technology (for fast and secure client connection) and WDS mode. Using the built-in client MAC address filter, you can increase the security of the wireless segment (you can choose one of the options - "black" or "white" list).
The "Professional" page contains the following options: turning off the wireless module, setting the schedule for its operation (one time interval for the selected days of the week), turning on multicast broadcasts and some other settings.
Setting up a local network segment is also nothing special - changing your own router address, adding your own routes, enabling a DHCP server, setting MAC-IP correspondences for it.
It is worth noting support for IPTV - choosing a port (or two) for connecting set-top boxes, activating the built-in UDP proxy (may be needed when watching video over Wi-Fi), managing multicast traffic. The last page of this group contains network switch management. There are two points here - disabling the hardware accelerator and enabling Jumbo Frames.
The router supports all popular ISP connection options - dynamic or fixed IP addresses, L2TP, PPPoE (MPPE) and PPTP. You can change the MAC address of the external interface of the router. It should be noted that there are points for disconnecting the WAN port, UPnP protocol and NAT technology. There is a standard for ASUS implementation of translation and port switching technologies to create access to services on clients in the LAN segment. You can also use DMZ.
In the router ASUS RT-N15U a built-in DDNS client is also provided. If a third-level domain on ASUS 'own service suits you, you just need to come up with a name for it. No registrations or other steps are required. In the “WAN” group of settings there is also a page for enabling translation through NAT of VPN protocols and RTSP. Setting up work with the IPv6 protocol is separated into a separate group. Now it is not very much in demand, but in the future it may definitely be needed.
Router ASUS RT-N15U can act as a PPTP server, as well as older models. This allows full and secure remote access to your home LAN.
The router implements the configuration of two types of filters - a standard filter by keywords in the URL and a packet filter. In the second case, the rules specify the source and destination addresses and ports and the protocol type. They work in the direction of LAN-WAN and allow you to deny access to specific services on the Internet. It is possible to apply to the rules of the general work schedule (as for Wi-Fi - one time interval for selected days of the week).
The "Administration" section, as usual, consists of selecting the operating mode of the router (access point, wireless repeater, wireless router), changing the administrator password, managing the configuration, updating the firmware. Additionally, there are items for configuring a remote syslog server to send a list of events, enable console access to the device via telnet, select a time zone and a time synchronization server.
The last group is "System Log". It contains both the standard embedded Linux log and several additional information pages. Here you can see the routing table, addresses issued to DHCP clients, a list of forwarded ports, details of the mode of the access point and the clients connected to it.
Work with USB devices.
In the router ASUS RT-N15U there is one USB 2.0 port. It can be used to work with external drives, cellular modems and printers. You can use a USB hub to increase the number of connected devices. External hard drives can consist of several partitions, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3 and FAT32 file systems are supported. Access to data is provided via FTP and SMB / CIFS protocols. The FTP server is passive and Unicode-enabled. For the second, you can set the name and the name of the working group of the device.
You cannot change the port numbers, the activation of the FTP server immediately applies to both local access and work via the Internet. To restrict rights, users can be programmed in the device itself. Shares are folders on partitions. In this mode, there will be no access to the root folders of drives. By default, a maximum of five users are allowed to connect at the same time (for performance reasons). To safely disconnect the router, you need to use the corresponding button in the web-based interface.
The maximum operating speed was tested when reading and writing a large file using various protocols to an external hard drive with USB 2.0. The results are presented in the table.
| ASUS RT-N15U network drive access speed, MB / s | ||||
| SMB reading | SMB write | FTP reading | FTP, write | |
| FAT32 | 8,5 | 6,3 | 10,8 | 6,9 |
| NTFS | 8,1 | 9,4 | 11,2 | 7,7 |
| EXT2 | 8,5 | 8,3 | 10,8 | 8,3 |
| EXT3 | 8,6 | 7,9 | 10,8 | 7,1 |
In general, the performance is not very high and is noticeably lower than that of top-end routers. Frequently connected external hard drives can also be used to stream media files over a local network to compatible players using the DLNA protocol. Used firmware in the router ASUS RT-N15U does not support this function.
Router capabilities ASUS RT-N15U for working with a USB printer are the same as for older models. Of modern operating systems, network printing is supported using the standard LPR protocol. It is worth recalling that in this case, the communication is one-way and the user cannot find out the status of the device, including information about the cartridges. In Windows operating systems, you can use a special utility on your computer to enable the scan function of the MFP and fully monitor the status of the device.
In the router ASUS RT-N15U declared support for 3G modems. There is no separate list of compatible devices on the manufacturer's website. But on the other hand, in the settings of the web interface, you can select a modem from a list with about forty devices, which contains ZTE and Huawei products. Most likely, the list is not complete. If you choose Auto, other models will work as well. If you break the wired connection and remove the cable from the WAN connector, the router will quickly switch to the 3G channel. The bad news is that the reverse switching does not happen automatically. The problem can be quickly resolved only by rebooting the device, which can be done remotely. The same situation occurs when the VPN access server is disconnected, but switching to the backup channel takes more time.
Note that for printers and modems, a USB hub connection may not be supported. Considering the open access to the console, you can also use USB drives to install additional programs.
Performance.
Router testing ASUS RT-N15U was conducted in a real world using a 30 Mbps L2TP connection and a 100 Mbps direct connection. As a result, there were no performance issues even at high p2p load (100 popular jobs in uTorrent). The maximum download speed coincided with the channel parameters, the number of connections was more than 400, at the same time it was possible to continue using the Internet (subject to a decrease in the access speed) and the router's web interface. Also, the operation of IPTV was tested using two channels simultaneously: the first - via a cable connection on a regular PC, the second - via a Wi-Fi network on a laptop. And despite the p2p load noted above, the viewing was without delays.
Testing was performed using the IxChariot synthetic test. All possible ways of setting the WAN port were tested in the router - PPTP, PPPoE, and L2TP and direct connection.
| ASUS RT-N15U routing, Mbps | ||||
| direct connection | PPPoE | PPTP | L2TP | |
| LAN-> WAN | 708,5 | 120,9 | 100,2 | 80,0 |
| WAN-> LAN | 691,5 | 159,6 | 140,5 | 103,0 |
| LAN-> WAN (fdx) | 407,3 | 76,9 | 65,6 | 50,1 |
| WAN-> LAN (fdx) | 395,1 | 63,3 | 49,0 | 39,2 |
The results show that from the side of routing performance, the lag of the router ASUS RT-N15U from top models not much and great. With this router you can download data from the Internet in all modes at speeds up to 100 Mbps. And most likely, after the release of new firmware versions for the device, the speed may increase even more, especially for PPPoE mode. But the current performance may well suit most users.
The following table shows the distribution of speeds for parallel downloading of data from the Internet and from the local network of the provider.
| ASUS RT-N15U routing, Mbps | |||
| PPPoE | PPTP | L2TP | |
| provider network-> LAN | 189,3 | 171,8 | 153,2 |
| Internet-> LAN | 118,1 | 104,8 | 77,5 |
These results are not controversial.
The table below shows the performance of the integrated PPTP server for remote access from the Internet to a system on the local network. It allows you to set the encryption mode, so the options with MPEE 128 and without encryption were tested. A module built into Windows 7 was used as a software client. Traffic compression was disabled. The speed was indicated relative to the external computer.
| ASUS RT-N15U VPN client access speed, Mbps, no encryption | |||
| broadcast | reception | fdx | |
| direct connection | 102,8 | 82,4 | 88,3 |
| PPPoE | 102,4 | 54,5 | 67,9 |
| PPTP | 63,4 | 46,8 | 54,9 |
| L2TP | 49,2 | 37,4 | 42,6 |
| ASUS RT-N15U VPN client access speed, Mbps, MPPE 128 | |||
| broadcast | reception | fdx | |
| direct connection | 38,9 | 30,1 | 32,2 |
| PPPoE | 37,7 | 24,2 | 30,7 |
| PPTP | 30,8 | 23,1 | 27,7 |
| L2TP | 26,8 | 20,5 | 22,1 |
Depending on the type of the server's own connection and the encryption mode, the performance was in the range of 20-100 Mbps. These are very good indicators for a mid-range router.
In the model under consideration, the radio module operates in the 802.11n standard, with a frequency of 2.4 GHz and in 2T2R mode. This is the most significant difference from the top models. Before the test, the router was configured to use the "N only" mode with the specified channel width "20/40 MHz" and WPA2-PSK encryption. The devices used in the tests were located at a distance of about five meters; there were several networks in the neighborhood on the air. The following adapter models were used as clients: Atheros AR5BXB112 (AR9380 chip), Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300, TP-Link TL-WN821N, Intel Ultimate N Wi-Fi Link 5300, D-Link DWA-140, NETGEAR WNDA4100, NETGEAR WNA1100 and LevelOne WUA-0603 with miniPCIe and USB interfaces. A special adapter was used to install devices with a miniPCIe interface into a computer.
| ASUS RT-N15U Wi-Fi, 2.4GHz, Mbps | ||||
| broadcast | reception | broadcast (fdx) | reception (fdx) | |
| Atheros AR5BXB112 | 172,2 | 130,1 | 75,7 | 61,8 |
| D-Link DWA-140 | 143,3 | 145,0 | 94,1 | 47,6 |
| Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 | 138,0 | 109,3 | 101,3 | 50,8 |
| Intel Ultimate N Wi-Fi Link 5300 | 144,4 | 113,6 | 106,6 | 42,8 |
| NETGEAR WNA1100 | 104,9 | 89,1 | 72,0 | 31,7 |
| NETGEAR WNDA4100 | 161,6 | 146,9 | 116,5 | 58,2 |
| TP-Link TL-WN821N | 125,5 | 108,6 | 51,7 | 40,9 |
| LevelOne WUA-0603 | 88,3 | 94,3 | 65,6 | 40,7 |
For a 2T2R device, the performance is not bad. The maximum data transfer rate was recorded in the range of about 170 Mbps. Many models show values over 100 Mbps. NETGEAR WNA1100 and LevelOne WUA-0603 single-channel devices are slightly behind.
Also, additional testing of the Wi-Fi client was carried out to determine the speed of data exchange with the Internet. In the case of using high-speed tariff packages and using a laptop, this is relevant. An Intel Ultimate N Wi-Fi Link 5300 card was used as the client adapter.
| ASUS RT-N15U Wi-Fi, Intel 5300, 2.4 GHz, Mbps | ||||
| WAN-> WLAN | WLAN-> WAN | WAN-> WLAN (fdx) | WLAN-> WAN (fdx) | |
| LAN | 144,4 | 113,6 | 106,6 | 42,8 |
| direct connection | 131,9 | 100,6 | 87,2 | 33,7 |
| PPPoE | 82,2 | 86,3 | 54,5 | 37,6 |
| PPTP | 70,3 | 78,3 | 50,1 | 25,1 |
| L2TP | 56,7 | 62,8 | 38,9 | 25,0 |
It can be seen from the results that the simultaneous service load of the wireless access point and the VPN access to the Internet is too difficult for this device. The speed of the Internet through a wireless Wi-Fi connection is lower than through a cable connection, but in the end it remains quite high - 50 Mbit / s and higher.
Conclusions.
Router ASUS RT-N15U is a representative of the latest line of ASUS wireless routers. It shows the same good results as the older models. It stands out for its beautiful design, has a fairly powerful hardware filling and stable operating firmware with a large set of additional features, which was created taking into account the requirements of domestic consumers. The router has quite good technical characteristics, namely: four gigabit ports, one USB 2.0 connector and Wi-Fi 300 Mbps with a frequency of 2.4 GHz.It is believed that this is the minimum required configuration requirements today, which is capable of providing high speed, both a local wired network and wireless communication, if the user has devices with 802.11n support.
Router performance testing ASUS RT-N15U has shown that the device can be used for all types of connections with speeds up to 100 Mbps. The router coped with the heavy load of p2p programs. With it, you can watch IPTV both with a cable connection and with a wireless connection.
As an access point, the router ASUS RT-N15U shows results that correspond to its configuration - 90-170 Mbps depending on the direction and which adapter is on the client side. It should be noted that even single-channel devices work with it quite normally. Thus, the use of a single-chip platform contributed to a certain drop in speed indicators in the scenario of Internet access from a Wi-Fi device in VPN modes.
The router has a USB 2.0 port that can be used to create network access to files on an external drive, network MFP or printer, including access to the Internet via 3G networks. The disappointing thing is that the well-known DLNA server function does not work in this firmware. Additional functions include a built-in PPTP server for creating remote access to a local network. Finally, you can add that the router ASUS RT-N15U has an affordable price.
