Today I bought the "new" wireless N "Gig E" router that Verizon offers for $79.99, thinking I was purchasing state-of-the-art equipment. Wrong! My first disappointment was that there is no ability to create Guest Access to the router through a second SSID. Apparently I have to give every visitor my secure network password if they want to use wifi while at my house - not very secure after all! Even $50 routers from your local big box electronic retailer, including my cheap old Belkin router, had the ability to set up guest access to just the Internet and create a relatively simple easy-to-remember password.
My next disappointment was that I could find no power-saving feature, whereby I can turn off the transmitting for certain periods each day if I wanted, in order to save energy. Again, something my cheap old Belkin had. Next up - you'd think you could use the Wifi Protected Access to push the button (that's there on the router for it!) to easily add devices to the network. Wrong again! The user manual says "coming in a future firmware upgrade".
And finally, when I went to plug in my external drive into the USB port on the router (yes, there are 2 of them!) for network backup - guess what? Non-functioning! Again the manual says "coming in a future firmware upgrade". Unbelievable! These are all functions that my cheap old Belkin router had that I bought this one to replace, figuring I could finally get rid of the 2-router setup I had. This router is so far behind in technology it’s not even funny and I’ll be returning it ASAP. Looks like I’ll go back to the original wireless G (1990’2 technology) that Verizon gives you for FiOS (again, unbelievable) and purchase a new N+ router to plug into one of the LAN ports on it to achieve faster wireless speeds, with features that should be on every modem these days.
What a huge disappointment – I thought Verizon was supposed to be the leading edge of technology but their wireless routers are Amish carriages in comparison to the rest.
Ironically much of what you describe is in the firmware which is something I've critisized since Verizon started using ActionTec routers on FiOS. There are some users who have managed to install Third Party Firmware to the FiOS routers that gives them all of this capability (minus the WPS button support in some cases). I have an ActionTec MI424WR Rev. D used on DSL here, and I got the router from a person who had to disconnect their FiOS service due to them moving. Verizon never wanted the router back, but it is a great piece of hardware. The stock firmware is nothing to go home about though.
I will say this though, when I flashed my router to DD-WRT it really opened up many doors for it. Never needs reboots, runs fast, and Guest networking is easy. Make a VLAN, set up a DHCP range for guests, set up an automatic Hotpot or just make another BSSID (there's some 6-12 BSSIDs that can be set) and off it goes.
Personally, I am not terribly surprised. Just being fair, I have never seen an internet provider provide a "top notch" router with all the bells and whistles, unless you were getting a bonus deal and getting a T-1 or higher.
Just my experience.
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