Cisco 837 vs 857 ADSL Routers

I'm confused - what is the difference between the 837 and the 857?

What I need it for:

  • 8Mbps ADSL access to Internet (web sites, email, newsgroups etc) for a small office. (i.e protocols HTTP, SMTP, POP, NNTP, FTP)

  • NAT support so all users share a single external fixed IP-address.

  • VPN support (not just pass-through) so that the router will initiate a VPN tunnel to a customer site (where they have a Checkpoint Firewall-1 device) whenever a user attempts to make a TCP connection to an IP-address at the customer site (telnet, FTP, SSH, whatever).

My skills:

  • I don't know IOS.
  • I have some basic knowledge of IP routing.
  • I have configured home ADSL routers.
  • I have set up and used Windows based VPNs

I've read Ciscos's datra sheets for the two devices and can see a few relatively minor differences (PAP, CHAP, AES, SSH) but Cisco make it hard to compare the 837 and 857.

Should I buy an 837 or an 857?

Reply to
Ian Wilson
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You should also consider the 877 ;-) I think the 837 is EOS (Not sold by Cisco). The main difference is that the 857 supports ADSL2/2+. You are at the upper limit of ADSL, so the 837 might work for you. Get an 857, your provider might offer cheap ADSL2/2+ in the near future. Get an 877 if you want more advanced features such as VLANs (managed 4 port switch).

Reply to
Drake

The 837 is an older product. The 877 is the current equivilent. Not sure when the 837 is slated for EOS/EOE. In the past, cisco offered the 827/837. Current new products are the 857/877.

Software feature wise, you aren't going to find much difference in Cisco within the same class routers. Ie. all the 8xx running the same version of software and same feature license software will support the same things in general.

The main difference is going to be hardware features between the various 8xx boxes. The 857/877 are the new current ones, ie. will have the faster CPU, more options, etc.

The 877 has hw VPN acceleration and a managed 4-port switched compared to the 857 which doesn't have the hardware crypto chip and just a basic switch.

You can still do VPNs on either, but the 877 will have CPU left over instead of maxing out the CPU if its doing anything intensive.

As somebody pointed out the 857/877 will do ADSL2+ if your telco provider ever rolls that out, not sure if any have that planned yet.

Reply to
Doug McIntyre

Ian,

CISCO837-K9

Cisco 837 ADSL Router

---------------------------------------

Fixed LAN Port Connections: 4-port Ethernet switch (10BASE-T)

Fixed WAN Port Connections: 1-port ADSL over POTS

Flash Memory: 12MB (default) 24MB (max)

DRAM Memory: 48MB (default) 48MB (max)

Dimensions (H x W x D): 2.0 x 9.7 x 8.5 in. (5.1 x 24.7 x 21.1 cm)

---------------------------------------

CISCO857-K9

Cisco 857 ADSL Router

CISCO857W-G-A-K9

Cisco 857 ADSL Wireless Router; U.S. and Americas

CISCO857W-G-E-K9

Cisco 857 ADSL Wireless Router; Europe

---------------------------------------

Fixed LAN Port Connections: 4-port 10/100 Ethernet switch

Fixed WAN Port Connections: 1-port ADSL, ADSL 2/2+

Wireless LAN: IEEE 802.11 b/g ("W" model)

Wireless Antenna: Single fixed antenna

Maximum VPN Tunnels: 5

NAC: No

URL Filtering: No

Stateful Firewall: Yes

Inline IPS: No

---------------------------------------

Cisco 837 and Cisco 857 Config Wizards:

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---------------------------------------

Sincerely,

Brad Reese

2007 Cisco Salary Rates
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Reply to
www.BradReese.Com

Pardon my newbie ignorance, but do those two routers actually include the DSL modem in them (eg: the WAN port in a POTS RJ11 plug), or is it just an ethernet port to which you plug in a real DSL modem ?

If the Cisco unit actually include the DSL modems, do you know if they use the alcatel chipset or does Cisco have their own chipset ?

Reply to
JF Mezei

Yes, the 837 and 857 have real ADSL, as do a few other models:

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Cisco 837 Router ADSL Specifications

o ST-Micro DynaMiTe (formerly Alcatel Micro Electronics) ADSL Chipset (20150)

o T1.413 ANSI ADSL DMT issue 2

o G.992.1 ITU G.DMT support

o G.992.2 ITU G.Lite support

o G.992.3 ITU G.hs ADSL type negotiation

The chipset does not provide interoperability with carrierless amplitude modulation/phase modulation (CAP)-based ADSL lines.

Reply to
Walter Roberson

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Interesting. My gut reaction would be "but I would be tied to DSL, and if I wanted to switch to cable or other technology, I'd have to buy a whole new router".

For a SOHO environment, switching from DSL to Cable and vice versa could be a costly endeavour (and having to call in someone to reconfigure a new router).

But for a large enterprise, the ease of remote management for a single modem/router combo is probably an advantage, and they don't really care about price of changing router if the link is changed to non DSL environment.

Is that a fair assesment ?

Reply to
JF Mezei

Do I need to separately purchase any "feature license software" in order to initiate site-site VPNs or to accept incoming WinXP VPN connections?

Reply to
Ian Wilson

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877 and 837 (but not 857) can be used with two seperate ethernet networks so that you could use them with different technologies. 831, 851, 871 have an Ethernet port for the Outside interface. i.e. 5 Ethernet ports.

There is by the way no restriction that I am aware of on which ports are inside and which are outside except of course that ADSL inside would be somewhat unusual. Firewall NAT etc can be used either way round.

The 1800 series have interchangable interfaces but you may be surprised

at the cost of an interface card.

The 857 does I am pretty sure have VPN/crypto offload processor. It lacks: - multiple internal VLANS - has 60% of the forwarding rate - QoS features

Check the Feature Navigator

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Basically 85x won't run the advanced IP services Feature set.

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Reply to
Bod43

Cisco has a large market in selling the 837 to broadband providers to *be* the ADSL modem. And, of course, to consumers who choose to purchase the device rather than lease it from the broadband provider.

Reply to
Walter Roberson

Look for the part # part of -K9 on the part. I believe thats the only way you can buy the 837/857/877.

The K9 signfies that its already bundled with the 3DES/IPSec license feature.

Since the only bundles you can buy are already -k9, there's no need to addon the same license feature again.

If you are looking at some of the ISR's, then you can buy them without the IPsec feature license, and it gets to be an expensive addon.

Reply to
Doug McIntyre

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