Wireless Access Point vs. Wireless Router

Question

I'm thinking of buying a new ADSL2+ modem and I don't know what would give me the best performance out of the following options:

1. Modem configured as a bridge connected to a wireless router
2. Modem configured as a router connected to a wireless access point

The price of both options is about the same when looking at consumer level products. Is there a combination that is more prone to reliability issues? What about speeds between the clients?

Answer 1

With these kinda things i usually resort to old ways of thinking..

I'd rather have 2 devices, one that does each perfect - Rather then have one device that 'tries' to do two things and half ass's it..

Answer 2

I beg to differ. While most modem had enough juice to handle enough packet to saturate the pipe supplied to your home, same cannot be said for other router-handled functionality (i.e. firewalling, etc etc.)

As for the modem/wireless access point thingy, the thing you should consider is the stability of software and capability of hardware. There are in essence no more 'pure adsl2+ modem' nowadays as router function is cheap and is often integrated on the chipset anyways, and the only thing distinguishing the two is the presence of ethernet hub, and perhaps wifi radio.

You can most likely change the router firmware into something like dd-wrt, tomato etc. and these allows for more sophisticated routing to be done, and (+/-stateful) firewall to be set. same cannot be done for most modems, and you can choose with price, for processing power of the router.

The point here is ability to customize the firmware.