800 Series Router Purchasing Questions

[Bob Smith]

I've been looking to purchase something from the 800 series for the office. The router has to have wireless capabilities, and the lowest price would be optimal. I think I found the best one: 861W. This happens to be the cheapest with wireless capabilities.

From the website, I can't figure out the release date of any of these routers. I'd hate to get one and find out that it will have an End of Life annoucncement in a year.

1. How do I determine which of the 800 series routers is the newest?

Also,

2. Whats the best way of purchasing any of the 800 series?

I noticed I could buy them off of amazon, buy.com, newegg, etc. Is it worth trying to find  a Cisco Partner and buying direct? Is there a discount applied?

As far as SmartNET goes (receiving advsec IOS updates yearly), can someone ballpark what that would cost?

Thanks in advance.

[Rozsa Illes]

Hello Bob,

About the routers, I could not find the dates when these routers started to be sold but one way to determine who long they are out is based on the minimum IOS they require.

You can check the data sheets and there is a model comparison from this site:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps380/index.html

For the end of life notices, I could find one for 867 but not for the 861. Here is the complete list for the 800 routers with dates:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps380/prod_eol_notices_list.html

To find Cisco Partners and the SmarNet contracts, the best would be to give a call to the local sales office, they should be able to say how and where the routers and the contracts can be purchased (and for how much) so you can compare them with prices on ebay, etc and determine which one is better for you.

I found these numbers when checking the datasheet of the 860 routers:

• United States and Canada: 800 553-NETS (6387)

• Europe: +32 2 778 4242

• Australia: +61 2 9935 4107

• Other: 408 526-7209

There might be more detail about the contact information via this link though:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/support/tsd_cisco_worldwide_contacts.html#business

Warm Regards,

Rose

[Leo Laohoo]

The  860, 880 and 890 all came out of the same year.  They are the newest thing in form of the 800-series router is concern.

Take note that the major difference between the three series is the number of VLANs it will support.

Another thing about your requirement is the built-in wireless.  Where do you plan to put the router.  If it's in a secluded area where there are concrete and metal shelves all around it then I would say that this will not be a good choice.