Death of a router

Much to my dismay this Sunday morning my wireless ADSL router from 3Com (3CRWE754G72-A) died. That’s right, no lights, no action, just a beige plastic paperweight. Not the most poignant of moments in a man’s life you may be thinking but I am irritated as I have only had the unit for fifteen months and I was expecting it to last somewhat longer, especially as this is marketed as a SOHO unit and was not the cheapest on the market. I remember when computer hardware, peripherals particularly used to last quite well such as my HP printer (circa 1995) which only bit the dust this year and an older still Dell PC still chugging along with Windows 95. This is not an isolated case, surf around the internet and you will find that wireless routers seem to die quite a lot within a year to eighteen months which leads me to the obvious conclusion of built-in obsolescence by the manufacturers. I wouldn’t mind so much if they could at least last until the next generation is available but 11g is still the norm and 11n is still in the drafting stage. Well I won’t be buying from 3Com again and I recommend that you do not either.