Cisco RV042 4-Port Fast Ethernet Dual WAN VPN Router

I have purchased five Linksys/Cisco VPN routers in the last five years. Two "RV042"s, Two "BEFSX41"s, and one RVL200. (Yes, I have (maybe now "had") a preference for the Linksys/Cisco brand.) But out of these five VPN routers, both of the RV042s have failed (blinking diag light) within about 16 months from the date of purchase.

When not in failure mode, the RV042 is a cost effective router and I have paired them together or have mixed and matched with the BEFSX41, RVL200 and a Sonicwall VPN router (don't know the model since I was connecting to a third-party administered site) with good results. It also has a large feature set for the price (DHCP w/ MAC mapping, 5 IPsec VPNs, VLAN support, etc...) and since the last firmware upgrade, it has not been buggy (unlike in 2006, which was two firmware upgrade versions earlier). It is, however, prone to early failure based on my experience and other user comments/reviews. One reviewer here has stated the Blinking Diag...Read more

I used this model for several years, with Cisco, SonicWall, and NetGear equipment on the other end of the tunnels. It's always a bit of a process getting VPN tunnels across multiple vendors, but I was always able to manage in the end. Another feature which distinguishes this model is the presence of two WAN ports, and being able to use the second in a variety of ways: you could use the second one as a DMZ, as a hot backup connection to the internet, round-robin between two connections to the internet, or route particular protocols across specific connections.