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The Cisco 831 router and Cisco SOHO 91 Ethernet-to-Ethernet routers can connect a corporate telecommuter or small office to an Internet service provider (ISP) over a broadband or Ethernet connection to the following sites:
•Corporate LANs
•The Internet
The Cisco 831 and SOHO 91 routers are switch-capable routers that provide a 4-port Ethernet switch for the LAN. The routers are capable of bridging and multiprotocol routing between LAN and WAN ports.
Cisco 831 and SOHO 91 routers support high-speed encryption, 10/100-Mbps switching, and dial backup functionality via the auxiliary console port. The autosensing function in the routers eliminates the need for a crossover cable and allows the routers to detect the medium dependent interface in normal mode (MDI) or medium dependent interface in crossover mode (MDIX) in any other PC/hub with a straight-through cable or crossover cable.
The dial backup function allows the user to connect an analog modem to the console port as a backup link to the WAN in case the ADSL service goes down. These features give the Cisco 831 and SOHO 91 routers a high level of performance and security.
The Cisco 831 router is designed with hardware-based encryption, while the Cisco SOHO 91 supports software-based encryption. The Cisco 831 router supports the ability to add Flash memory or SDRAM, either as a factory upgrade or a field-installed option. The SOHO 91 router has a fixed memory configuration.
Table 1-1 summarizes the features of these routers.
Table 1-2 describes the ports on the Cisco 831 and SOHO 91 routers.
This section shows the front and back panels of the routers.
Figure 1-1 shows the front panel of the Cisco 831 router (Figure 1-1 depicts the front panel of a Cisco 831 router, but the front panel of the Cisco SOHO 91 router is the same).
Figure 1-1 Front Panel of Cisco 831 Router
Figure 1-2 shows the back panel of the Cisco 831 router (Figure 1-2 depicts the back panel of a Cisco 831 router, but the back panel of the Cisco SOHO 91 router is nearly identical).
Figure 1-2 Cisco 831 Back Panel
Table 1-3 summarizes the functions of the LEDs on the routers.