said by mr_dirt 
:said by Innuendo :It's been four or five years old now since Cisco designed and released that model for sale.
It's been over five years since the 831 was released. That means it's probably closer to 8 since it was designed. In that time, Cisco has dramatically changed the feature set on these routers (causing a platform that seemed blisteringly fast in its day to end up appearing a dog), and as Innuendo pointed out, typical broadband speeds have increased by literally orders of magnitude. The router was designed to deal with 1-3 MB DSL circuits, fer cryin' out load.
The 871 is getting close to the 4-5 years since design that you mentioned.
If you're serious about taking advantage of security features, integrated telephony, and a lot more CPU power, you should look at an 860 or 880. You'll probably have to stand in line for the opportunity to hand over your wallet, but it might be worth it if you want to handle the continuing direction of broadband capability.
BryDry, don't feel bad. Mr_dirt is on the money with this. I may be in the situation you are in (somewhat actually, I have a Cisco 871 but I also have a ASA 5505). These are the breaks with technology. If Comcasts decides to bump my speed up to continuous 20Mbps (I've been getting that on speed tests but I'm unsure if it's just PowerBoost in effect or not) then it may get to the point were my 871 won't be able to take it any more. I know if I had an option for Verizon 30Mbps FIOS then I would probably need to put the ASA on the connection and relegate the 871 to something else.
