Networking Reviews

I hate this router already before reading the feedbacks here. If a router wont work with so many devices, it is basically junk. I have used both Microsoft(I know we are against MS) but the router never gave me any problems with any devices, "firmware" also was great. This stupid thing restarts every time I add a MAC address to the filter list. I sneeze and it restarts.
In short, I HATE IT!!!
Go for the little more expensive Netgear or grrr... Microsoft and you will get your money's worth and professionalism.

Either I'm stupid or the reviewers who found this thing easy to set up are just lucky. I fought with this thing for several hours and two calls to customer service. Both useless, by the way. The instructions are beyond horrible. They're inadequate clues at best. The encryption process is cruel. You have to do it in the proper order - I believe the base computer you're using for set up and then the your wireless computer. No mention of the order in the directions. Learned by trial and error. Do it backwards and you lose your connection. No instructions for the event you just want to set up your wireless computer without a base 'setup' computer. Having never done encryption I didn't realize that I supply the encryption code. Finally figured that out. Possibly the others out there are just as bad. Now that I've got it set up, it generally works fine. I also set up a d-link wireless printer adaptor. Equally frustrating and directions better but left out one very important fact.

I'm not sure if the other reviewers have problems reading instructions or if they just skipped steps. Had no problems at all getting this unit set up and establishing connections between my desktop and Inspiron 5150. Take it out of the box, connect an ethernet cable between the desktop and router and plug it in. Use your favourite browser to connect to 198.168.1.1 and run through the setup wizard. Then once you've got everything set up, read through the manual, go through the various setup options and tweak as desired. I opted to go with the WPA-PSK authentication protocol because its supposed to be more secure, but if you have other devices that don't support it, you'll probably have to stick with WEP.

It can be laid flat on the desk, or propped up on end vertically using the little rubber feet that are supplied. There are 4 ethernet ports that allow you to connect via 10/100 Ethernet and the WAN port to connect to cable, DSL or LAN. The antenna is on a swivel and can be rotated to just about any convenient orientation.

The only thing I don't like about the router is that it doesn't have an internal clock, so every time it is powered off the router's system time goes back to it's default start value. It can be configured to set the time from an NTP server, but only if it's connected to a WAN network (via DSL, cable or LAN). It's only a minor inconvenience though. The other thing is that the router's web interface only seems to work properly if you use IE. Using Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox sort of works for most things, but not everything.

I bought this because of it's price and when it worked it was great. You get what you pay for though, the cable sucks, very flimsy. I move my notebook very little and it still managed to get loose and fall out after only 2 months. I just ordered a new card without a dongle cable, I'm hoping I won't have to deal with it again.

Great card, until dongle broke about a year later. Otherwise, no problems while it lasted.

This card is, simply put, the best value for the money for this type of product. I have a premium Xircom combo card that I was using until I saw this offered here. I decided to try it out, thinking I would save it as a backup to my "better" card.

As it turns out, this card outperforms the more expensive card by far - it does do true full duplex 100baseT, and the more expensive card doesn't really, even though it claims to (in fact, this card proved it to me). It also had an easier setup procedure. I did not hesitate to box the Xircom up and declare this my favorite card, instead.

The dongle is less pretty than the other card, but the lights are better at giving the status of the Ethernet connection. Don't be afraid of the dongle's reputation as being a weak link - I've had this card for probably 6 months, and I finally *just tonight* broke the cable adapter by letting my laptop fall off my bed. However, until today, the dongle worked great after squishing the cable in my bag, or even leaving it connected to my laptop and sticking my laptop in my bag (not that you should ever do this, but everyone forgets and does it anyhow) and banging my bag around on road trips. It certainly appears no weaker than the other card's. At the time of my writing, Amazon doesn't carry replacement dongles, but another vendor has them for only $11 each before shipping. That makes them "disposable" in my mind.

This card is one of the best bargains I have found on Amazon. It outperforms a top-of-the-line card at under half the price. If you don't break the dongle, it's totally hassle free. What are you waiting for? Buy it!

I bought this item October 2003 and it broke down today. After holding for 15 minutes to talk with a tech support, I was told since I bought this from an online retailer, Amazon, the company's policy is not to honor the warranty as "anyone can sell online and therefore we don't know what they could have done to the product." Needless to say, I am extremely disappointed. I hope you don't.

The Siemens SS2604 is a great 4-port ethernet router for the money. Compared to other routers made my D-link, Linksys, and Netgear, this one is priced to sell at around $...less. It works great, despite its sparse set-up instructions. The set-up is internet based - requiring the user to enter a specific address into a web browser. This brings up a set-up wizard which is very basic and probably isn't very helpful for people who are new to setting up networks. Still, it's not hard to get the right set-up going (reading the included CD-ROM manual maybe advisable). In my case, I run some firewall software in addition to the router, so I had to adjust a few more things before I got this router to work. I play a MMORPG on one PC and surf the net on the other using this router. I've had no problems whatsoever. If you're looking for a basic router with a print server as well, the SS2604 is a good deal.

After using a Linksys and then a D-Link, this is now my favorite SOHO router. I replaced a D-Link DI-604 and am very glad I did.

The setup's easy. I powered everything down, removed my old router, plugged in the new router, and powered everything back up. The router configured itself, and I was connected just like that!

The SS2604 includes a lot of smart features. I use the print server with my Epson Color Stylus 880 and have no problems (in fact, the printer port is what prompted me to buy the router). The Web administration is pretty simple. Basic users don't have to wade through the advanced stuff, but advanced users can get right to it, and you have a lot of control. A really nice touch is that the router uses DNS PC names (rather than IP addresses) within the setup software when setting a DMZ or opening specific ports ("virtual servers"). Therefore a power drop doesn't require a complete re-config. There's also a site log and a filtering function, which I have yet to use.

Before you set up the Speedstream, DO download the firmware upgrade from speedstream.com. And make sure you have Acrobat installed. The only printed doc is a quickstart guide. Everything else is on CD in PDF format. I'd prefer a paper manual, and including a CAT5 cable or two would be nice.

All in all, it's a great SOHO router, currently selling for about 1/2 the price of comparable products from Netgear, D-Link, and Linksys. If Siemens marketed better this box would sell bundles.

I had this product up and running in about 15 minutes. I am using the device wirelessly with WEP encryption. I did have to disable my firewall during the setup process. It was annoying to have to approve every action the software was taking during setup. Ran into a problem using it, once I went from using the Ethernet port connection to wireless, because I re-enabled my firewall. Over came this by adding a static IP address to the device and then allowing that address access through the firewall. The device does everything advertised. I even have it pulling music from 3 different PC's on my network. Upgrades I would recommend to Linksys include:
1. Optical output
2. Enhanced scrolling through folders
3. Display of album art
4. Ability to play video
5. Component video output
6. Upgrade to 802.11g

I agree with many of the reviews written. Once you get it working, it is a great. The problem is getting it to work. Yes the documentation is very weak. I got many clues to getting this to work by looking at the different reviews on this Amazon site. I got so close to getting it to work smoothly until I completed the configuration screen and then the device would not connect. I hooked up the device and I turned on the device and nothing. With no connection and it does not work - of course.

I loaded an updated firmware for my Linksys BEFW11S4 v.2 wireless acccss point router. It was version 3 or the latest one. Next big thing was to change the local area connection - properties / advance / setting to - allow other area network to connect through this computer's internet connection. Where is this written? It was on this web site that I saw that.

I was so happy the application appeared finally. It took me over an hour and I kept saying how hard can this be? It is hard when there are not many directions and no FAQs or trouble shooting guide. Once you have it up and running, you will enjoy it. It is so cool to have access to my MP3 files on my surround sound system rather than my little computer speakers. The menu and the screens are boring and not very interesting. Linksys needs to get their screens and interface menus updated. It is not that hard to make them better when the screens are so basic and plain looking.

I'm surprised to read all the negative reviews on here for this product. You'd think that Linksys promised the moon and the stars and somehow came up short. They did not.

Very simply, this product hooks into your wireless network and then plays mp3s on your stereo/tv and displays photo images on your television set. Nothing more, nothing less.

Setup was quite easy as far as installing network devices go... If you have already set up a wireless router in your house, you can handle this with no problem. I have found with other Linksys products that their technical support is fantastic, so if you really get in a bind, don't hesitate to call them.

The method of choosing music and pictures is very basic as many have mentioned, I have found that creating playlists on my PC is the best way to queue up music.

I'm sure in a couple of years that there will be much better products on the market, but for now, if you want to show your friends and family pictures, there's no better place to show them than on your big screen TV while sitting on the couch instead of your relatively small computer screen. And if you're going to listen to your mp3 collection, why not use your stereo instead of your wimpy little computer speakers.

The fantasy is that this product should be the ultimate entertainment product. The reality is that this product gets you out of your computer room and into your living room when listening to your music and looking at your digital pictures.

I'm not normally one to write reviews, but I want to prevent others from buying this if it will not work for them. I have previously been a sysadmin, so I'm somewhat fluent with network compnents and configurations. As a wireless access point, its fine, good range, good speed, etc. As a NAT router, again it works just fine for browsing. However, it has serious issues maintaining connections, either through the wireless side or the wired side, with game servers. Simply put, games will continually "lose the connection" to the server, and drop you from the game. This happened no matter what configurations and/or firmware versions I tried. I ended up using my Linksys router as a router, with the Belkin as a wireless access point and hub. This also reduces it to a 3 port hub, since you need to use a standard port for the connection to the router.

Long story short, it works for everything but games. If you never game, then its good for the money. Gamers look elsewhere. I would recommend Linksys.

I'd been using a Linksys Wireless-B Broadband Router with 4-port switch, along with 2 wireless PC Cards for my three-PC home network, running Windows XP. However, we began to experience frequent outages with our cable internet. Not knowing whether the problem was our cable internet connection or the router, I bought a brand new version of the Linksys Wireless-B Broadband Router ("Linksys Router II"). But the problem persisted with Linksys Router II, so we called Comcast cable, and they sent out technicians -- twice -- to check our connection. Well, it wasn't our cable connection, so I knew it had to be the Linksys router. I went to a local computer store one day, thinking I'd try out the Microsoft wireless router. But while at the store, a Belkin manufacturer rep just happened to be there, and he convinced me to try out the Belkin Wireless 4-Port Router, which he claimed would set up in 3 minutes. The Belkin unit was cheaper and also had a generous rebate being offered at the time, so I decided to get it. I also bought two Belkin USB wireless adapters; these, too, were cheaper than the comparable Microsoft USB adapters.

The Belkin rep was right: their router and USB adapters set up MUCH more easily under Windows XP than my previous Linksys components ever did. Moreover, the router's software configuration utility was better, more advanced and easier to use and understand than the Linksys software. Best of all, the Belkin products solved our cable internet outage problem! Now our internet connection not only goes out less frequently, but when it does, I simply reboot the router through Belkin's software utility which automatically re-configures the router and in less than one minute (it literally counts down the seconds from 0 to 60), the internet is back.

Yes, it's hard to believe that the cheaper Belkin product could perform better than Linksys (which is owned by Cisco Systems!), but it does. If you're looking for a dependable and an easy to install home LAN (and I mean EASY -- you don't have to know anything about networking since both the router and USB adapters configure themselves in Windows XP), save yourself some money and give Belkin a try.

Wireless router is a must have for laptop users. It provides a range of freedom unparallel to any wired set up. If you go to a university or work for a company that has wireless connection everywhere, you will truly appreciate the convenience of wireless internet. It has revolutionized internet as much as cell phone has revolutionized telecommunications.

Belkin's 802.11b router is a good router to have if you are using it for only wireless internet and sharing connection. The installation is very easy for novice users. It's just a matter of following a bunch of diagrams in the manual to get everything started. If you run into problems, Belkin has an excellent 24/7 free tech support program. I got almost a no-wait response. However, the regular tech support's knowledge is very rudimentary, knowing less about networking than me. I think they just following a manual of FAQs.

With that said, I have found some problems with the 802.11b router running more advanced features like De-Militarized Zone (DMZ). Because many programs such as file-sharing programs, video conferencing, etc. require non-standard ports, you'll need to either forward these ports or DMZ the computer. With the 802.11b, the DMZ feature does not work at all for me. I've talked to Belkin's high level tech support but to no avail. I have to manually forward all the ports that I need to be open, even port 80 for web server. On top of that, the router allows port forwarding for only 20 programs. If you need to forward more than that, you will do some manipulating. You can get around this by forwarding a series of ports, which only takes up one slot in the virtual server feature of the router. Say if one of your program runs on port 1024 and the other one runs on 1030 you can forward 1024-1030. The draw back with this is that it compromises the security of your network. I sometimes change the port of one program so it will run consecutive with a port of another program, so I wouldn't have a bunch of unnecessary ports opened.

RATING:
One star off of ease of use and performance because of the the problems with advance features. Other wise 5 for ease of installation and cost/benefit. Average to 4.5, but since there's not 4.5 option, I would give it a 5.

FINAL WORDS:
All in all, the 802.11b router has an unbeatable value (...)The Tech Support is great. But for more advanced functionalities, it becomes quite a nuance.

I purchased this cable/dsl router locally for a very good price and have found it offers relatively the same features as the Linksys and Netgear equivalents. The device itself is easy to setup, and works well with a standard high speed connection. The reviewer whose kept losing his cable modem connection may have had this problem due to a cable modem that does not support DHCP or possibly his provider uses PPPOE, though I am unsure if cable could. If so he would have to specially configure the router. I have not have any disconnection problems or connection problems whatsoever.

A plus to the browser interface is the direct link to firmware update, a hands off install of them and the ability to configure many options and settings. The browser interface could be set up better, but it not terrible and easily navigated.

The manual is very weak. There is no explanation for the advanced features, such as the VPN for remote management and I have yet to make this work. The DMZ and port filtering is vague and confusing as well, which as limited my success in implementing it. One reviewer thought that if you know how to use these advanced features, then you might know how to set them up. I do know enough to set them up and I still found the lack of information problematic as I cannot tell if I have set THIS particular device up accordingly. Of course these features are not required for a basic setup so I cannot ding them too hard for the lack of documentation

This rotuer is fabulous. I have a roadrunner cable modem connection here in Jackson, MS. I bought the router and plugged up the cables and all was done. No configurations, no setup, nothing!! It gave IPs to both of my connected machines right away and are connected at 100 mbps. (Actual modem speed floats between 2 and 3 meg though) I have XP Pro on the master machine and Home on the other one. To share files I just enabled sharing on the folders that I wanted. I installed the software just for fun, and when you select the netsetup it brings up the XP home networking wizard, so you might opt just to leave out the software. The internet site was cool, but again unneeded. I even managed to hook up the Xbox and play Halo online using the Gamespy tunnel software. Highly reccomend the rotuer if you have a cable or dsl modem with the LAN port on the back of it. If you have a usb or other connection, then you might need a switch. Great product, go buy now if you want to network and share your broadband connection.

... Right outta the box it I was up and running in less than five minutes after having set up my network and cable modem. I have a desktop and laptop hooked to the router...

The router though lets me transfer data between the two networked computers at blazing speeds. 700 megs in about 5 minutes. This is mainly due to a 300 P2 laptop hooked to a Belkin network card in a PCMCIA slot which is not as fast as my PCI based desktop NIC. The laptop's HD has sub-standard read and write speeds. Setup with the router was easy and considering I knew nothing about networking beforehand it was a plus.

All in all this router is in the economy price range and it works well providing your ISP is up to speed. I've never been disconnected from the cable except during Hurricane Lili...and that was for about 12 hours because of power lines down.

I have and still use this product, but the problems with it are serious for the non-technical user and technical user alike.

There are problems with the firmware and the DHCP on the WAN side (for those who don't know, if you get your IP assigned to you on the fly by your ISP when you log in, you're getting a Dynamic IP using DHCP.)It will cease to update properly after a few days. The only way to fix this is to reset the router either by powering it off and on, or by forcing a soft boot of the router. Neither is a good option.

The VPN software will work with XP & Win2k but only if you have a static IP to go to. This too is a firmware problem. Also the event logging and SMNP reporting ceases to perform after only a couple hours at most.

The Linksys service people will not acknowledge there is a problem unless you point to the Broadband webside and all the regularly reported problems from others. Their immediate response is that it must be you or that specific box (it's not, it's the firmware).

I got this router because I'd had good experience previously from Linksys. Their other products are decent, but this one is heading towards the lemon pile fast.

I AM connecting still using this product, and the features for port triggering and other aspects of the products features do work, but I had to do a dramatic workaround to make one of my computers force a reset every 8 hours to keep it working all the time.

Look at other products first.

I've been lookiing for a solid, inexpensive VPN solution for quite some time so I was pleased to find this little router. I had no problems configuring the unit to connect to a Watchguard Firebox II and a Nortel Networks Contivity 100S, both of which inhabit my equipment rack at the office. Configuring VPN's can be frustrating if you are unfamiliar with the technology but this product has a very simple interface and a bit of time spent educating yourself about IPSec will ease the setup.

Highly recommended.

I have 30 of these units at customer locations who connect to our head office to sell a service through the encrypted VPN tunnel. Easy to setup, connects to any standardized VPN box, remotely manageable, good throughput and the price is bar none the best out there. Go with Sonicwall and you have to buy licensing for every feature you want to use. No licensing on the LINKSYS. For the guy who was complaining about the port forwarding and the port triggering, you probably were doing something wrong as I have both port forwarding and port triggering enabled on my boxes and doing more than one address. It helps if people read instructions. The port forwarding info is in the help file on the router.

"Port Triggering
Some Internet applications or games use alternat ports to communicate between server and LAN host. When you want to use those applications, find out the ports used by them and fill the triggering(outgoing) port and alternat incoming port in this table. The router will forward the incoming packets to LAN host
"

So if you wanted to setup a VPN tunnel and use a application that you wanted going through port 5000, outbound on the Linksys and Inbound on another VPN router, that's what it's purpose is.

Highly recommended

Usually, I am a big proponent of buying the lowest priced product when it comes to commodity networking devices like NICs. However, I cannot recommend this product if you have Windows XP. Not only did the thing not work after I installed the drivers, but the mere installation of the drivers wreaked havoc on my Windows Services, somehow deleting my NetLogon keys. I'll have to rebuild my machine because of this cheap device.

It's a shame that the US Robotics brand has gone so far downhill.

The US Robotics USR2410 802.11b PC card is a great value at [price] (I used a [price] coupon code and [price] rebate to get the net price to [price], which is practically unbeatable for a wireless PC card). I'm able to link to my Netgear MR314 router with no problems. The range isn't as good as my daughter's Linksys USB wireless adapter, but I can go anywhere in the house and yard and still browse the Net with no problems regardless of what the link and signal strength indicators say.

However, do not, repeat DO NOT use the enclosed drivers for this card! I am using an IBM Thinkpad T21 with Windows 2000 Professional and the driver/config utility on the CD (version 1.25) crashed my system repeatedly and corrupted my VPN software. Instead, go to USR's website at [URL] to download the uninstall utility, version 1.33 of the driver and the firmware upgrade which flashes the PC card and improves performance. The site also has drivers for Mac, WinCE and Linux as well.

Once I installed the newest drivers everything has been great. No complaints! There are better wireless cards on the market, but not for this price!

My card is working with two access points, D-Link DI-614+ and Linksys BEFW11S4. 128 bit WEP is turned on. This card should be OEM of Prism2 from intersil.com. Linux support is not a problem (USR also provides the Linux driver). The reception range is fair.
I bought this due to the rebate. The final price is almost equal to the wired network card. If you don't wanna spend too much money but wanna get the reasonable performance, this is your choice.

I have had this unit (DI-701) for a year or so and recently found a problem in addition to the security hole thats posted here.

I upgraded to the newest firmware 4.10 because I needed the IPSec protocol that the 4.06 didnt have and it seems to work fine until I tried to access Netflix.com. The unit totally halts. All lights stay on and the unit cannot be found through its configurator. I have to recycle the power to the unit to get it back up and running again.

I called tech support and they told me to call Netflix and ask them what ports they are using to send back http requests. I told him that Netflix didnt have a tech support since they do not provide hardware. And it shouldn't be the case since I was able to access Netflix with the 4.06 firmware. Who knows what other site it cannot access. So to the recycling bin it goes!

I've had the DI-701 for about six months and when it works, it's great. It took forever to get PPPoE support, and all the bios updates have been "beta" -- read "unsupported." I have a lot of trouble with ftp and e-mail -- can't send long e-mails or ftp send file (yes, even in PASV mode, d-link). It also seems that every time I flash the bios (had to do it about 10 times so far), it takes an inordinate amount of restarting my dsl modem and the di-701 to get them to talk. The telnet configuration does not match the gui configuration (if you do a "renew" from telnet, it tells you you're not set up to get your dhcp configuration from your ISP. Sweet!) In short, I'm dumping this and getting the Linksys 1-port DSL router; I'll post a comparative review in a few months over there. Should that fail, I'm going to turn an old P-75 into a Coyote Linux box and do it myself.

I have been using my D-Link DI-701 for about 5 months now and absolutely love it. I work for an ISP doing technical support for our DSL customers, and am quite familiar with much more expensive and advanced routers that provide the same basic services as the D-Link. I choose the D-Link because of the price mostly but also because of the simplistic nature and the dependability of D-Link products.

My primary use consists of sharing my cable modem with 4 other computers, and running a web/email/ftp/dns server on it. The interface is simple, even using telnet! Port mapping is easy and NAT (Network Address Translation) works like a champ. Sure there are some more advanced things the D-Link can't do, but the average end user will never need that.

Simply put, the D-Link DI-701 is simple, safe, fast, and reliable. And for the price, you can't go wrong.

We use linksys as standard in my company for wireless activities, we found normal to stack a print server from linksys on top of wireless AP.

Out of the fact the techs took one hour to find out how to configure it through fixed IP an installing bi admin a described in other critics, which does not make it user friendly but we can cope with that as IT professional.

However, bi directional is a joke. No printer is recognized and we lost all fax and scanner functions on a Brother MFC, this IS a problem (guess why we bought a Multi Function Center?)

We had to return this material to linksys...

Despite spending hours (days) attempting to configure the printserver, I was unsuccesful. The printserver does not appear to be compatible with the HP laserjet 1200. I wish I had read the reviews prior to purchase. Problem is incompatability with HP drivers. Tried all drivers, tried all settings. Would be interested to hear from the people who apparently got this to work.

I read all the reviews so I was expecting some extra work to get this print server working with XP. The trick is using a static IP address, not DHCP. Go ahead and install the "BI Admin" utility because it allows you to configure the print server via a browser page, but use a static IP address. And just enter that same static IP when you configure your printer port (printer properties, add TCP/IP port). Linksys tech support can help - although this is yet another company that has outsourced tech support to the Phillipines and India. That's a big check mark against them in my book.