wireless routers
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Belkin F5D6231-4 Wireless Cable DSL Router
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Rating: 2.97/5 from 35 reviews Good...not greatIt works, but has issues...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. Advance Users BewareWireless 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: FINAL WORDS: | ||||||||||||||||
1. It's not compatible with anything but IP over ethernet. If you want to carry anything besides IP packets between wired and wireless ethernet (e.g., AppleTalk frames), then you're outta luck. Tech support assured me this would be addressed in a future firmware upgrade (which it was for this router's predecessor).
2. After a hard or soft restart, the SSID is broadcast regardless of setting. If it was disabled before, the only way to disable it again is to enable it and then disable it. Since this can happen without notice, it poses an unacceptable security risk in my opinion.