Cisco-Linksys WRT54G2 Wireless-G Broadband Router
by Linksys
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WRT54G2 Wireless-G Broadband Router
Customer Review: Third Linksys Router in Three Years
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an attractive, sleek, low profile wireless router that easily disappears into the background, even at night. The indicator lights aren't overly bright, and it is quiet and functional.
It was extremely easy to set up, we had service up and running in no time at all. The enclosed DVD makes set up idiot proof.
We are a light traffic household, with three laptops and one hard wired desktop using the unit. We have no issues with speed (sorry FIOS, your DSL line is still instantaneous and too good to switch for the cost increase!) and have had to reset the unit for connectivity once (since purchase) this past weekend following a good snow storm.
The true test of this router will be the length of time it provides trouble free service. The last two Linksys WRT Routers I purchased developed connectivity issues that required calls to Linksys tech support and a long drawn out reset process (changing IP address, resetting software, re-establishing connectivity) within the first six months of service.
This became a time consuming event each time, i.e., 45 minutes to two hours depending on the country/skill level of the tech receiving the customer service call. It was usually a long and frustrating endeavor without lasting results. Invariably, I'd be on the phone again in two or three days, though there were times it was truly a few weeks later before the same problem would resurface. Repeat process multiple times until the one year warranty expired.
Linksys customer reps will offer you the opportunity to purchase a service plan for about five dollars less than a new unit to cover six technical events or six months of technical issues, which ever comes first. As the technical issues were the same each time I called for tech support, I elected to buy this new unit instead.
We've used the same Linksys WRT Router at work for seven years with no issues, with the occasional reset after a storm, though not one call required to customer service. I'm hopeful that 'this high speed low drag router' will be the one that takes care of the household for the next five to ten years. And yes, I do have the router plugged into a surge protector! I'm looking forward to the next years' time spent not even remembering that this quiet little unit is humming away in the back ground trouble free. I'll let you know if it bucks the trend or follows suit in 2011!
Customer Review: Ol' Reliable!
Summary: 5 Stars
Over 500 reviews, and 78% of them (as of now) are 4-star or better. There's not much else to add that hasn't already been said.
I've been using this router for three months. Set up took a whopping five minutes (at most). Enabling some extra features (MAC filtering in particular) took a little extra time & effort, but nothing significant. It has been running non-stop w/o any problems or loss of signal ever since. I even connected wirelessly with my laptop from the garage and the backyard, probably 12 and 15 yards from the router, respectively.
I recently made the big mistake of purchasing a NetGear wireless-N gigabit router. What a waste of money. Unless you were in the same room as the router, it would continually lose the wireless connection (when using wireless-G adaptors)... and I'm not talking once in awhile, but all the frickin' time! I had to go back to the Linksys router for reliability; and trust me, this is one reliable unit, as I would expect anything from Cisco to be.
However, because of the above disaster I discovered a really neat feature of this Linksys router. It has two modes of operation. The primary mode is for use as a gateway, where it connects directly to your broadband modem; the second mode allows it to be used strictly as a router. So I'm currently running the Linksys unit in router mode and have it hard-wired into the NetGear unit that I'm using as a gateway. This way I have a reliable wireless-G network via the Linksys router that won't drop signals, while having wireless-N and gigabyte ethernet capabilities with the NetGear unit. The NetGear unit--and hence I assume many other routers on the market--does not have that second mode of operation.
And do you know what else is a really nice feature of this product, but probably one of the most overlooked because it's not a "techie" thing? The router isn't cumbersome. It has a sleek design, low profile, and no external antenna(s) to ugly up a room.
Bottom line: This is a 5-star product and I highly recommend it. Once it's set up, you can pretty much forget about it while it does its thing. The only downside? No on/off switch. But hey, my cable modem doesn't have one either, nor the NetGear router I mentioned. It's a personal thing, but I hate technology that doesn't come with an off switch! :-)
Customer Review: Open NAT for xbox 360!
Summary: 5 Stars
This was very easy to set up. It took about 5 minutes total to set up the router and have a wireless connection to my desktop. I have an excellent reception to my desktop that sits about 30 feet away in another room. Also, I have my desktop and laptop (both running vista), xbox 360, and ps3 connected to it wirelessly. the xbox 360 NAT is open and the ps3 NAT is type 2. I'm not sure what that stuff means technically, but in normal person terms it means that I can connect to others with no problems. The back of the router has 4 10/100 ethernet connections on it as well if you want a wired connection.
The design of this router is really excellent. The antennas are built into the router and the dimensions of it are really small and thin! This gives you more flexibility of where the router can be placed.
Streaming recorded TV, music, and pictures from my desktop to xbox (using media center) work well for both being connected wireless with no reduction in picture quality.
With the release of the new Xbox 360 dashboard I am able to stream HD video from Netflix wirelessly through my 360 with this router. The wait time for video to start is short and the picture quality of HD shows like Heroes and 30 Rock is great.
*Update* I have had the 20" 2.66ghz iMac since May 08 and connecting it to my linksys was as simple as selecting the network and typing in my password. The router has been up and running several months now with no resets or connection issues. This is a very stable router that requires little to no maintenance. Now my connections to this router are a laptop with Vista every now and then, Mac with OS X 10.5, ps3, 360, and 2 iPhones. There are no problems when 2 or more devices are using the connection. I am connected to a 6mbps cable connection.
Recently I got the new unibody MacBook and an eyeTV hybrid 2009 model. I use it to record TV (mainly the HD shows sent via QAM from comcast) on my iMac. I want to stream a HD show like The Office from my iMac to my macbook that is connected my my 46" samsung (lnt-4665), but I have found that "g" is not fast enough to stream a show recorded in HD. It is fast enough to stream a show recorded in SD, so I need an "N" router if I want to stream wirelessly.
Customer Review: Great except for it's DHCP server.
Summary: 4 Stars
This G wireless router is all I need for my house. Covers the whole house and patio/deck in back yard well (I don't care about coverage beyond that). The speed is much faster than my cable modem, so a faster (N protocol) router would not really help much.
My only complaint is the DHCP server. On my old wireless B Netgear router, I could go into the router configuration web page and tell it to always give a certain MAC address the same IP address via DHCP. That was nice because I could just set the machine to use DHCP to keep up with any changes, such as DNS servers, that my ISP makes. I could then set up simple host files to map host names to a fixed IP, which for file transfers, printing, etc... makes things easier. This router does NOT have this simple feature. Linux can be configured to use a static IP, but still get the DNS from DHCP. For Red Hat based systems, look at /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0. The graphical network configuration tool does not have that option, but it can be set using the configuration file. Windows can not, at least that I could see, be configured to do that. For Windows, I guess the best bet is to use DHCP and set host name resolution to use wins, but that does not work for everything. A laptop computer that goes between work and home really needs to use DHCP. For printers, the IP must be set from the buttons on the printer. Anyway, there are some ways to work around it, but it would have been so much simpler if they just had a mechanism in the router to always give each machine the same IP address from the DHCP server.
Perhaps if the fine folks Linksys / Cisco have some specific recommendations to this problem, they should share them. I spent several hours searching the Internet for solutions. There are lots of people complaining about this in the online forums, but few solution and nothing on any Linksys / Cisco web page that addresses this basic problem. Are their heads in the sand on this? I'm no marketing expert, but I'd think that if they want to sale these routers that they should post solutions to known short comings rather than ignoring the fact that the router does not have a feature that customers need.
Customer Review: Great router
Summary: 5 Stars
I am completely satisfied with this router. Perhaps because I had lower expectations after reading some of the negative reviews, I was expecting some of the same issues, including dropped connections. I had none of those problems. I popped in the CD, followed the simple instructions, and was up in running in less than 15 minutes. The Network Magic software seemed helpful for my modest needs. It is the Pro version, which works for 7 days. After that, it defaults to the Basic version unless you purchase it for $39.95, which I didn't do. Basic is plenty adequate for my needs. And unlike others, I haven't been plagued with nag screens at all, asking me to upgrade. Maybe the newer version of the software doesn't do this.
To me, the best thing that can be said for a router is that it becomes "transparent" to the user. It just works without incident. For the most part, this has been the case. Now, I am not trying to run a complex network off a $45 router, with a dozen wireless devices. I have a new desktop PC with Win 7 and two notebooks in the house. That's it. I just wanted it for notebook wireless access. The only real issue I had in the beginning is that when I was using my notebook computer, I noticed that the speed seemed to fluctuate from 54bps to 48, 36, 11, etc. I solved this by doing some research on the Linksys User Forum. I discovered that the default channel on the router is 6 and that others suggested switching it to 1 or 11 so as not to conflict with wireless phones, other networks in the neighborhood, etc. I did this, and my connect speed on my notebook has been rock solid at 54bps.
As a side note, I avoid calling tech support at all cost. Most products now have user forums online, and I find that these are far more useful, less frustrating and more helpful than trying to talk to young Ramesh or Parmeshwar in India -- after a 50-minute wait on the phone. I went to the Linksys site, did a search on my issue in the user forum (fluctuating speed) and had the problem solved in 5 minutes.
I am very pleased with this router and recommend it without hesitation.