The Linksys is a great little router. It's perfect for a home or a small office. I've installed it in both environments; although I did have some trouble setting it up in an office, but as far as performance, I found it to be a nimble little router.

I'm going to describe the problem and solution I experienced during the office installation in order to give any prospective buyer who is wondering what to expect when installing a Cable/DSL Router. In addition, I tested the Tech Support services of Linksys as well as Netgear. I will tell you who has the better support.

The model I installed was the Linksys BEFSR41. It has four network ports, one uplink port, and one WAN port (Wide Area Network). I strongly advise the installer to read the manual, especially the first sections relating to the installation and configuration ["Connecting the Cable/DSL Router to Your Network" & "Configuring Your Network with the Cable/DSL Router"]. If the installer is new to the Networking World, it can be a bit confusing. The terms IP Address, DHCP, WAN, LAN, and DNS are the popular ones. The manual briefly explains each one.

In a home installation, or an installation with only computers, there is little need to worry about most of these terms. The router automatically issues all required information to the computers. The only concern for the home installer is entering the Public Router Name. Again, the manual walks the installer through the process. If you're confused about the Public Name, ask your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

The business office installation gave me some trouble relative to the home installation. The trouble arose from their existing network equipment. Their LAN (Local Area Network) consisted of a Microsoft NT Server, a Netgear Hub, three workstations running Windows 98se, and a HP 4050N printer.

I connected the Linksys Router to the Netgear hub via the Uplink port. The one thing to remember when plugging in the network cables is not to use both the Uplink and Port 1 connection. The reason being they share a connection. Right off the bat, I ran into a minor problem; the Office had a different IP address scheme than the Linksys Router, so the workstations couldn't connect to the Linksys in order to program it. The router comes with 192.168.1.1 as the default IP address. The existing LAN had an IP address scheme of 192.168.100.x. I changed the IP address on one workstation to 192.168.1.2, then rebooted. By changing the workstation IP address I put myself on the same network as the router. At this point three things had to be accomplished: I had to change the router's IP address to 192.168.100.5; I had to disable the router's DHCP service (unless the inhouse NT Server is not using DHCP). DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is a program that automatically issues network configuration parameters, including the IP address, to any computer or printer that requests one; finally, I had to enter the router's Public Name. This is all accomplished by using Internet Explorer. The manual explains how to do it step by step.

Now that I made the three changes it was time get on the Internet. Everything looked like it would work unfortunately nothing happened. I made sure the workstation could "Ping" the router. Ping is a utility program that allows the installer to test the network connection between two devices on a TCP/IP network, which Windows supports. The physical connection was good- "pinging" worked. Next, the Linksys had all the necessary information from the ISP. I could see the Public IP Address and the three Public DNS IP Addresses. It was obviously seeing the Internet. The IP address of the Linksys (192.168.100.5) was now the "Default Gateway" for the workstation. I used the utility program "winipcfg" to verify the workstation network settings. Everything seemed to be fine. What was I doing wrong? It was time to call in support. A quick note, I originally purchased a Netgear Router, so I also tested Netgear Tech Support.

I first called Netgear Tech Support. The technician was polite and patient. I did exactly as he instructed. I read him the information available to the workstation and the Netgear Router. We spent almost an hour troubleshooting. He then referred me to a Level 2 technician. It took an hour for the Level 2 to call me back. We went through the steps again. In the end, he suggested I return the Netgear Router. I reluctantly returned it to the store because I suspected nothing was wrong with that Router. Unfortunately for Netgear, the store was out of Netgear Routers. The only replacement was the Linksys Router; therefore, I replaced it with the Linksys and when I connected the Linksys I experienced the same problem. It was time to call Linksys Tech Support.

Linksys Tech Support was not as "friendly" as Netgear. It may have been the luck of the draw. I just got the one cranky technician. She seemed annoyed. Her tone of voice became somewhat belligerent when I tried explaining what had been done. Fortunately, by chance, she made a comment that clued me in on the problem. She said I should define the Linksys Router IP address on the NT Server. It then hit me!

The NT Server is issuing all the network information to the workstations via its DHCP service. So, I defined a router on the NT Server, but I also defined the Public DNS IP addresses that the Linksys saw on the Internet. The reason is each workstation has to have the DNS IP addresses. It was the piece of the puzzle that was missing; therefore, the workstations needed a local, or private, IP address, three Public DNS IP addresses, and the Default Gateway IP address (the router). I don't want to bash Netgear Tech Support but I did ask the Level 1 technician if the workstations needed to have the three DNS IP addresses. He dismissed it saying, "It didn't matter". He must've thought that since the router had the DNS IP addresses, each workstation didn't need to have them. I rebooted the workstation and there was the Internet in all its glory. I rebooted the other two workstations and off they went. They logged into the site they wanted and the Linksys Router allowed all three workstations to work without a visible delay. The performance in a business environment looked good.

In the home installation, I tested the Linksys performance by using Napster to download a 5 Mb MP3 file on one computer while surfing on the other. I could see no delay while surfing; the WebPages came up on the screen in a timely fashion. I have to say it did impress me. I thought I would see some stumbling or hesitation but I didn't.

I hope I didn't frighten any novice computer users who want to install a router. As I mentioned, the home installation is the easiest and least likely to run into problems as I did in the office. My intention was to show what can go wrong and what information is important. In a business environment, I would advice the office manager to hire an experienced technician to come in and do the installation. As far as who has the best tech support, I felt Netgear had more helpful technicians but Linksys did provide the clue I did need, so, perhaps they have a more technically savvy staff.

The only complaint I have about the Linksys is the construction. The Linksys is small and made of light plastic with four feet or legs, whatever you wish to call them. Unfortunately, since the unit is so light, once all the cables are connected it's real easy for the router to get dragged by the weight of the cables. The Linksys hubs have the same problem. However, other than that, I found the Linksys to be a good router for the price. I believe it's down to $129- not bad.


Recommended: Yes