I received the Linksys EtherFast Wireless router as a gift from my mother and stepfather for Christmas. They had one set up on their home network in order to share out their cable modem to all the computers in their house. Up until then, I had gotten by with a second IP from my cable company -- not bad to start out with, but at $6 a month, it got pricey relatively quickly.

The router is a wireless router and has a built in switch. The idea is that you can hook this up, slap a wireless card in your laptop, and surf the internet and get your email while sitting on the toilet.

The wireless part, alas, didn't work so well. It refused to recognize my computer at all from a distance of about twenty feet away, and according to the utility that came with the wireless NIC's, the signal strength was pretty good. My wife's computer could make contact with the router, but it was way, way slower that it should have been.

Since both our computers are desktops, not laptops, I moved the router over to the printer desk, used the same long cable cord to reach the cable modem, reinstalled my old wired NICs, and tried that. And presto majesto. It worked.

With the second IP, I could only have two machines on the Internet at once. With the router (which performs NAT -- for non-techies, it serves as a post office for all computers on your network), I can now have 253. I figure that this would allow me to put a few computers to work as file servers, print servers, etc. I could also add a workstation for my one-year-old son, one for each of our two cats (who have fur -- you know who you are), my rottweiler-lab mix, and my wife's Shih Tzu. My wife has so far remained obstinate and insists that the animals do not need their own workstations. Still, I can see why cable-modem companies would hate this thing with a passion -- less money for second and third IP addresses for them.

That alone is a nice feature. I suppose there are some die-hard techies out there who would insist on more than 253 machines on a home network. But I think it'll keep me happy for a while. Note that you do need an extra hub or switch to plug in more than four computers into the router.

Installing the thing was a breeze. Had I not elected to try the wireless route (and once I have more time, I may attempt the wireless route again, or if I ever do get around to getting a laptop), it would've been a matter of pulling the cables out of the switch I had and installing them in the router. Conveniently, my online applications (AOL instant messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, mail, and the very browser I'm writing this one) did not require any tweaking. Most cable modems use DHCP, so all the settings were already there. (DSL users may or may not have to do some tweaking, as they typically use static IP addresses.)

NAT performs flawlessly. I notice very little difference from before, when both machines had their very own IP addresses. This device comes with a built-in switch, which is nice. (I already had a switch, but it's still good design.)

The router is controlled by a web-based interface. You can manage this from pretty much any computer on your network that you want. It's relatively easy to use and pick up. You can block ports as you like and even bar certain machines from using the Internet. The web-based interface is a reasonable trade off for ease of use versus having to click 'apply' once you've made the changes you wanted.

The router also does DHCP automatically. This works very well. It worked out of the box. Working out of the box is good. I can't complain. Computer boots up, computer screams out for an IP address, router gives IP address. Enough said.

For the non-technical user, I would strongly recommend having a techie handy to help you with this, especially if you read this and stared at terms like "DHCP", "NAT", "second IP address", and started to sweat. As a general rule of thumb, caffeinated soft drinks, candy, and unhealthy foods like Slim Jims tend to make excellent techie bait. If you're a woman, there are other baits you can employ, but I won't get into that here. The tech support for this product is not the best, and if you do run into a problem, you'll be better off having a tech nearby.

Note also that quite a few cable-modem companies and other ISPs will not help you with this. Road Runner, who I have services through, emphatically stated on their website that they will not help you install even a hub on your network -- they support up to the point where you pull the cord out of the computer and into the hub, and no further. This is because (they claim) they are not your network adminstrators and don't want to be responsible for troubleshooting your network. Which is understandable, but it's also because they'd rather you got and paid for extra IP addresses.

I would recommend the Linksys EtherFast wireless router to anyone with some technical knowledge (whether your own or a baited techie's) who wants a good, easy to set up, router. The wireless part still needs some work, though.





Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): gift
Driver Availability: Windows only